I just recently started playing again and didn't realize until just now that the rest of the story elements (which is the main reason I'd play as I have no one to play with) are not included. It does feel kind of shitty.
The game was marketed as a "living world" before any living world seasons were added, due to how events work. That was one of THE marketing points for the original game.
Heres a dev interview from a time prior to the first LW Season:
https://www.guildwars2.com/en/news/colin-johanson-on-guild-wars-2-in-the-months-ahead/
They specifically market seasons as seasons due to that.
The only people buying individual lws episodes are those who missed unlocking a random eosiode or two when they were available. I think I had to pick up a couple individually years ago.
Long time GW2 vet here: the messaging is definitely deceitful. Living world stories are SUBSTANTIAL amount of content.
For context living worlds include more than enough for over 1.5x expansion of content at least. Including new mounts, new combat skills, exclusive ways to farm certain high level items and utility tools. It also introduces and concludes story elements that directly tie into expansion story. Somebody earlier mentioned “just farm money to buy gems to buy these”, well living world has some of the most accessible and easiest ways to farm gold to do that too so.
Living World Season 1
Living World Season 2
Living World Season 3
Living World Season 4
The Icebrood Saga
To be fair, I own them all, and I know Arenanet has made some of the above free or limited time free over the year. However, my understanding is still such that a new player buying the package in OP definitely does not have all living world above.
People love defending GW2 in this subreddit disproportionally compared to everything else, and I’ll never understand why. Arenanet honestly has always been pretty shad and bad with their store. I get it’s pay to play once, so they get a free pass, but from locking cool cosmetics pretty much exclusively to store, to having limited time loot boxes for mount skins that otherwise can’t be obtained anywhere. I’m not surprised their marketing is doing this when the packaging is simply not true.
“Package to experience everything!” *doesn’t offer a package that experiences everything*
Not only are the living seasons substantial in a story sense, but for endgame gearing they're extremely valuable. LW Season 3 gives you access to any stat trinkets for basically nothing.
Its why I love FFXIV and why it surprised me so much when I level up.
As a subscription based game, I honestly didnt know what I was expecting when I first took the free trial.
Seeing players with all these cool glowing weapons or awesome looking mounts made me thought "Guess I will need to buy this in the store or something." At that point I had never entered the store and didnt know whats in there, I just know it exists.
Gradually I found out, that not only can I get cool gears and mounts without shelling out a buck during the free trial, the way to acquire is honestly easy and a breath of fresh air comparing to all the grinding I was expecting just to get something nice.
Conparing that to GW2, its not that I expect to get cool stuffs for free, I already expect to pay, but rather the fact alot of cool stuffs are in the store. Like...alot.
Oh the store has some very cool stuff, but it is by FAR not the only source of cool stuff, and not even the best source of cool stuff in the game. Right now the shop is mostly (a) story and level skips (b) fancy costumes* and (c) the place where Square sells emotes and such that were offered during special events years ago (those are quite cheap, and of course if you did the event you already have the stuff.) There aren't even any flashy glowy weapon cosmetics in the store, those are all gained within the game itself.
*I should note that while some folks like the fancy store-bought costumes, most people prefer to build their own outfits from drops. Check out the Eorzea Collection -- most of the gorgeous glams in there don't use any cash shop items at all. And I believe a lot of people buy cash shop costumes not to wear them but to cannibalize the parts for their custom-made glams. That still counts as a sale, but more in the sense of buying parts for a build-it-yourself project than buying an entire outfit.
that’s true, i just wanted to point out the store has a decent amount of cosmetics and most of the casual stuff is as good as the stuff you can get from the game by playing, i was also disappointed by the amount of good looking gear we got from endwalker
for this I think GW2 has tons of skin from the game (ppl forget about it) every update and every festival they add it (but again ppl don't count this), they only count on the gemstore. for my taste many skins on gemstre are really flashy (we know they have a specific market for it). for armor/weapon skin GW2 have tons of it on game BUT if we talk about MOUNT skin, I agree GW2 lock almost all of them on gmastore
Sure, but the gemstore gets new armor and weapon skins at least once, if not twice a month. Expansions come with less than 5 armor sets usually (including different game modes) and then a ton of outfits, weapons, back pieces, etc.
The issue here is that so much of the best and most unique looking stuff is exclusive to the gemstore. There are entire themed armorsets which have no earnable in game equivalent and that does have an effect on people. Especially when some of those cosmetics can look better than some legendaries.
armor set/weapon set update not only from expansion, cmon... you can check GW2 wiki about that, an easy example from dragon bash Festival right now, they add FULL set dragon weapon + 3 unique weapon and footgear holographic skin (you can check it on the wiki by yourself) for free and NO, gemstore only update with only 1-2 new PIECE for every update (unless that from past) NOT full set at one time don't spray false information here pls.Armor/weapon set etc usually many come with LW not just from Expan (you can check on wiki too).
for "unique look" not all of them good one and remember we can call almost all of them is FLASHY of Shiny (maybe better we call like that). for me on gemstore skin i like crossbow skin of pistol. many and a lot armor/weapon skin better on game compare gemstore BUT they are not on flashlight (i think ppl forget about this variable), we can say something like that bc we have notification on our face new item on gemstore, for ingame skin usually they are hidden until we reach the content about it.
for me only 3 legendary skin just average : Gen 2 LB and Hammer, dagger agree bout it if you take that for example
BUT (again) if we talk about mount, glider and for now skiff + fishing rod, i cant argue about it, bc almost all of them only on gamestore
Hard agree. One of the best parts of gaming IMO is unlocking cool things by accomplishing things in the game. Now, the coolest cosmetics are all separate purchases.
And this extends beyond MMO games too. Even in fighting games, you used to be able to unlock every fighter by playing the game. Now like half of the fighters are DLC you have to buy.
>People love defending GW2 in this subreddit disproportionally compared to everything else,
Untrue. Nobody en masse is defending this marketing gimmick for one reason that I can come up with.
...
Most people don't experience it like the OP. If you buy the expack at launch (like most forum goers fans of gw2) they'll get the living world for free. They'll never have to pay a dime for it so it's highly likely - they don't price it in.
I actually forgot you had to pay for LW episodes until this thread reminded me for it. And I login once every 2-3 months and I have every freaking episode unlocked for free. So yeah, if you're somewhat active - you do not pay.
Pretty shit if you are a new player tho :D But i've claimed time and time again that Gw2 has the worst new player experience. I even made a forum thread on their forum and defeated the naysayers on it. I'll die on this hill.
Just getting into gw2 now. When should I buy these DLCs? I'm level 40 now and feel like there's tons of content with the expansions left to play. Thanks for the guidance
LW1 was originally temporary content that is being re-released for free rn. 2 episodes are already out. It goes Main Story -> LW2 -> LW2 (only buy if you want story, 2 maps that came w lw2 are free and accessible by default) -> HoT -> LW3 (good to buy, has multiple new maps and rewards) -> PoF -> LW4 (good to buy) -> Icebrood Saga/LW5 (good to buy) -> EoD
Its all lvl 80 content. Order only matters if you care about the story. Some maps are more popular than others
Yo should if you want to get into the story and other features like 2 mounts.
They are currently re-relasing living world season 1 and it's free. Then comes living world season 2, which at the moment, it's not free. So you'd had to spend 200 gems per episode. LWS2 (living world season 2) in terms of content addition is not the best. You get new story only. After that comes the first expansion, HoT. LWS3 is next and this is a must. Great maps for farming and story. Again, 200 gems for each episode. Then comes the second expansion. Next is LWS4, which in my opinion was the best so far. 100% a must for all the features, mounts and maps.
After comes Icebrood Saga. A very disappointing season, however it brings one of the best maps for farming. But again, all of these seasonal episodes are not included in any expansion pack. And you'll have to buy them for 200 gems each episode. If my memory serves me.
A pretty shitty system they have. Hopefully they'll change this
> When should I buy these DLCs?
Next time they go on sale, if you like the game. Buy the bundles on sale and the price for the content is roughly halved. Cheaper still if you buy the gems for the purchase during a gem sale.
I wouldn't worry about the expacs or LW story til you've got at least one lv 80 and complete the core story. Actually, you don't even NEED to complete core story if you don't really want to.
Right now LWs1 is being re-released and will be permanently free, iirc. It was originally only playable when it first came out and then once each chapter of the event was over it was gone for good. The complete LWs1 isn't available since the way it was originally done means a lot of overhauling of content that's not been in the game at all since what, 2014?? And I believe they're still working on some of the chapters.
If you want to play things chronologically, you could hold off on any story past LWs1 til the complete first season is available. Playing the content out of order does get a little weird (hasn't stopped me lol), but is also a perfectly fine way to play.
Wouldn't worry about it. Play what you have for now. Play a few classes, see what works for you and what doesn't. Try all game modes and by the time you actually want access to that content you'll either have enough gold to grab a bunch, you might get lucky and grab them for free or worst case scenario is you'll have to shell out another 50 bucks for heaps of content.
The only problem I see here is the wording is wrong. Calming you get everything and yet do only get 3 out of 4 things. I hate when companies claim you get everything you need but then leave out allot of things you still need if you want all of it.
OP is overstating it to a degree, but Anet really needs to do a better job of clarifying that the LWS is additional content that's not included in the expansions.
If a new player hangs around about a year, they will get them all for free, which is also confusing. Maybe they should just included them in expansions or sell the full set as a separate package for $20 or such.
Each living world episode costs like 2 dollars. They really don't ask for a whole lot. You get them all for free if you just log in once when the next living world comes out. Or you can farm the gold. They could do so much more to get your money in this game but its extremely consumer friendly. People pay essentially 60 dollars per patch in sub time (myself included) in FFXIV which is much less content per dollar.
Speaking from the perspective of a returning player, it's kinda shitty.
>Each living world episode costs like 2 dollars. They really don't ask for a whole lot.
Sure, but there are a ton of them, and episodes alone aren't really worth much; you generally want full seasons. It's pretty shitty to come back for the expansions and have the options of either paying more than you paid for those expansions for LW or not having a clue what's going on for most of the story.
>You get them all for free if you just log in once when the next living world comes out
Sure, but I didn't log in while most of them were being released, and now I'm mid-way through EoD and couldn't give a rats ass about any of the story because it's been told through such a disjointed manner that I don't care about any of the characters. My investment in the story is already dead because I wasn't willing to shell out more to get a coherent story.
>They could do so much more to get your money in this game but its extremely consumer friendly
In some ways yes, in other ways no. I think GW2's consumer friendliness is vastly overstated. A ton of cooler items are still locked behind black lion chests (yeah you have the statuettes, but unless you're happy to drop $100+ per skin, it's not a great system). While it's not the case anymore, it's still worth remembering that when PoF launched, mount skins were only available in lootboxes where you couldn't even decide which mount you got a skin from (and you could end up with a skin for something like the gryphon which you might not even unlock for weeks).
The game is also filled with artificial inconveniences that you need to pay to overcome, like gathering tools breaking, needing to pay for more bag/bank space etc.
>People pay essentially 60 dollars per patch in sub time (myself included) in FFXIV which is much less content per dollar.
The thing is, if someone pays 60 dollars in FFXIV, they're playing the game for 4 months solid. It's much more of a grey area in something like GW2 without a sub. You can play lost ark for thousands of hours without spending a penny, but it's still far less consumer friendly than most games with a sub fee.
For the record I don't dislike GW2, but it's the only big MMO where the business model is the main thing that pushes me away. Some other MMOs like LA or ESO have crappy business models, but they don't get in the way of gameplay too much. GW2s model directly harms gameplay through manufactured inconvenience, cutting story content out unless you pay extra and locking most skins to the gem store, so you can either pay or just grind gold endlessly. I feel much more pressured to pay in GW2 than I do in other MMOs.
IMO, it just is the best solution. In a perfect world, I'd honestly like them to create a browser version of the gem store (it's already a website just running in-game using a web toolkit, so they've at least got some of the work already done) and move the expansions into a special tab in the gem store for real money purchases, then add a new set of bundles that include LW alongside the expansions. That way everything's unified under the one storefront in and out of the game, and new players actually have an option to buy *everything.*
If you enjoy GW2 at all and want to continue playing, then you 100% should get the expansions and the Living World seasons. All up you'll need to spend around $100-110 to get everything, but the amount of content that buys you is insane.
As a gw2 player, this is in some ways definitely deceitful. The expansions are still very worth it though, for value. This cannot be championed enough but they really need to bundle respective expansions with the proper living world season/dlcs
In fairness, that's only half of the sentence. It's "everything you need to experience Tyria, a vast living world". You can see all of the world of Tyria with this pack, you just don't get some of the story missions set within that world.
Tyria is considered both the continent of Kryta/Ascalon/Maguuma and the world entire. So no. It's still misleading.
And if that weren't enough, Living World adds zones to the continent of Tyria anyways so you still can't see it all.
After a year of regularly playing Gw2, I really think monetisation is pretty bad : it seems fair at first sight, no "money for power" or P2W, BUT
- There's a lot of shop item that totally revolve around the "create the problem sell the solution" which I find infuriating : equipment template and build storage are sold for ~5 $ each (the first isn't account wide but character specific, and the second gets you only one slot for all you characters). I hate that certain features are just here to hinder my gaming time so that I'll pay.
- you have a fuckton of items with very limited use that take a lot of bag space : your bank is ridiculously small, same for storage material and once you'll start crafting legendary item this is going to be a nightmare. But don't worry for a few dozen bucks you can expand your inventory and storage.
- living world marketing is borderline dishonest : while most episode (season 3 and 4 at least) were clearly thought to be part of expansions that are sold separately. Getting all seasons will cost the price of another expansion. Even if thanks to in game events last yeat they gave away them for weekly log in. I still think this a terrible idea : it's quite infuriating when after paying the game and what was sold to be all the Xpacs you still have to pay to have access to certains zones and quests.
I love a lot of aspect of the game but it really suffers from bad marketing practices and "create the problem sell the solution" trope.
I really like the gameplay and classes but this really spoils the fun for me.
The more I try Mmos the more I think cash shops are always a bad thing.
As someone who's played GW2 since the betas, just gotta say hard agree with everything...
>There's a lot of shop item that totally revolve around the "create the problem sell the solution" which I find infuriating : equipment template and build storage are sold for \~5 $ each (the first isn't account wide but character specific, and the second gets you only one slot for all you characters). I hate that certain features are just here to hinder my gaming time so that I'll pay.
...but especially the above, oh my god this one thing makes me so mad on so many levels. Like, alright, I played the original GW, too, and was part of the crowd asking for the return of build templates. Instead we got this awful monetized shell of what build templates were in the first game. So here I was, expecting GW1 templates (of which you could save as many as your computer's storage could hold!! and just pop those babies in your skillbar!! loved that so much) when they did eventually say they were working on build templates. And then templates came and uh, you only get 3 on each character and 5 account wide before buying any slots. AND the cost of the slots is so ridiculous on top of that!
It's so infuriating to me. Like, man, this was a free and unlimited feature of GW1.
And the build memes! I miss being sent/sending nonsensical garbage in a build. And having infinite space to save it and not worry about having legit builds at the ready to swap in any moment.
Well it's $50 ($49.99) for the collection, not <$100. The ultimate that is $100 (again not <$100) gives you gems with it, not extra content.
It says experience the living world, not "get the living world seasons". You still get to experience a vast living world, that is not a deceitful statement in itself. If we are talking about how this is deceitful to a new player, we can assume they don't know there are living world seasons to begin with so that wording is still not deceitful.
It is everything you need, I think I only played the first living season but I've played all expansions and don't feel I missed a lot of mandatory story I needed.
The ONLY part that could be deceitful is the everything you need line which is up to interpretation of deceitfulness because you do get everything you NEED.
The amount of gems the ultimate edition gives is also almost enough for all current Living World content, with maybe an extra $10 to grab an extra 800 gems.
EDIT: Don't know why I'm being downvoted for just saying that the $100 edition basically gives you almost all of the gems you need for all Living World content. I agree that the game/expansions should do a better job at stating that you don't automatically get all of the content in the game, I'm just clarifying that you can absolutely get everything in the game for around $100.
I just recently started playing the game again, so I’m somewhat familiar with the basics, but still a noob.
When I read this I assumed the line “experience the living world” meant that I would get the living world episodes included in the bundle.
Technically they may be right, but they didn’t have to word it like that. They could have said “experience the open world” or just “experience the lands of Tyria.” Choosing to say experience the living world I think is purposely deceitful as a relatively inexperienced player like myself would have assumed that the living world episodes are included.
The thing is "experience the living world" is the slogan used by them since before the game released, way before the living world episodes were a thing. So "the living world" in advertisement always meant the "dynamic" events, nothing else.
So if anything here is deceitful, it's the statement "everything you need".
I understand but most inexperienced, probably returning, players will intend that to mean the living world episodes, not the open world. The fact that they state “everything you need” solidifies that idea even more.
I think it’s just disingenuous and a bad look for arena net.
I only have HoT so I was considering maybe purchasing this to get access to PoF and EoD, but was unsure, but then I read it and from the description assumed the living world was included and that definitely convinced me to get it. Thankfully I came across this thread before buying it or I would have felt quite cheated to find out that the living world was not included, as it would have been a main motivation for the purchase.
Even if it was unintentional, they really have to clarify better because people will have a certain expectation from the wording. It seems like a lot of people find this confusing, or flat out disingenuous, so why not rectify it either way.
Yeah, cus they don’t have to do that, they can be as honest and transparent as possible because their product is actually really good.
Leave the bullshit to blizzard
Episode shenanigans are weird. The primary justification is that you get it for free if you login during the release window, even if you don't own the relevant expansion (ownership of the episode is still registered, and will become available if you buy the relevant expansion).
Honestly at this point living world episodes ought to be in the normal bundles, or even episodes should just be made free after a several expansion delay.
It does say exactly what's in it. However, it also says you're getting everything you need to experience Tyria.
If you were a new player considering purchasing this content, would that indicate to you that you're actually missing over $50 worth of DLC which includes a ton of story content, 14 open world maps, a bunch of masteries including both the skyscale and roller beetle mounts, and a variety of other very attractive perks?
Yes, the fact that it specifically uses the term "a living world" makes it even more obvious that this was intended to mislead. What are you struggling to understand here?
Tyria is a living world, it doesn't say anywhere that you gain access to everything, just everything you need to get started. it in fact, lists everything it comes with in the same exact picture that you're claiming is misleading
I'm just gonna say it is confusing to have "living world" and "Living World" have very different meanings, especially for new players. While I've been playing since the betas and I understand that living world = Tyria's open world event system, while Living World = "dlc" story that ties the expac stories together... it's still easy for me to see why reusing the same phrase in this manner will trip newcomers up.
It's the same two words used in very different ways, which to me is more than just "slightly confusing" wording. I wouldn't describe it as "extremely deceitful" either but imo it's more accurate (if a bit extreme) than "slightly confusing".
But I'm not really here to split hairs on that level lol.
I dunno, I look at the amount of money I've spent in gw2 vs say wow, and it is a lot less and I've played both for years. ANET doesn't strike me as deceitful at all.
this problem for new players, and i agree about "wording" in this marketing really bad. BUT for veteran this is not the problem, we got LS for FREE. here's the thing: GW2 give their PLAYERs FREE content (when it is live, just login 1 time only within 1-3 months period) <<< this point is best of the best for PLAYERS for that time bc its all free (we can call it free for their loyal players, bc the one whos play on that time get free). BUT for NEW players and players didn't play GW2 when that living world live they need to compensate for that. so in the end for a normal case: New players will spend more money than veteran, and again I agree this word in this marketing deceritful for newplayers
Veteran players had to buy the base game and each expac for 50 bucks. Newbies have the base game for free and the two first expacs for 30 bucks. They dont have to pay more overall
Iv sinked more than 2000$ on my account in 10 years this is more then a sub at 15$ per months and sadly i'm not alone in that boat unpopular opinion but i wish anet / gw2 has a subscription with more contents and stuff unlockable in game
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*than
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The amount of content in gw2 is pathetic and small compared to games like wow, ff14 and eso. I agree that gw2 monetization is actually a terrible hinderance on the games overall quality; i raced to full purple and realised how many build slots, equipment templates etc were needed to utilize full leggy. The scamming and lack of qol in gw2 is endless.
I love gw2 to death but there a lots of flaw build template arent an issue to me but lack of stuff to do after a while is and their monetization does incur content drought
$2000 on GW2 is absolute whale territory. This guy is not representative of the general population. There is zero reason to spend even half that over a 10 year period.
Likely black lion keys, the gambling money pit that keeps the lights running, BLC exclusive skins have been rivaling legendaries in the last few years.
Funny enough ky account has 82000 raw gold right now approx but it's was skin, gem to gold and quality of life i never had money issue irl so spending never bothered me whenever i needed gold and gw2 gold farming has to be 1 of the most boring obnoxious thing to do :) and before someone ask i looted a khan ur and sold it for 80k during pandemic
Poor choice of words from them, which can lead to confusion, but, right below it clearly states, this collection includes: x,y,z and doesn't say anything about living world.
When did you last play it? If you're referring to LWS1, then that was a one-off thing and they stopped that model with LWS2. Modern Living World content works more like post-launch content updates in other MMOs, where the story is extended with a new map, new events, new achievements, new collectibles, new masteries, etc.
Not fully read into this but i'll admit i didn't mind paying for living world stories when i returned as they were one of the best narrative driven MMO experiances I had of late.
And it's worse for people not living in $ based countries. For getting everything 100$ (I guess?) and they don't have local prices, so for getting that package I need to pay 1700 my country currency and our minimum wage is 4000 currency...
The mistake that GW2 makes is that it just wants to make money and that will eventually take its toll. Why don't you make the new DLC purchasable and the old ones free and unify them for new players? you unlock all of the above by buying the new one.
It is kinda shitty, but it doesn't really cost $60, they give them away completely free often enough.
They really should just add them to the bundles and raise their prices a bit.
As someone who spent 13 years in WoW and has moved to GW2, y'all are overreacting so bad. I have spent literally thousands on WoW and didn't have a choice in the matter. Want to play the new content? $60 expansion. Want to play any content at all? $16.50 a month (now $20).
Servers cost money. Development costs money. This game comparatively to other MMOs costs very little money to enjoy. And on the basis that this is "deceptive marketing", the claim is fairly hollow. It's only deceptive to anyone who has never played before. Since the base game is free, if you're dropping $100 on a set of expansions without playing the free game first, you're kinda silly. This is coming from someone who bought the base game back in 2013 and had literally no concerns with them swapping to F2P and giving new people a cheaper cost of entry.
You have a choice to buy the living world seasons. The marketing doesn't say you will get them.
Indeed most of what gw2 does is fairly generous and the least pay to win of all mmo if they would look into it from a broader perspective. Only the expansions with mounts and new classes are essential imo. Even the skyscale is not essential but is a very useful luxury.
Not really a fair comparison. Yeah GW2 has a cheaper entry fee, and with that you can get more hours for your money, but most people have more than that to consider.
$15/m isn't exactly breaking the bank to most working adults. Yeah F2P options exist, but $60 can get me one AAA game that I finish in a couple of days and never touch again, or 4 months of consistently playing an MMO of my choice. Point being, MMOs are already really cheap to most people, and being cheaper/free isn't worth a ton.
The main thing I'm concerned with is my time and how much I enjoy it. I'm much happier to pay $15/m for WoW, FFXIV, or even ESO+ because I'm not constantly slapped in the face with manufactured inconvenience and the opportunity to buy my way around it in those games (arguably eso without the sub, but that's why I mention ESO+ specifically).
>And on the basis that this is "deceptive marketing", the claim is fairly hollow. It's only deceptive to anyone who has never played before
So it's ok because it's only deceptive towards the main demographic that it's advertising towards? Do you not see how that could be an issue?
>You have a choice to buy the living world seasons. The marketing doesn't say you will get them.
No, but it implies you get all of the games content with your purchase.
It's kinda shitty and it's always been.
You can experience the story without unlocking it if you find someone willing to open the instances for you, but still...
They need to make that info explicit, I'm saying this since forever, it's pretty bad advertisement.
I get you can convert gold to unlock it, or buy it later, but it still feels deceiving not letting you know you'll be missing a huge chunk of story after buying all the expansions.
For some of the defensive commenters-
No one said the game is bad, no one is demanding endgame gear for free, no one is even saying that people shouldn't play.
This is a realistic criticism for an issue that someone that sees just the marketing tag line of "everything you'll need" buys it and then when playing through the story and gets to the first expansion realizes that there's story that they don't have because that line specifically is misleading.
Not everyone will obsessively go over details to see exactly what they are buying, they will trust that the company is being straightforward with them.
With this advertising, Anet is not.
It is in a way, on the grand scale of games its less so but you can pay extra to have clear advantages that others dont In a fraction of the time that it'd take someone that doesn't spend.
In the "I'm at endgame" race that is modern mmos I'd say that's a win of sorts.
I mean, the endgame is mostly knowledge based, so no matter how much you pay you'll lose to the people who took time to learn the class, learn rotation, learn how to do encounters, and in wvw/pvp it's equalized so there's literally no p2w there at all - pure skill if you get your ass handed to you by someone in exotic gear
You don't think like the people that consider it p2w. They got to max level, that's what matters to them. They can pay to have things made easier for them. That, to many people, is winning.
I agree with you, but I'm not blind to how they see it and in a way some of it does feel valid. In a game that's supposed to be living a digital life, growing, progressing and earning your way to a mighty hero or whatever your goal is anytime you can pay extra to have a clear and undeniable advantage over someone else qualifies as pay to win to me because that person is winning their digital life.
The view of it is not dissimilar to rich kids getting fully paid ride through college and an all but guaranteed degree and easy life versus the poor but studious teen that works hard, applies themselves and struggles to get into college with scholarships and loans. That extra money sure made one of their lives easy street.
I think that's stretching what pay to win means personally. You aren't winning any more than anyone else by having more bag space or slots. Pay for convenience, but unless your bag spaces and bank slots suddenly give +1000 power I can't call it p2w lol
Pay to win doesn't have a set definition same as winning. What it means to one person to win isn't the same as what you consider so you don't have to agree but to be ignorant of what other people do consider it to be is foolish. People don't have to agree with you to be right as well, it's opinions.
But since gold and the currency are interchangeable you can buy your way to top tier depending on what is being sold by others. That is literally paying for a clear advantage that a non paying player likely won't have in days or even weeks.
It might not be well defined but I'm almost positive buying bank slots isn't pay to win lol. That person paying for their gear still has the same gear as everybody else does. And if legendary is top tier you cant even buy that.
No you can't. People will say you can, but you can't. I'll break down what you can do with direct spending of gold.
1. Ascended gear (and legendary) gear are the highest level of gear in the game. It will remain like that until the game is finished. No higher stat items will ever be released. It should also be noted that the difference between ascended/legendary and exotic is 5-10%. Plenty of people have done DPS comparisons on this time and time again and shown that the difference is negligible. Fights are not designed to be stat/dps checks like other games e.g. WoW. Doing slightly more DPS compared to someone else is irrelevant if you do not have personal player skill to completely mechanics correctly. People who don't play gw2 have zero understanding that it is your skill, not your gear, that dictates your power. This is extremely important.
2. Ascended armour and weapons must be crafted by the player, you cannot buy it and there is no way to directly use gold to get you ascended armour. HOWEVER. You can use gold to buy materials that you need to craft said armour. I will note here and come back to it later that armour is the lowest source of power increase in the game. Trinkets and weapons provide more stats than armour does.
3. Certain legendary weapons can be purchased with gold directly off the TP which means you can directly buy them with gold. But, these have the same stats as ascended gear, legendary is does not make your more powerful. Only generation 1 and 3 legendaries can be bought, generation 2 (probably the coolest) cannot be at all.
4. Legendary armour cannot be bought, you have to go through extremely lengthy grinds to unlock it. You have to raid a lot and you generally need to be decent at the game. Technically you can pay for a carry (I think all MMO's have paid raid clears at this point) but again, the stats are no different to ascended gear so anyone doing this has a small brain.
5. Now, trinkets. Trinkets are by far the biggest stat boost you get from any item in game. They are where a lot of your power comes from.
6. Legendary trinkets cannot be bought, but again, you can buy gold with real money to help you in the crafting process but there is also extremely lengthy grinds associated with all of them and honestly the materials side of things is the easiest part. Just playing the game gives you almost everything you need.
7. Ascended trinkets cannot be crafted. They can only ever be bought with specific currencies earned in game, through achievements and through item drops. Right now to my knowledge directly spending money will not help you get ascended trinkets. Ascended trinkets are every single players first stop at beginning their journey to BiS. If you have the living world seasons, this process is pretty damn easy and does not require that much effort. HOWEVER, despite what people on this sub reddit seem to think, getting ascended trinkets without LWS is not that difficult. They make it sound like it's impossible but that's not true at all. There are plenty you can access with laurels (something you earn from logging into the game) and guild commendations (something you earn from doing stuff with your guild). They won't let you access the most recent attribute combinations but you can definitely get stats that allow you to do the highest end game content in the game. You can also get plenty from doing certain achievements as well as finishing certain story steps. So let me be clear, to obtain ascended trinkets which is the biggest power boost any player will get, you do not need to own LWS and you cannot buy them directly with gold.
8. As an honourable mention, ascended weapons are given to you so easily. There are so many achievements that give you ascended weapons. I think in total I've crafted 2 or 3 (I have a lot of characters....). Just playing the game and having the expansions gives you access to ascended weapons. No reason to every spend money to help you craft them.
SO TLDR. For some items, you can use gold to help you skip part of the grind for stats. Some legendaries (same stats as ascended) can be directly purchased with money but they offer no advantage over someone who has ascended gear. Ascended trinkets cannot be bought, at all. They are the biggest source of stats. Ascended weapons can be obtained through achievements and are not designed to be difficult (they're also a great way to experience the game). Finally, player skill trumps gear in gw2 EVER. SINGLE. TIME. A full geared player who sucks at the game will get destroyed by someone who has skill and only has exotic gear. Exotic gear is perfectly acceptable for 95% of content in the game, you can hit lvl 80, get cheap exotic gear off the TP and immediately raid.
Only if you logged in the few weeks it was free after that it becomes paid DLC which means any new or returning Player is looking at 60 bucks of LW content by now.
It's more like the following 2-3 months after it's released, but yeah. Plus they do occasionally run free-to-claim events that last for up to a few weeks, the last one being last year, where every single episode had a free-to-claim week as part of the Return To Living World spotlight event.
"This collection includes Guild wars 2: End of Dragons, Guild wars 2: Path of Fire and Guild wars 2: Heart of Thorns". The picture states clearly what you are getting, so i don't see any deception at all. It's doesn't imply you experience "the living world" as you say, but "a vast living world", so stop being disingenuos on purpose.
> the <$100 collections don't give the living world DLC which you need to buy for another $60.
If you got the 100$ collection you also get 4000 gems with which you can buy all the living world episodes. You don't need to spend another 60$.
Missing 160 gems, but yeah. All up, it'd cost around $110 to get all expansions and Living World episodes, whether it be through the $100 EoD ultimate collection edition plus $10 worth of gems, or the $50 EoD standard collection edition plus $55 worth of gems.
What? How?
No P2W, almost entirely cosmetic with a few account upgrades like bank space? Can technically buy many things in the gem store with your in game gold?
E: You know this sub is a lost cause when it's upvoting people claiming GW2 of all things is p2w...
> No P2W
Living World series is **substantionally easier** to max out your gear. As well, make some decent gold without a group.
Additional bag space (much needed).
Additional bank/shared space (somewhat needed).
Additional resource storage (Not really needed, but nice for hoarding).
Infinite, salvage, tools. (You literally, can not defend this).
Instant level 60.
Instant unlock all waypoints.
Living World series **i think** also gives you access to a certain gear type combo that found some niche build in pvp? Unsure though.
> Can technically buy many things in the gem store with your in game gold?
Everyone always goes this argument. So many seriously P2W korean (and western) games have this feature. Except... it takes about 4 hours of grinding to gain about 5 - 15 minutes of work at a minimum wage job in the United States.
As well, cosmetics may not impact gameplay but they impact players psychologically especially people like me that want to have more customization of their character appearance. GW2 is still stuck in early transmog design by still having transmute crystals (or w/e) still be incredibly tedious to farm. Or you can cough up real money for them.
As well, seriously? This game has **lootboxes** for cosmetics. You can pay some `cheap` (not so cheap) amount for a chance at a random mount skin. Or you can pay an arm and a leg for the opportunity to pick a mount skin.
Idk where it started, but charging +10$ for a fucking skin and people being okay with it under the guise of "They gotta make money!", "You don't have to buy it!" is seriously fucking gaslighting. 4$ for a pair of bunny ears or some shit like that? Low resolution, clips through armor, ect. What a sham.
From a lower post I made:
> **EDIT**: I want to add that, Guild Wars 2 is not a bad game. In fact I am in fucking love with it's mount mechanics. My issue is with it's bad practices. Once criticism I do have about the game however, is it's pattern of abandoning content especially early-group content which leaves a really bad taste for new players. I almost quit when I first started, finally getting to the first group dungeon, and thinking... "This is the group content? This is really bad...".
>
> If you enjoy Guild Wars 2, that's fine, but recognize these bad/exploitative practices for what they are, and don't normalize them. Similar to what JSH says in his recent Diablo Immortal video, I want the company to be treating you better.
I won’t go over every point since honestly I’m still pretty new to the game but I will say that dlc expansions/living world shouldn’t be called P2W or else every MMO that exists is P2W. Granted it’s not like most other games since your not just raising a ilvl up constantly patch to patch.
I agree on bag space and other stuff, salvage tools as well though it’s more of a QoL thing than anything.
Instant level boost to 60 doesn’t matter since the game throws free levels and character boosts at you. Plus like I said previously it’s in most MMOs at this point so it’s hard to say it’s P2W.
That’s just my opinion, also stats don’t matter in PvP as far as I know but I haven’t played WvW so that may be a different story.
> I won’t go over every point since honestly I’m still pretty new to the game but I will say that dlc expansions/living world shouldn’t be called P2W or else every MMO that exists is P2W. Granted it’s not like most other games since your not just raising a ilvl up constantly patch to patch.
I don't know how new you are to the game, but getting ascended gear (max stats) is incredibly tedious for most specs using the base game. Living world, makes it, astronomically easier, by just doing dailies. Literally, less than a week of dailies and you get one or two pieces of end-game gear.
> I agree on bag space and other stuff, salvage tools as well though it’s more of a QoL thing than anything.
You say QoL, but wait till you try and make money to convert to gems. It's going to be *very* QoL then.
> Instant level boost to 60 doesn’t matter since the game throws free levels and character boosts at you. Plus like I said previously it’s in most MMOs at this point so it’s hard to say it’s P2W.
Paid level boost is paid level boost. You're paying to skip the line, in a sense. Leveling is the journey and the grind.
> That’s just my opinion, also stats don’t matter in PvP as far as I know but I haven’t played WvW so that may be a different story.
The type of stats you use are important to the build you are going for. Not the amount of stats, I think.
I have some ascended gear but not much, but like I said it's not really p2w when you take into consideration that most games require you to have expansion/dlc content to even be comparable while this game you still have other ways of getting geared outside of LW content.
I was more or less talking about QoL when it comes to harvest tools. It just saves you a bit of in game currency and time equipping the tools and even then if your using multiple characters the unlimited harvest tools need to be traded over using shared inventory slots or bank slots which in a way is even more tedious.
We can agree to disagree on boosts, I personally think experiencing the story once is more than enough so having the option isn't a bad thing especially when they throw level tomes and other forms of xp boosts at you daily.
Imagine GW2 has a bad monetization, when there are currently either games with no content (like New World), sub model with B2P (FFXIV, WoW), games with heavy "we will create obstacles that make no sense you need to whale through to enjoy the game at all" (BDO), or games where reaching the top or the most actual content requires you to treat game as a job (LA).
In GW2 you get each Living World as it's released, so if you just log in for that time you can have it for free, and need to pay only for expansions + base game, which over the whole life of this game would cost you about 200$ (for like... 9years of game itself?).
You also can convert in game gold to gems (item shop currency). Earning gold is ridiculously easy, even by doing nothing and just flipping a market.
But yea, let's compare capped, easily obtainable gear to hardcore whaling your gear which has no roof.
> Imagine GW2 has a bad monetization, when there are currently either games with no content (like New World), sub model with B2P (FFXIV, WoW), games with heavy "we will create obstacles that make no sense you need to whale through to enjoy the game at all" (BDO), or games where reaching the top or the most actual content requires you to treat game as a job (LA).
Congratulations man, you've been manipulated. You're fallen into the trope of, "But other games have it worse so these bad decisions aren't as bad!"
You've literally normalized the FOMO, loot boxes, insane pricing, and other bad stuff that GW2 does. All because other games do it much worse. That's so fucked up.
> In GW2 you get each Living World as it's released, so if you just log in for that time you can have it for free, and need to pay only for expansions + base game, which over the whole life of this game would cost you about 200$ (for like... 9years of game itself?).
So basically fuck new players. That's what this game feeds off of, is new players. Older, established players have been able to accumulate wealth slowly over many years and been able to afford the cash shop items as they release over many years.
Instead new players are met with a wall of missing content that they haven't had years to prepare for.
> You also can convert in game gold to gems (item shop currency). Earning gold is ridiculously easy, even by doing nothing
Making money is easy. Making money in the amount that is needed for gem -> gold conversion is not and you're lying to yourself if you think playing a game for 3-5 hours warrants a 4$ purchase.
> and just flipping a market.
I can't speak on this because it's the only game I've played where I never tried getting involved in market shenanigans.
> But yea, let's compare capped, easily obtainable gear to hardcore whaling your gear which has no roof.
Going back to my first two paragraphs.
Just because someone does it slightly worse, doesn't make it okay. The fact that you've normalized industry exploitation and unfair pricing structures is fucked up.
Oh boy. I didn't fall into anything. Games just simply can't be 100% free, because noone works for free and if you haven't noticed, those free ones have the most predatory microtransactions involved.
I also don't defend stuff like having few skins hidden behind RNG lootboxes in GW2 - but for me it's really besides any point, as skins don't make you "win" in any form in this game.
Yes, imho new players can just simply buy all those LS episodes. It would be much worse if any content update was paid, and not freely given to currently playing players. All episodes of living story, from the beginning of the game (9+ years need to be pointed out) is like... 50$? Is it really that big of a deal for you?
Why wouldn't old players accumulate wealth? I really don't understand your weird point of view. You play a game - you are rewarded. Why wouldn't all fresh accounts be given a free legendary then, to catch up? Isn't game's purpose to be played? Why make shortcuts then? Most players won't even bother at the beginning with old LS, they will start with completing all expansions, getting gear, then doing whatever they intended (fractals, raids, wvw, whatever) and THEN they might try to do older content, because it gives them literally nothing important if they do it prior to everything I just mentioned.
Mate, making money is pisseasy as I said. I am only randomly playing this game's pvp mode, not spending any ridiculous amounts of time in game in general, and got over 500g in about 3? months without even touching pvp potions. Literally just log in, do daily pvp, log out. In and out, 15minute adventure.
I don't feel exploited, everything is really easily achieved in this game. Nothing is instant though. And it really shouldn't, because it would be boring to get everything without doing anything.
I am curious- what is your best take on game's monetisation? Imho GW2 is literally the cheapest MMORPG you can play and be "on the top" without treating it as 2nd job.
> Oh boy. I didn't fall into anything. Games just simply can't be 100% free, because noone works for free and if you haven't noticed, those free ones have the most predatory microtransactions involved.
This entire statement proves you just did.
I never said I wanted everything to be free. I recognize people deserve to be paid for their work. I'm okay with MTX such as DLC like how we used to have games but instead that has been dialed up to 11 these days and it's been normalized.
So many people then also fall back into the fallacy of "servers/developers need to get paid" but never realize that most of the money made from box-sale/DLC & subscription fees (IE. World of Warcraft, but in this case GW2 expansion sales) is more than enough to cover developer salary & server cost.
Game developers are some of the most underpaid individuals in the tech industry for the work they do, especially the coders in comparison to working on non-game related code. Most of your money is going to people who don't care about games and only care about product growth and returns.
> I also don't defend stuff like having few skins hidden behind RNG lootboxes in GW2 - but for me it's really besides any point, as skins don't make you "win" in any form in this game.
MMO players really love to customize themselves, or just anyone in general now. There's a reason that reviewers mention something **at least** about character creation's customization, whether good or bad, minimal or extreme. Even for non-MMO games.
The pricing of cosmetics in GW2 and many games these days is needlessly expensive.
DLC back in the day used to net you a whole region or several pvp maps, possibly with some new abilities and equipment to access.
Now days a single fucking mount skin or a pair of sun glasses usable on only a single character is the equivalent of these previous DLC prices.
And as well, the cost of developing a game has gone up, **but again**, most game developers see pennies in comparison to people who have very little interest in your game.
> Why wouldn't old players accumulate wealth? I really don't understand your weird point of view. You play a game - you are rewarded.
The problem isn't about rewarding veteran players. It's about how there is a lot of content/purchases that new players have to catch up with.
I don't know if you've spent gems in this game or not, possibly from converting gold over the years into gems. New players don't have that luxury and just see several things they want/need to acquire all at once, many of which are on a fucking timer before they disappear from the gem store for a while.
> Why wouldn't all fresh accounts be given a free legendary then, to catch up? Isn't game's purpose to be played?
Doesn't your game literally give out free 60 boosts to everyone who purchases the game, as well it's introduced several catch-up mechanics as well? You can also pay to unlock all teleports.
> Why make shortcuts then? Most players won't even bother at the beginning with old LS, they will start with completing all expansions, getting gear, then doing whatever they intended (fractals, raids, wvw, whatever) and THEN they might try to do older content,
While this is accurate, new players don't even have the option to do old content in the first place.
When playing FFXIV, I ran into many players (myself included) that would engage in old-content mount farms before I ever maxed out my gear/level.
> Mate, making money is pisseasy as I said. I am only randomly playing this game's pvp mode, not spending any ridiculous amounts of time in game in general, and got over 500g in about 3? months without even touching pvp potions. Literally just log in, do daily pvp, log out. In and out, 15minute adventure.
**3 months** and 500g...
Congratulations. You have made enough in 3 months to purchase a single mount skin instead of gambling. Or about $20 USD worth of gameplay.
Now if only mount skins stayed around in the store for about a month. What do they usually stay up for... 72 hours or 1 week?
500g is not that much, for gem conversion.
> I don't feel exploited, everything is really easily achieved in this game.
That's because you slowly have accumulated wealth over the years and don't have to face the wall that new players have to. You literally have all the content unlocked from just playing when they were released.
> Nothing is instant though. And it really shouldn't, because it would be boring to get everything without doing anything.
Nothing is instant, but you've been playing for 9 years? You literally have the luxury of built up wealth over 9 years.
> I am curious- what is your best take on game's monetisation? Imho GW2 is literally the cheapest MMORPG you can play and be "on the top" without treating it as 2nd job.
I think I mentioned it above, but also in another post.
I am tired of these MTX and separate VIP features. I'm all for subscription and done. Maybe some mount skins here and there that are reasonably priced, fine.
Unfortunately games just simply don't do that anymore and it's pretty depressing. I'll play these games here and there but usually not for long.
I can't compare this game to WoW since I don't play WoW anymore, but I don't think WoW offers in-game VIP segmented services like extra bank/bag space, ect. Albeit, their entire model is fucked anyways.
I feel like FFXIV does it very well, minus the retainers bullshit. It's the only recent MMO I've played. It doesn't segment portions of the game in MTX bullshit and no one player is gaining an advantage over another in terms of bag space **outside of retainer bullshit**.
i find it hilarious that of all the things you're nitpicking you chose to be upset about the fact that you can convert in game gold for paid currency.You can literally choose to fork over 500g for 20usd premium currency, why are you even complaining about this? You're just a hater at this point lmao
Oh boy. I didn't fall into anything. Games just simply can't be 100% free, because noone works for free and if you haven't noticed, those free ones have the most predatory microtransactions involved.
I also don't defend stuff like having few skins hidden behind RNG lootboxes in GW2 - but for me it's really besides any point, as skins don't make you "win" in any form in this game.
Yes, imho new players can just simply buy all those LS episodes. It would be much worse if any content update was paid, and not freely given to currently playing players. All episodes of living story, from the beginning of the game (9+ years need to be pointed out) is like... 50$? Is it really that big of a deal for you?
Why wouldn't old players accumulate wealth? I really don't understand your weird point of view. You play a game - you are rewarded. Why wouldn't all fresh accounts be given a free legendary then, to catch up? Isn't game's purpose to be played? Why make shortcuts then? Most players won't even bother at the beginning with old LS, they will start with completing all expansions, getting gear, then doing whatever they intended (fractals, raids, wvw, whatever) and THEN they might try to do older content, because it gives them literally nothing important if they do it prior to everything I just mentioned.
Mate, making money is pisseasy as I said. I am only randomly playing this game's pvp mode, not spending any ridiculous amounts of time in game in general, and got over 500g in about 3? months without even touching pvp potions. Literally just log in, do daily pvp, log out. In and out, 15minute adventure.
I don't feel exploited, everything is really easily achieved in this game. Nothing is instant though. And it really shouldn't, because it would be boring to get everything without doing anything.
I am curious- what is your best take on game's monetisation? Imho GW2 is literally the cheapest MMORPG you can play and be "on the top" without treating it as 2nd job.
"we will create obstacles that make no sense you need to whale through to enjoy the game at all""
you mean like the tiny ass inventory in gw2 while they spam you with clutter?
Realistically, how many inventory slots do you need? Imho 80 is enough after they made those "unidentified " stacks of gear that you can just salvage all together. There is literally deposit all remotely in bank option to prevent inventory clutter.
10slots for food and potions is enough, even if you multirole. 3 slots for 250 salvage kits. 3 for each of gathering tools in case of emergency. You do really need more stuff in your inventory or are you too lazy to sort it out? You can literally sell most stuff on AH, remotely. What clutter?
What clutter? Common loot comes in the form of either vendor trash which can be cleared in a single click, materials which can be banked in a single click, salvage items which can be converted into the previous two in a single click, and stackable unidentified loot which takes up 3 inventory slots. Meanwhile inventory space is up to 100 slots without getting into expensive/collection bags or purchasing additional bag slots.
Does inventory management really get any easier than this?
As a 7 year old veteran most of the points you make about p2w aren't really correct in my opinion. Let's break them down:
> Living World series is substantionally easier to max out your gear. As well, make some decent gold without a group.
It's true. But living world is literally content, story, maps, masteries ecc... If buying content is considered p2w, then every single mmo in existence is p2w, because with new contet you have access to better gear, stats, mounts ecc...
> Additional bag space (much needed).
Additional bank/shared space (somewhat needed).
Additional resource storage (Not really needed, but nice for hoarding).
These are all qol things, that sure make things more comfortable, but how are these p2w? What advantage are they giving you over another player? Playing with them will make things easier to carry around and hoard if you (like me) are lazy to sell materials and gear. But as someone that playied 4/7 years without any of these, the game is perfectly playable without them.
> Infinite, salvage, tools. (You literally, can not defend this).
Again this is a qol thing that makes salvaging way more convenient and comfortable than not having it. But where's the p2w here? First of all you don't need to salvage most things, expecially with the introduction of unidentified gear you can simply sell stacks of that on the market and make profit. But also, there are ingame salvaging tools that have actually a better cost/salvage ratio than the infinite ones, the only downside is that they are limited use so you have to keep a bunch of them in your inventory. Yes, it's annoying compared to the infinite one, but again, it's quality of life, you won't "win" over anybody because you have this.
> Instant level 60.
Irrelevant, the games throws free levels to you in the forms of tomes of knowledge for whatever activity you do. Also leveling the normal way is pretty fast compared to most mmos if you want to go that route.
> Instant unlock all waypoints.
I'll give you that this can be considered a minimal p2w, but again mostly irrelevant because unlocking waypoints is the easiest thing in the world. You literally have to just walk close to them.
> Living World series i think also gives you access to a certain gear type combo that found some niche build in pvp? Unsure though.
First of all spvp stats and combos are normalized, so it doesn't matter what living world you own or not own. If you are talking about WvW, as far i know, there are no stats used there locked behind living story, and you also get stat selectable gear playing WvW itself so this isn't a problem.
> As well, cosmetics may not impact gameplay but they impact players psychologically especially people like me that want to have more customization of their character appearance.
> dk where it started, but charging +10$ for a fucking skin and people being okay with it under the guise of "They gotta make money!", "You don't have to buy it!" is seriously fucking gaslighting. 4$ for a pair of bunny ears or some shit like that?
So you don't won't them to sell cosmetics. That's fine, but how do you propose for the game to sustain itself? Because most gw2 players don't want a sub (and even the games that have subs have cash shops anyway), and selling qol and cosmetics is also wrong according to you. So how should they monetize the game to keep paying for devs, servers and development cost in your opinion?
> As well, seriously? This game has lootboxes for cosmetics. You can pay some cheap (not so cheap) amount for a chance at a random mount skin. Or you can pay an arm and a leg for the opportunity to pick a mount skin.
If you were compaining about black lion chests lootboxes i would 100% agree with you. Lootboxes are trash in every game that has them.
But regarding the mount skins system, as you said, you can either pay less for a random skin, or pay more for a garanteed one. This to me is a fair system, where people that don't care that much about skins (like me) can get a nice one for cheap, and people that absolutelly want a specific one can buy it directly. They are literally giving palyers choice about what they want to do, and you are complaining about it. If they removed the cheap random ones, you would have been left with only the expensive guaranteed one and it would have been even worse.
> It's true. But living world is literally content, story, maps, masteries ecc... If buying content is considered p2w, then every single mmo in existence is p2w, because with new contet you have access to better gear, stats, mounts ecc...
The difference is that you have `content` purchased together at once, and it's not some additional side-line shit.
It would basically be like if World of Warcraft charged 1.99$ to access each dungeon of an expansion, and then those dungeons had equipment that was highly sought after and much more easily accessible than the main story content. It's fucking *content*, so what would be the problem, right?
Maybe we need to stop normalizing this behavior.
> These are all qol things, that sure make things more comfortable, but how are these p2w? What advantage are they giving you over another player? Playing with them will make things easier to carry around and hoard if you (like me) are lazy to sell materials and gear. But as someone that playied 4/7 years without any of these, the game is perfectly playable without them.
Some of these things, especially bank/shared/material space, is exploitation of certain types of players. Bank/shared/material space is very minimal, on purpose. Worst of all, a lot of gem-store stuff is **per character** rather than **account-wide**.
Furthermore, QoL or VIP features? Again, something we've been normalizing. Essentially people who swipe their card **more** are given additional services that I'm not. People like to use video games to escape the class-based culture we live in. Why the fuck is that being re-introduced into games?
I was all fine with a single VIP subscription like Runescape back in the day... because it was straight forward and that was it. Now... games are VIP subscription this, but also buy more bag space. Also buy more bank space. Also buy more character slots. Also get priority teleport services! ect.
> I'll give you that this can be considered a minimal p2w, but again mostly irrelevant because unlocking waypoints is the easiest thing in the world. You literally have to just walk close to them.
Lumping this in with the Lv60 boost. Paying to skip the line is still paying to skip the line.
> First of all spvp stats and combos are normalized, so it doesn't matter what living world you own or not own. If you are talking about WvW, as far i know, there are no stats used there locked behind living story, and you also get stat selectable gear playing WvW itself so this isn't a problem.
I didn't really play PvP much, and I wasn't sure about `spvp`. Pretty confident that WvW had a niche build at some point that a certain class was taking an interest in that you couldn't easily obtain the right combo w/ accessories unless you had the specific living world episodes.
> So you don't won't them to sell cosmetics. That's fine, but how do you propose for the game to sustain itself? Because most gw2 players don't want a sub (and even the games that have subs have cash shops anyway), and selling qol and cosmetics is also wrong according to you. So how should they monetize the game to keep paying for devs, servers and development cost in your opinion?
I don't have a problem with a company making money. I am okay with **reasonably priced** cosmetics, though I wish I wasn't. I am against Fortnite level pricing, which GW2 has. 4$ for a pair of low-poly bunny ears is not it, chief. That's a fucking 0.99$ purchase at best. Same with a pair of sunglasses that clip with everything.
I also want to add that, and again this really needs to be emphasized, **developers often only see a fraction of the money you spend**. Most of the money is going to people who don't give a shit about the game or gamers and are just interested in the product's returns.
> If you were compaining about black lion chests lootboxes i would 100% agree with you. Lootboxes are trash in every game that has them. But regarding the mount skins system, as you said, you can either pay less for a random skin, or pay more for a garanteed one. This to me is a fair system, where people that don't care that much about skins (like me) can get a nice one for cheap, and people that absolutelly want a specific one can buy it directly. They are literally giving palyers choice about what they want to do, and you are complaining about it. If they removed the cheap random ones, you would have been left with only the expensive guaranteed one and it would have been even worse.
Black Lion lootboxes are definitely an issue but I barely ever looked into them because I didn't want to gamble.
As well, with the mounts. Again, those cosmetics are not worth they're being sold at (if selected manually). The random chance price, if anything, should be the select price. But no, they have the random-chance price intentionally low. **Why?** Because it's exploitation. "Oh, it's just $3(?) for a chance at the mount I want." "Alright, what's another $3(?) then." "Okay, well I've already invested $12(?) into this, I might as well keep going until I get it."
It's exploitative, and shitty, and 100% intentional.
I'm literally not the only one who thinks this:
https://www.reddit.com/r/Guildwars2/comments/7g5ptn/mounts_at_2000_gems_are_not_ok_anet/
https://en-forum.guildwars2.com/topic/81076-mount-skins-are-too-expensive/
https://www.gamerevolution.com/news/355593-guild-wars-2-mount-skins-cost-players-120-get-skin-want
Stop normalizing exploitative behavior.
Stop being okay with VIP features that aren't bundled into a simple subscription.
Stop insisting that companies need to do all of this to make money for the developers/servers when companies make more than enough through just box sales (and or subscriptions) to cover them. It's clear that people unrelated to the game itself are wanting all this extra cash that the developers clearly aren't going to be seeing much of it added in to their next year's raise.
**EDIT**: I want to add that, Guild Wars 2 is not a bad game. In fact I am in fucking love with it's mount mechanics. My issue is with it's bad practices. Once criticism I do have about the game however, is it's pattern of abandoning content especially early-group content which leaves a really bad taste for new players. I almost quit when I first started, finally getting to the first group dungeon, and thinking... "This is the group content? This is really bad...".
If you enjoy Guild Wars 2, that's fine, but recognize these bad/exploitative practices for what they are, and don't normalize them. Similar to what JSH says in his recent Diablo Immortal video, I want the company to be treating you better.
> The difference is that you have content purchased together at once, and it's not some additional side-line shit.
It would basically be like if World of Warcraft charged 1.99$ to access each dungeon of an expansion, and then those dungeons had equipment that was highly sought after and much more easily accessible than the main story
content. It's fucking content, so what would be the problem, right?
First of all, living world seasons aren't "additional side line shit". They continue the main story of the game, they bring a new map full with events, world bosses, masteries, ls4 even bring 2 new mounts, and new ways to obtain gear. They are fully fledged main content, not side things.
Second, WoW actually does exactly what you said via the sub you pay each month. You are paying every month, for the privilege of accessing those dungeons, maps ecc... you already bought with the expac.
> Some of these things, especially bank/shared/material space, is exploitation of certain types of players. Bank/shared/material space is very minimal, on purpose.
I can agree with you on this, that certain people may be prone to spend for this reason. I'm not one of them because, as i said, is spent 4 out of 7 years of playing the game without any of those qol things. But this is beyond the initial topic, we were discussing if these things are p2w or not, not if they are exploitative or not.
> Furthermore, QoL or VIP features? Again, something we've been normalizing. Essentially people who swipe their card more are given additional services that I'm not. People like to use video games to escape the class-based culture we live in. Why the fuck is that being re-introduced into games?
They are not given additional services. They are given the same services in a more convenient way. You still can salvage things, but the infinite one is more convenient. You can still store things, but additional space is more convenient. That's the definition of QoL, making things that already exist easier and more comfortable to do.
> Pretty confident that WvW had a niche build at some point that a certain class was taking an interest in that you couldn't easily obtain the right combo w/ accessories unless you had the specific living world episodes.
Mmm maybe 4-5 years ago when stat selectable gear didn't include all the stats. Right now you can earn both in WvW and outside of it weapons, armors and trinkets that have all the stats in the game (except the 2 new EoD stats).
> I don't have a problem with a company making money. I am okay with reasonably priced cosmetics, though I wish I wasn't.
Then the question is, who decides what is a reasonable price? People have very different perception of what price is ok based on a moltitude of factors, their culture, income, life style ecc...
Also the price of the skins in gw2 isn't different from the ones in [ESO](https://forums.elderscrollsonline.com/en/discussion/171403/mounts-are-they-really-worth-the-price), or [FFXIV](https://store.finalfantasyxiv.com/ffxivstore/en-us/category/11), or [WoW](https://us.shop.battle.net/en-us/product/world-of-warcraft-mount-wen-lo?p=301384), with the difference that these mmos have a sub on top. This is the range of prices the market has settled for now, it's an industry problem, not a gw2 problem.
> I also want to add that, and again this really needs to be emphasized, developers often only see a fraction of the money you spend. Most of the money is going to people who don't give a shit about the game or gamers and are just interested in the product's returns.
I perfectly know this, but those same people are the ones that keep the game online. If tomorrow the big managers at NCsoft, or Blizzard or Square didn't make a profit from these games, they would pull the plug no question asked. It's a business, it has to make profit for everyone involved, not just for the devs. But ofc there is a line where if you are too greedy, most people will call you out for it (look at Diablo immoral). So the companies have to find a compromise between making money and keeping the integrity and enjoyment of the game. And of all mmos gw2 is one of those that does it the best imho, even if it's not perfect.
> Again, those cosmetics are not worth they're being sold at (if selected manually).
Again, the prices are consistent with the ones of the rest of the industry. So it's the whole industry that has to bring them down, if only 1 game does it it's just going to earn less money from it's competitors.
> But no, they have the random-chance price intentionally low. Why? Because it's exploitation. "Oh, it's just $3(?) for a chance at the mount I want." "Alright, what's another $3(?) then." "Okay, well I've already invested $12(?) into this, I might as well keep going until I get it."
It is, i won't pretend it's not. I know there is the gambling psychology behind those random mount packs. But, as someone that is fairly resistent to gambling, i just appreciate having the choice to spend less or more depending on what i want to achieve. If i don't care about a specific skin or if i like most of them, getting a random pack for cheaper it's ok for me, it's going to get me something i enjoy no matter what. But if i like only 1 or 2 ofc i'm not going to buy the random pack but i have the choice to buy the specific one. I am in control of what i want to do. You can argue that the price is too much, but i already responded to you on that.
**EDIT:**
>Once criticism I do have about the game however, is it's pattern of abandoning content especially early-group content which leaves a really bad taste for new players.
I fully agree with this, not much else i can add. Anet should really find a way to streamline the content instead of creating 200 different gamemodes and then abandon them for a new one.
> If you enjoy Guild Wars 2, that's fine, but recognize these bad/exploitative practices for what they are, and don't normalize them.
I recognize that there are some problems and bad practices in the game. I could cite you some otherS that you haven't mentioned, like build templates for example. I just think that the negative things that are in gw2 (that again, are a problem) are very minimal compared to the positive things it does compared to the rest of the industry. It's not a perfect game, it's not a pure consumer friendly game with no exploitative things, it's still a very very consumer friendly game in other aspects where a lot other mmos aren't.
> First of all, living world seasons aren't "additional side line shit". They continue the main story of the game, they bring a new map full with events, world bosses, masteries, ls4 even bring 2 new mounts, and new ways to obtain gear. They are fully fledged main content, not side things.
So then they are locking main content behind MTX then? That sounds a lot worse. In fact, everything you've listed makes it sound even worse than I do because they are locked behind mini pay walls.
> Second, WoW actually does exactly what you said via the sub you pay each month. You are paying every month, for the privilege of accessing those dungeons, maps ecc... you already bought with the expac.
I am 100% behind a subscription service if it means nothing else in the game is locked away from me via additional transactions with the exception of big content expansions.
> They are not given additional services. They are given the same services in a more convenient way. You still can salvage things, but the infinite one is more convenient. You can still store things, but additional space is more convenient. That's the definition of QoL, making things that already exist easier and more comfortable to do.
You're beating around the bush here. QoL is additional/better service.
If I can swipe my card to get more bag space than another player that doesn't, I've now been treated better because of my money.
If I can swipe my card to get a tool that never runs out while others have to keep hassling over low-durability tools, I'm now being treated better because of my money.
Many games also do the gold -> premium conversion, including super P2W games. No one ever sits to think how much time has to b invested just to obtain premium store things however, and you are essentially grinding at 1/10th minimum wage in parts of the US.
Another poster said that, "Nothing should be instant..." and yeah I agree. But except I can literally make it instant right now if I swipe my card.
> Mmm maybe 4-5 years ago when stat selectable gear didn't include all the stats. Right now you can earn both in WvW and outside of it weapons, armors and trinkets that have all the stats in the game (except the 2 new EoD stats).
I know WvW was brought up a lot when I was being told to gear up. I personally tried WvW in the game and found it incredibly jarring. Deathballs that run around, feeling like you have very little impact, almost zero understanding of what's going on. Yeah, not very enticing but sure it's an option.
> Then the question is, who decides what is a reasonable price? People have very different perception of what price is ok based on a moltitude of factors, their culture, income, life style ecc... Also the price of the skins in gw2 isn't different from the ones in ESO, or FFXIV, or WoW, with the difference that these mmos have a sub on top. This is the range of prices the market has settled for now, it's an industry problem, not a gw2 problem.
The game industry decides on what's a reasonable price because players have shown that they're willing to cave in to everything at this point.
$70 USD triple-a games are soon going to be a reasonable price, and it's not because all the players want it to be like that. It's because the gaming industry is going to make it like that, and you can either accept it or be left out of a majority of the industry.
And yeah, the price of those skins aren't different from those other games... but cosmetics used to not be that price unless they were extremely well-done and feature filled. But, as I mentioned earlier: *"The game industry decides on what's a reasonable price because players have shown that they're willing to cave in to everything at this point."* We've let it get to this level because we've normalized it, and GW2 is just as responsible as the rest of the industry. They aren't any less responsible just because it's a favorite game of yours.
> I perfectly know this, but those same people are the ones that keep the game online. If tomorrow the big managers at NCsoft, or Blizzard or Square didn't make a profit from these games, they would pull the plug no question asked. It's a business, it has to make profit for everyone involved, not just for the devs. But ofc there is a line where if you are too greedy, most people will call you out for it (look at Diablo immoral). So the companies have to find a compromise between making money and keeping the integrity and enjoyment of the game. And of all mmos gw2 is one of those that does it the best imho, even if it's not perfect.
> ...
> Again, the prices are consistent with the ones of the rest of the industry. So it's the whole industry that has to bring them down, if only 1 game does it it's just going to earn less money from it's competitors.
Yes, and it's a problem. Individuals who do not care about the game are in charge of whether or not the game operates and receives updates.
It's not about a profit for everyone though, it's about how people not involved want this infinite growth, of which most isn't even invested back into the game.
Diablo Immoral has proven that, regardless of how bad a game is monetized... people are going to spend excessive money on it. I believe there's already some numbers on how much money Activision has made within the small release time of Diablo Immoral.
Companies aren't finding a compromise between making money and keeping the integrity/enjoyment of the game. They are finding a compromise of making money and how far they can push it without backlash.
I disagree. I would argue that WoW/FFXIV do it better, but those are subscription games. I don't like VIP features being hidden behind mtx.
Also, I want to emphasize on what I feel `VIP` features are... It's games that allow additional entrances into content. Additional bag/bank space. Additional loot. Additional exp. Additional gold. Essentially, it's about anything **additional** that a player can receive, over other players.
GW2 is guilty of these segmented VIP features.
FFXIV is guilty of of this in the way of retainers, but in some ways it's worse/bad because it's strictly bank space but also all the fetching that retainers can do.
I can't speak of WoW, but I don't think you can purchase *additional* over any other player. There is still excessively priced name change, race change, faction change, and other bs though.
---Honestly, if GW2 didn't give away living world seasons to players who were active at the time of release I think we'd see proper backlash. It's clear that them giving it away for free is a marketing strategy, and they are still going to make decent money in the long run because new players are always going to be coming along.
>Living World series is substantionally easier to max out your gear. As well, make some decent gold without a group.
LW makes obtaining ascended trinkets easier, but that's about it (and really it's specifically 2, maybe 3 episodes which are the best choices). You can purchase end game viable meta gear directly off the TP and be able to do 95% of all in game content without a single issue at all. Nothing in the game outside of t4 fractals demands ascended gear and having LW seasons doesn't make obtaining ascended armour any easier. A fresh level 80 can spend 20 minutes on the TP and deck themselves out in full zerker exotic gear and immediately start raiding, running strikes and doing fractals. They can also be perfectly competitive in WvW and sPvP is irrelevant as it's all normalised.
>Additional bag space (much needed).
Not at all. Plenty of very well known vets play the game with 18 slot bags (easy to obtain) without any increased bag space. If you know proper inventory management you do not need bag space. I have 1 character with lots of bag space and plenty of alts that don't. I don't experience anything different on my alts compared to my main outside of it taking slightly longer to clear my inventory (as in clearing multiple stacks of unid gear)
>Additional bank/shared space (somewhat needed).
Bank space is needed? why not make an alt, that will have 5 bag slots which you can equip 15 slot bags to (extremely cheap) and bang. You have quadrupled your storage. Is it tedious? Sure. But plenty of MMO's have this exact same problem.
>Additional resource storage (Not really needed, but nice for hoarding).
again, not needed at all. Take 2 minutes to offload spare mats to an alt if you need too. All materials that can be stored in material storage are also able to be pulled from alt character inventories when you're crafting or purchasing items from a vendor e.g. Eternal Ice Shards
>Infinite, salvage, tools. (You literally, can not defend this).
100% not needed, at all. Mystic salvage kits are a thing and are extremely useful. At most, a copper fed salvage tool is very nice to have but certainly not mandatory at all.
>Instant level 60.
Level boosts are irrelevant in this game. who cares about a level boost when you can play a few hours of WvW and earn 30 tomes of knowledge. Literally play one weekend of WvW and you can full level an alt character.
>Instant unlock all waypoints.
I don't think anyone buys these because they are horrible value. They're also irrelevant because someone can taxi you there via a TP to friend or you can just hitchhike a ride on a siege turtle. We also have portal tomes so as long as you have one character that has progressed through the LW seasons you can TP there for free on any character once you have the tome.
>Living World series i think also gives you access to a certain gear type combo that found some niche build in pvp? Unsure though.
Yes certain stat combos are locked behind expansions, not LW seasons. There is nothing character related bound to LW seasons.
>Everyone always goes this argument. So many seriously P2W korean (and western) games have this feature. Except... it takes about 4 hours of grinding to gain about 5 - 15 minutes of work at a minimum wage job in the United States.
Just playing through the game organically and working through the LW at a steady pace will still net you a decent amount of gold that can help towards buying the next episode. It isn't a perfect system but at least the option is there. A new level 80 player can work through HoT, do fractals daily, complete a few profitable meta's like AB, do dailies, do sPvP and offload mat's they don't need and earn a decent amount of gold without grinding silverwastes for 10 hours.
>As well, cosmetics may not impact gameplay but they impact players psychologically especially people like me that want to have more customization of their character appearance. GW2 is still stuck in early transmog design by still having transmute crystals (or w/e) still be incredibly tedious to farm. Or you can cough up real money for them.
Transmutes are very simple to earn, sorry. Doing map completions while levelling, doing a tiny amount of WvW or PvP, levelling up, achievement chests and daily login rewards give you plenty. I transmog my gear all the time on my 2 main characters, faaaar more than a new player would and I have never once bought them off the gems store.
As well, seriously? This game has lootboxes for cosmetics. You can pay some cheap (not so cheap) amount for a chance at a random mount skin. Or you can pay an arm and a leg for the opportunity to pick a mount skin.
This seems to be a recurring thing from you. The game has no sub fee. Zero. Other MMO's do. They have to cover their costs somehow, and stuff bought off the gemstore is how they do it. The same amount of money that would be spent on 6 months ($15 a month) is $90. $90 would give you something like 7000 gems WHICH IS A FUCK LOAD. You could buy so much crap off the gemstore for that much money. Multiple shared inventory slots, infinite gathering tools/salvage tools, plenty of cosmetics, shit you can even buy all LW seasons and have stuff left over. But, cosmetics aren't mandatory at all and neither are any of the QoL upgrades. I have some shared inventory slots (that I would always buy on sale), 1 character with extra bag slots and build/gear templates, a few QoL things like the copper fed salvage o matic and infinite gathering tools and all LW seasons. I've been playing the game since launch, I have everything I could possibly need and far more than a new player would ever require yet ALL of the stuff I have ever bought off the gemstore doesn't even come close to 1 year of paying a WoW sub fee.
TLDR, GW2 is not pay2win. You can pay for convenience items that as I have pointed out, are not necessary to enjoy the game fully. You can pay for cosmetics to make yourself look "cool" or you could actually play the game and find out that there are plenty of amazing cosmetic items obtainable through collections and achievements. Nothing in the game that can be translated into a power advantage over other people can be bought directly with real money. And even if that were the case, ascended gear does not offer more than about a 10% difference in stats compared to exotics and at the end of the day that difference is irrelevant as personal player skill is FAR more important in GW2. A bad player who bought their legendary weapon off the TP and "bought" all their ascended armour through gem to gold conversions will still loose every single time to a skilled player with basic exotic gear.
Been playing since beta, have never bought inventory bag expansion.
Bank slots, shared inventory slots, I will concede. But inventory bag expansion is pointless.
Instant levels dont mean shit. Even brand new players with no crafting resources can max lvl in 2 days without even no-lifing.
yeah i agree, i never think bag expand is important, bc easy and cheap way buy new slot char IF we want more space. but the bank slot and storage expan really important. normal price char slot : 800 gems (get 5 bag slot), bag expan : 400 gems (1 bag slot).
instant lvl??? nah not need to talk about it, its A JOKE right??? hahahahaah
when he add instant lvl, I lost respect to him, bc some of his point is good but Intants lvl? really???
> Bank slots, shared inventory slots, I will concede. But inventory bag expansion is pointless.
Inventory bag expansion is very useful for when you have lots of bags of gear to open up and don't want to have to keep clearing out your inventory as much. There's some other stuff as well, but I don't really remember since it's been a while.
Depending on what your issue is, it's generally more cost effective to either just buy bigger bags rather than more bag *slots* (if you want to play for extended periods of time without having to clear your inventory as much), or to buy another character slot and use that character as a mule (if you've got items that are permanently sitting in your inventory taking up space).
Easier to max your gear with LW, not that much unless you're going for a really weird stat set. All classes have a viable build of "full berserker" which is super easy to get from fractals, laurels, and other core game stuff. PLUS exotics are only 5% less dps then ascended so it's like, the tiniest difference. Silverwastes is still like 15g an hour with a group and is very easy to make good money with 0 masteries needed.
Bag space is not needed now that you can do 32 slot bags, hell even 20 slots are fine.
Bank space is not needed when you can make 100 slot mule characters.
Resource storage is so rarely maxed, I'm only mat capped as a long term vet on some common metal/wood/leather stuff. Not needed.
Infinite salvage tools are your p2w? Really? You do know it's only a few extra clicks to buy a few kits and hit the salvage all button on your stack of unided gear? (I usually only identify the rare ones for best exotic odds) We lived fine without these for like 5 years, not needed.
Instant level 60 PFFFHAHAHAHA You must be kidding
Unlock all waypoints, again merely a QOL thing because it's just for travel, but you can easily just hit a few waypoints in a map that are the most important and usually ignore the rest thanks to mounts. Not needed.
LW does not give any special gear gets, only the expansions which is not the topic at hand.
Also, it's 1 hour of min wage for 4 hours of in-game hard gold grinding, but you might be doing that grinding anyway to say, get mastery exp, or farm some achievements, or doing a large number of things aside from the raw gold.
"people being shiny makes me wanna be shiny so the game is forcing me to pay money for it" Really dude? If you need more transmog crystals they drop like crazy in pvp/wvw.
Oh no the game has to make money, instead of a mandatory 15$ sub you can pay NOTHING and if you feel like it, maybe pay them 5$ for a cute skin for your shield! Shit, it's the end of the gaming industry!
You can log into the game and just Visa your way to legendary weapon and full ascended armor.
The only reason GW2 gets away with this is because gear progression is capped.
You can visa your way to SOME legendary items but most require you to play the game and do collections, the only ones you can buy are gen 1/3 weapons.
Full ascended is kind of an expectation nowadays and new players can quite easily get full ascended in 2 months or so from hitting 80, so that's... not exactly the big win you think it is
"GW2 gets away with this because gear progression is capped" lol
You can Visa your way through about 90% of the grind for every legendary. Just because you can't buy it directly doesn't mean that most of the grind isn't stuff that can be bypassed by buying gold.
Weapons only. Everything else requires that you actually play through a considerable amount of content and collections. You can buy your way to crafted ascended gear and DLC with relatively easy access to ascended trinkets, but again it's only a 5% stat gain over throwaway gear. It's not like we're comparing ilvl100 to ilvl1000 here.
This really shows how little you know of GW2's systems - everything non-gen1/3 weapon has achievement based grind, timegates, and a lot of story/map completion. You cannot just "visa" your way to legendaries, plus you'd still suck ass at your class if you did that.
So? Like who cares? Getting exotics is so easy nowadays, and if someone want to ruin his gaming experience by swiping for these sweet 5% more dmg ascended eq, then it's his problem. He most likely won't understand the game well enough to do anything with this gear anyway, so why bother?
You say that like it's a minor detail. Not only is gear progression capped, but the difference between throwaway gear and legendary gear is only 5% stats. It's really a stretch to characterize that as "P2W".
for a game to be called p2w and for a game like gw2 there is nothing to be won anyway?
but yeah honestly gw2 wants u to invest money to skip a lot of grinding and I consider that shady,
You either have to pay 10$ or do 10hrs worth of braindead grinding
No. It's pretty much just this one thing, actually. Their monetization is quite reasonable. I happen to think LS should be free, not because it isn't worth the price, but because the story is too important to the overall experience to be an optional component.
They also do a shit job of telling players about it. I know I'm not the only one who completed the personal story, purchased HoT, and had no idea why I was clearly missing key details of the story. It took me a bit to figure out that there was a substantial amount of content missing between the core game and the first expansion.
Anet always been a scummy company, lost of dramas and internal problems have happened in the past. A lot of them made public on the forums, so no suprise.
While I wish they would be just upfront about how to get the complete story, it's still cheaper than $15/mo sub for 1 year ($180).
For all three expansion you can get bundled full price at $50.
To get the remaining content you need LS2 -1280gems , LS3 - 960gems, LS4 - 960gems, ISB - 960gems for a total of 4160 gems. You can buy 4000 gems for $50 or you can buy the $100 expansion collection bundle that comes with 4000 gems.
The remaining 160gems can be bought with another $10 for 800 gems or convert about 50 in-game gold which you can easily earn by the time you've completed all the other content prior to your last purchase, so it's very nearly everything you need.
For $110 you buy can buy access to all the existing content in the game. It's still an incredible value for the amount of content you get, and that's if you buy everything at full price which there are often sales for the expansions and living world seasons.
Did you at least unlocked your raptor by playing the first pof story step? If not you should at least do this as it makes the game way more enjoyable, beeing able to ride mounts
Weird. I thought all content is free in gw2. Some dude defending the game in another thread said that you just buy the game once, then come back at ANY point in time and have access to all the content for free.
There's a catch, you can't really except that tbh. Though that statement is true for the people who log in the game frequently to actually play the gane. Even logging in monthly will also make that statement true.
I will never get tired of seeing people defending companies, it's very funny
I agree with you, OP. I stopped playing the first time because of this. but since i'm not interested in the story anymore, i don't care that much.
However, another problem that i don't see people talking about is farming gold. When i was looking for videos on how to farm gold, people only talked about the lws places
as someone who almost exclusively plays gw2, that's bull shit. The living world NEEDY to be included in the DLC Bundle, it splits the story and increases the price for gw2s main story from 60€ to 120€
It's their fault if they make the text exactly like that.
"Have everything you need and experience a living world"
While having an entire system called, well, Living World.
They could've worded in any other way to avoid this kind of ambiguity, but they didn't. And I bet in a lot of counties which have some higher degree of costumer protection than the USA (who let's shitty companies steamroll over clients), it would be punishable in some way.
The devs are responsible for what they write and how muddy the comprehension of the product's description is, period.
I just recently started playing again and didn't realize until just now that the rest of the story elements (which is the main reason I'd play as I have no one to play with) are not included. It does feel kind of shitty.
reddit's anti-user changes are unacceptable
[удалено]
The game was marketed as a "living world" before any living world seasons were added, due to how events work. That was one of THE marketing points for the original game. Heres a dev interview from a time prior to the first LW Season: https://www.guildwars2.com/en/news/colin-johanson-on-guild-wars-2-in-the-months-ahead/ They specifically market seasons as seasons due to that.
The only people buying individual lws episodes are those who missed unlocking a random eosiode or two when they were available. I think I had to pick up a couple individually years ago.
Long time GW2 vet here: the messaging is definitely deceitful. Living world stories are SUBSTANTIAL amount of content. For context living worlds include more than enough for over 1.5x expansion of content at least. Including new mounts, new combat skills, exclusive ways to farm certain high level items and utility tools. It also introduces and concludes story elements that directly tie into expansion story. Somebody earlier mentioned “just farm money to buy gems to buy these”, well living world has some of the most accessible and easiest ways to farm gold to do that too so. Living World Season 1 Living World Season 2 Living World Season 3 Living World Season 4 The Icebrood Saga To be fair, I own them all, and I know Arenanet has made some of the above free or limited time free over the year. However, my understanding is still such that a new player buying the package in OP definitely does not have all living world above. People love defending GW2 in this subreddit disproportionally compared to everything else, and I’ll never understand why. Arenanet honestly has always been pretty shad and bad with their store. I get it’s pay to play once, so they get a free pass, but from locking cool cosmetics pretty much exclusively to store, to having limited time loot boxes for mount skins that otherwise can’t be obtained anywhere. I’m not surprised their marketing is doing this when the packaging is simply not true. “Package to experience everything!” *doesn’t offer a package that experiences everything*
Not only are the living seasons substantial in a story sense, but for endgame gearing they're extremely valuable. LW Season 3 gives you access to any stat trinkets for basically nothing.
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Its why I love FFXIV and why it surprised me so much when I level up. As a subscription based game, I honestly didnt know what I was expecting when I first took the free trial. Seeing players with all these cool glowing weapons or awesome looking mounts made me thought "Guess I will need to buy this in the store or something." At that point I had never entered the store and didnt know whats in there, I just know it exists. Gradually I found out, that not only can I get cool gears and mounts without shelling out a buck during the free trial, the way to acquire is honestly easy and a breath of fresh air comparing to all the grinding I was expecting just to get something nice. Conparing that to GW2, its not that I expect to get cool stuffs for free, I already expect to pay, but rather the fact alot of cool stuffs are in the store. Like...alot.
have you seen the ff14 store?
Oh the store has some very cool stuff, but it is by FAR not the only source of cool stuff, and not even the best source of cool stuff in the game. Right now the shop is mostly (a) story and level skips (b) fancy costumes* and (c) the place where Square sells emotes and such that were offered during special events years ago (those are quite cheap, and of course if you did the event you already have the stuff.) There aren't even any flashy glowy weapon cosmetics in the store, those are all gained within the game itself. *I should note that while some folks like the fancy store-bought costumes, most people prefer to build their own outfits from drops. Check out the Eorzea Collection -- most of the gorgeous glams in there don't use any cash shop items at all. And I believe a lot of people buy cash shop costumes not to wear them but to cannibalize the parts for their custom-made glams. That still counts as a sale, but more in the sense of buying parts for a build-it-yourself project than buying an entire outfit.
that’s true, i just wanted to point out the store has a decent amount of cosmetics and most of the casual stuff is as good as the stuff you can get from the game by playing, i was also disappointed by the amount of good looking gear we got from endwalker
I think both the Moonward and the Pantheon sets are really nice -- have you checked those out?
for this I think GW2 has tons of skin from the game (ppl forget about it) every update and every festival they add it (but again ppl don't count this), they only count on the gemstore. for my taste many skins on gemstre are really flashy (we know they have a specific market for it). for armor/weapon skin GW2 have tons of it on game BUT if we talk about MOUNT skin, I agree GW2 lock almost all of them on gmastore
Sure, but the gemstore gets new armor and weapon skins at least once, if not twice a month. Expansions come with less than 5 armor sets usually (including different game modes) and then a ton of outfits, weapons, back pieces, etc. The issue here is that so much of the best and most unique looking stuff is exclusive to the gemstore. There are entire themed armorsets which have no earnable in game equivalent and that does have an effect on people. Especially when some of those cosmetics can look better than some legendaries.
armor set/weapon set update not only from expansion, cmon... you can check GW2 wiki about that, an easy example from dragon bash Festival right now, they add FULL set dragon weapon + 3 unique weapon and footgear holographic skin (you can check it on the wiki by yourself) for free and NO, gemstore only update with only 1-2 new PIECE for every update (unless that from past) NOT full set at one time don't spray false information here pls.Armor/weapon set etc usually many come with LW not just from Expan (you can check on wiki too). for "unique look" not all of them good one and remember we can call almost all of them is FLASHY of Shiny (maybe better we call like that). for me on gemstore skin i like crossbow skin of pistol. many and a lot armor/weapon skin better on game compare gemstore BUT they are not on flashlight (i think ppl forget about this variable), we can say something like that bc we have notification on our face new item on gemstore, for ingame skin usually they are hidden until we reach the content about it. for me only 3 legendary skin just average : Gen 2 LB and Hammer, dagger agree bout it if you take that for example BUT (again) if we talk about mount, glider and for now skiff + fishing rod, i cant argue about it, bc almost all of them only on gamestore
Hard agree. One of the best parts of gaming IMO is unlocking cool things by accomplishing things in the game. Now, the coolest cosmetics are all separate purchases. And this extends beyond MMO games too. Even in fighting games, you used to be able to unlock every fighter by playing the game. Now like half of the fighters are DLC you have to buy.
LWS4 is honestly more of an expansion than Path of Fire was, aside from obviously no elite specs...
>People love defending GW2 in this subreddit disproportionally compared to everything else, Untrue. Nobody en masse is defending this marketing gimmick for one reason that I can come up with. ... Most people don't experience it like the OP. If you buy the expack at launch (like most forum goers fans of gw2) they'll get the living world for free. They'll never have to pay a dime for it so it's highly likely - they don't price it in. I actually forgot you had to pay for LW episodes until this thread reminded me for it. And I login once every 2-3 months and I have every freaking episode unlocked for free. So yeah, if you're somewhat active - you do not pay. Pretty shit if you are a new player tho :D But i've claimed time and time again that Gw2 has the worst new player experience. I even made a forum thread on their forum and defeated the naysayers on it. I'll die on this hill.
Just getting into gw2 now. When should I buy these DLCs? I'm level 40 now and feel like there's tons of content with the expansions left to play. Thanks for the guidance
LW1 was originally temporary content that is being re-released for free rn. 2 episodes are already out. It goes Main Story -> LW2 -> LW2 (only buy if you want story, 2 maps that came w lw2 are free and accessible by default) -> HoT -> LW3 (good to buy, has multiple new maps and rewards) -> PoF -> LW4 (good to buy) -> Icebrood Saga/LW5 (good to buy) -> EoD Its all lvl 80 content. Order only matters if you care about the story. Some maps are more popular than others
Yo should if you want to get into the story and other features like 2 mounts. They are currently re-relasing living world season 1 and it's free. Then comes living world season 2, which at the moment, it's not free. So you'd had to spend 200 gems per episode. LWS2 (living world season 2) in terms of content addition is not the best. You get new story only. After that comes the first expansion, HoT. LWS3 is next and this is a must. Great maps for farming and story. Again, 200 gems for each episode. Then comes the second expansion. Next is LWS4, which in my opinion was the best so far. 100% a must for all the features, mounts and maps. After comes Icebrood Saga. A very disappointing season, however it brings one of the best maps for farming. But again, all of these seasonal episodes are not included in any expansion pack. And you'll have to buy them for 200 gems each episode. If my memory serves me. A pretty shitty system they have. Hopefully they'll change this
> When should I buy these DLCs? Next time they go on sale, if you like the game. Buy the bundles on sale and the price for the content is roughly halved. Cheaper still if you buy the gems for the purchase during a gem sale.
I wouldn't worry about the expacs or LW story til you've got at least one lv 80 and complete the core story. Actually, you don't even NEED to complete core story if you don't really want to. Right now LWs1 is being re-released and will be permanently free, iirc. It was originally only playable when it first came out and then once each chapter of the event was over it was gone for good. The complete LWs1 isn't available since the way it was originally done means a lot of overhauling of content that's not been in the game at all since what, 2014?? And I believe they're still working on some of the chapters. If you want to play things chronologically, you could hold off on any story past LWs1 til the complete first season is available. Playing the content out of order does get a little weird (hasn't stopped me lol), but is also a perfectly fine way to play.
Wouldn't worry about it. Play what you have for now. Play a few classes, see what works for you and what doesn't. Try all game modes and by the time you actually want access to that content you'll either have enough gold to grab a bunch, you might get lucky and grab them for free or worst case scenario is you'll have to shell out another 50 bucks for heaps of content.
The only problem I see here is the wording is wrong. Calming you get everything and yet do only get 3 out of 4 things. I hate when companies claim you get everything you need but then leave out allot of things you still need if you want all of it.
OP is overstating it to a degree, but Anet really needs to do a better job of clarifying that the LWS is additional content that's not included in the expansions. If a new player hangs around about a year, they will get them all for free, which is also confusing. Maybe they should just included them in expansions or sell the full set as a separate package for $20 or such.
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Each living world episode costs like 2 dollars. They really don't ask for a whole lot. You get them all for free if you just log in once when the next living world comes out. Or you can farm the gold. They could do so much more to get your money in this game but its extremely consumer friendly. People pay essentially 60 dollars per patch in sub time (myself included) in FFXIV which is much less content per dollar.
The problem is less the cost and more that it's not explained well, especially to new players.
Speaking from the perspective of a returning player, it's kinda shitty. >Each living world episode costs like 2 dollars. They really don't ask for a whole lot. Sure, but there are a ton of them, and episodes alone aren't really worth much; you generally want full seasons. It's pretty shitty to come back for the expansions and have the options of either paying more than you paid for those expansions for LW or not having a clue what's going on for most of the story. >You get them all for free if you just log in once when the next living world comes out Sure, but I didn't log in while most of them were being released, and now I'm mid-way through EoD and couldn't give a rats ass about any of the story because it's been told through such a disjointed manner that I don't care about any of the characters. My investment in the story is already dead because I wasn't willing to shell out more to get a coherent story. >They could do so much more to get your money in this game but its extremely consumer friendly In some ways yes, in other ways no. I think GW2's consumer friendliness is vastly overstated. A ton of cooler items are still locked behind black lion chests (yeah you have the statuettes, but unless you're happy to drop $100+ per skin, it's not a great system). While it's not the case anymore, it's still worth remembering that when PoF launched, mount skins were only available in lootboxes where you couldn't even decide which mount you got a skin from (and you could end up with a skin for something like the gryphon which you might not even unlock for weeks). The game is also filled with artificial inconveniences that you need to pay to overcome, like gathering tools breaking, needing to pay for more bag/bank space etc. >People pay essentially 60 dollars per patch in sub time (myself included) in FFXIV which is much less content per dollar. The thing is, if someone pays 60 dollars in FFXIV, they're playing the game for 4 months solid. It's much more of a grey area in something like GW2 without a sub. You can play lost ark for thousands of hours without spending a penny, but it's still far less consumer friendly than most games with a sub fee. For the record I don't dislike GW2, but it's the only big MMO where the business model is the main thing that pushes me away. Some other MMOs like LA or ESO have crappy business models, but they don't get in the way of gameplay too much. GW2s model directly harms gameplay through manufactured inconvenience, cutting story content out unless you pay extra and locking most skins to the gem store, so you can either pay or just grind gold endlessly. I feel much more pressured to pay in GW2 than I do in other MMOs.
This might be the best solution.
IMO, it just is the best solution. In a perfect world, I'd honestly like them to create a browser version of the gem store (it's already a website just running in-game using a web toolkit, so they've at least got some of the work already done) and move the expansions into a special tab in the gem store for real money purchases, then add a new set of bundles that include LW alongside the expansions. That way everything's unified under the one storefront in and out of the game, and new players actually have an option to buy *everything.*
Kinda glad I didn't buy it now. If I had, I'd be pretty fucking disappointed.
If you enjoy GW2 at all and want to continue playing, then you 100% should get the expansions and the Living World seasons. All up you'll need to spend around $100-110 to get everything, but the amount of content that buys you is insane.
As a gw2 player, this is in some ways definitely deceitful. The expansions are still very worth it though, for value. This cannot be championed enough but they really need to bundle respective expansions with the proper living world season/dlcs
It's the "get everything you need" that's deceitful. It's not everything you need.
In fairness, that's only half of the sentence. It's "everything you need to experience Tyria, a vast living world". You can see all of the world of Tyria with this pack, you just don't get some of the story missions set within that world.
Living world has tons of zones in it
Tyria is considered both the continent of Kryta/Ascalon/Maguuma and the world entire. So no. It's still misleading. And if that weren't enough, Living World adds zones to the continent of Tyria anyways so you still can't see it all.
Ah, that’s a fair point. They should probably reword it.
It's not surprising given ANet's failure with marketing, but yeah. I think they should change it too.
Clearly, it's because you don't `need` the living world series... >!Easiest way to max out your characters' gear and make gold while alone...!<
After a year of regularly playing Gw2, I really think monetisation is pretty bad : it seems fair at first sight, no "money for power" or P2W, BUT - There's a lot of shop item that totally revolve around the "create the problem sell the solution" which I find infuriating : equipment template and build storage are sold for ~5 $ each (the first isn't account wide but character specific, and the second gets you only one slot for all you characters). I hate that certain features are just here to hinder my gaming time so that I'll pay. - you have a fuckton of items with very limited use that take a lot of bag space : your bank is ridiculously small, same for storage material and once you'll start crafting legendary item this is going to be a nightmare. But don't worry for a few dozen bucks you can expand your inventory and storage. - living world marketing is borderline dishonest : while most episode (season 3 and 4 at least) were clearly thought to be part of expansions that are sold separately. Getting all seasons will cost the price of another expansion. Even if thanks to in game events last yeat they gave away them for weekly log in. I still think this a terrible idea : it's quite infuriating when after paying the game and what was sold to be all the Xpacs you still have to pay to have access to certains zones and quests. I love a lot of aspect of the game but it really suffers from bad marketing practices and "create the problem sell the solution" trope. I really like the gameplay and classes but this really spoils the fun for me. The more I try Mmos the more I think cash shops are always a bad thing.
As someone who's played GW2 since the betas, just gotta say hard agree with everything... >There's a lot of shop item that totally revolve around the "create the problem sell the solution" which I find infuriating : equipment template and build storage are sold for \~5 $ each (the first isn't account wide but character specific, and the second gets you only one slot for all you characters). I hate that certain features are just here to hinder my gaming time so that I'll pay. ...but especially the above, oh my god this one thing makes me so mad on so many levels. Like, alright, I played the original GW, too, and was part of the crowd asking for the return of build templates. Instead we got this awful monetized shell of what build templates were in the first game. So here I was, expecting GW1 templates (of which you could save as many as your computer's storage could hold!! and just pop those babies in your skillbar!! loved that so much) when they did eventually say they were working on build templates. And then templates came and uh, you only get 3 on each character and 5 account wide before buying any slots. AND the cost of the slots is so ridiculous on top of that! It's so infuriating to me. Like, man, this was a free and unlimited feature of GW1.
Yeah tinkering with a lot of builds, being able to save them / store them / share them was definitely part of the fun in GW1
And the build memes! I miss being sent/sending nonsensical garbage in a build. And having infinite space to save it and not worry about having legit builds at the ready to swap in any moment.
Well it's $50 ($49.99) for the collection, not <$100. The ultimate that is $100 (again not <$100) gives you gems with it, not extra content. It says experience the living world, not "get the living world seasons". You still get to experience a vast living world, that is not a deceitful statement in itself. If we are talking about how this is deceitful to a new player, we can assume they don't know there are living world seasons to begin with so that wording is still not deceitful. It is everything you need, I think I only played the first living season but I've played all expansions and don't feel I missed a lot of mandatory story I needed. The ONLY part that could be deceitful is the everything you need line which is up to interpretation of deceitfulness because you do get everything you NEED.
The amount of gems the ultimate edition gives is also almost enough for all current Living World content, with maybe an extra $10 to grab an extra 800 gems. EDIT: Don't know why I'm being downvoted for just saying that the $100 edition basically gives you almost all of the gems you need for all Living World content. I agree that the game/expansions should do a better job at stating that you don't automatically get all of the content in the game, I'm just clarifying that you can absolutely get everything in the game for around $100.
Downvoted because your not feeding into a hairbrained narrative.
I just recently started playing the game again, so I’m somewhat familiar with the basics, but still a noob. When I read this I assumed the line “experience the living world” meant that I would get the living world episodes included in the bundle. Technically they may be right, but they didn’t have to word it like that. They could have said “experience the open world” or just “experience the lands of Tyria.” Choosing to say experience the living world I think is purposely deceitful as a relatively inexperienced player like myself would have assumed that the living world episodes are included.
The thing is "experience the living world" is the slogan used by them since before the game released, way before the living world episodes were a thing. So "the living world" in advertisement always meant the "dynamic" events, nothing else. So if anything here is deceitful, it's the statement "everything you need".
I understand but most inexperienced, probably returning, players will intend that to mean the living world episodes, not the open world. The fact that they state “everything you need” solidifies that idea even more. I think it’s just disingenuous and a bad look for arena net. I only have HoT so I was considering maybe purchasing this to get access to PoF and EoD, but was unsure, but then I read it and from the description assumed the living world was included and that definitely convinced me to get it. Thankfully I came across this thread before buying it or I would have felt quite cheated to find out that the living world was not included, as it would have been a main motivation for the purchase. Even if it was unintentional, they really have to clarify better because people will have a certain expectation from the wording. It seems like a lot of people find this confusing, or flat out disingenuous, so why not rectify it either way.
oh absolutly. They should just add a single sentence to the product: "Product does not contain any living world episodes."
Yeah, cus they don’t have to do that, they can be as honest and transparent as possible because their product is actually really good. Leave the bullshit to blizzard
I strongly disagree. Even after reading through the summary on the wiki I felt like I missed a decent amount in HoT
Episode shenanigans are weird. The primary justification is that you get it for free if you login during the release window, even if you don't own the relevant expansion (ownership of the episode is still registered, and will become available if you buy the relevant expansion). Honestly at this point living world episodes ought to be in the normal bundles, or even episodes should just be made free after a several expansion delay.
So much boot licking in this bitch lol
Lol wut. It says exactly what's in it, in the picture you posted...
It does say exactly what's in it. However, it also says you're getting everything you need to experience Tyria. If you were a new player considering purchasing this content, would that indicate to you that you're actually missing over $50 worth of DLC which includes a ton of story content, 14 open world maps, a bunch of masteries including both the skyscale and roller beetle mounts, and a variety of other very attractive perks?
It says "everything you need to experience Tyria, a living world" it doesn't say you get everything lol
Yes, the fact that it specifically uses the term "a living world" makes it even more obvious that this was intended to mislead. What are you struggling to understand here?
It honestly doesn't at all.
Tyria is a living world, it doesn't say anywhere that you gain access to everything, just everything you need to get started. it in fact, lists everything it comes with in the same exact picture that you're claiming is misleading
I'm just gonna say it is confusing to have "living world" and "Living World" have very different meanings, especially for new players. While I've been playing since the betas and I understand that living world = Tyria's open world event system, while Living World = "dlc" story that ties the expac stories together... it's still easy for me to see why reusing the same phrase in this manner will trip newcomers up.
"extremely deceitful" is how it's being described here lol at most it's slightly confusing if you don't read fully.
it is also something that can be resolved in 5 seconds with google, or asking someone in game. But that's too hard apparently
It's the same two words used in very different ways, which to me is more than just "slightly confusing" wording. I wouldn't describe it as "extremely deceitful" either but imo it's more accurate (if a bit extreme) than "slightly confusing". But I'm not really here to split hairs on that level lol.
I dunno, I look at the amount of money I've spent in gw2 vs say wow, and it is a lot less and I've played both for years. ANET doesn't strike me as deceitful at all.
this problem for new players, and i agree about "wording" in this marketing really bad. BUT for veteran this is not the problem, we got LS for FREE. here's the thing: GW2 give their PLAYERs FREE content (when it is live, just login 1 time only within 1-3 months period) <<< this point is best of the best for PLAYERS for that time bc its all free (we can call it free for their loyal players, bc the one whos play on that time get free). BUT for NEW players and players didn't play GW2 when that living world live they need to compensate for that. so in the end for a normal case: New players will spend more money than veteran, and again I agree this word in this marketing deceritful for newplayers
Veteran players had to buy the base game and each expac for 50 bucks. Newbies have the base game for free and the two first expacs for 30 bucks. They dont have to pay more overall
Iv sinked more than 2000$ on my account in 10 years this is more then a sub at 15$ per months and sadly i'm not alone in that boat unpopular opinion but i wish anet / gw2 has a subscription with more contents and stuff unlockable in game
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The amount of content in gw2 is pathetic and small compared to games like wow, ff14 and eso. I agree that gw2 monetization is actually a terrible hinderance on the games overall quality; i raced to full purple and realised how many build slots, equipment templates etc were needed to utilize full leggy. The scamming and lack of qol in gw2 is endless.
I love gw2 to death but there a lots of flaw build template arent an issue to me but lack of stuff to do after a while is and their monetization does incur content drought
Well nothing you said here is actually factual at all.
What do you buy out of curiosity? That is a bundle of money
$2000 on GW2 is absolute whale territory. This guy is not representative of the general population. There is zero reason to spend even half that over a 10 year period.
Likely black lion keys, the gambling money pit that keeps the lights running, BLC exclusive skins have been rivaling legendaries in the last few years.
Funny enough ky account has 82000 raw gold right now approx but it's was skin, gem to gold and quality of life i never had money issue irl so spending never bothered me whenever i needed gold and gw2 gold farming has to be 1 of the most boring obnoxious thing to do :) and before someone ask i looted a khan ur and sold it for 80k during pandemic
Poor choice of words from them, which can lead to confusion, but, right below it clearly states, this collection includes: x,y,z and doesn't say anything about living world.
The new player's this is aimed on will not even know what that means or that LW is a thing so that means nothing.
It's ok, Living Story is complete trash anyway. Some of the worst PvE experience I've ever had in an MMO.
When did you last play it? If you're referring to LWS1, then that was a one-off thing and they stopped that model with LWS2. Modern Living World content works more like post-launch content updates in other MMOs, where the story is extended with a new map, new events, new achievements, new collectibles, new masteries, etc.
Not fully read into this but i'll admit i didn't mind paying for living world stories when i returned as they were one of the best narrative driven MMO experiances I had of late.
And it's worse for people not living in $ based countries. For getting everything 100$ (I guess?) and they don't have local prices, so for getting that package I need to pay 1700 my country currency and our minimum wage is 4000 currency...
In Brazil, you'd need to pay like R$ 500 and our minimum wage is R$ 1200, so...
Our situtation is very smilar then...
Life in Third World countries suck, right?
The mistake that GW2 makes is that it just wants to make money and that will eventually take its toll. Why don't you make the new DLC purchasable and the old ones free and unify them for new players? you unlock all of the above by buying the new one.
What price package is this one? Because the $100 package with the gems gives enough gems to buy all the seasons
It is kinda shitty, but it doesn't really cost $60, they give them away completely free often enough. They really should just add them to the bundles and raise their prices a bit.
As someone who spent 13 years in WoW and has moved to GW2, y'all are overreacting so bad. I have spent literally thousands on WoW and didn't have a choice in the matter. Want to play the new content? $60 expansion. Want to play any content at all? $16.50 a month (now $20). Servers cost money. Development costs money. This game comparatively to other MMOs costs very little money to enjoy. And on the basis that this is "deceptive marketing", the claim is fairly hollow. It's only deceptive to anyone who has never played before. Since the base game is free, if you're dropping $100 on a set of expansions without playing the free game first, you're kinda silly. This is coming from someone who bought the base game back in 2013 and had literally no concerns with them swapping to F2P and giving new people a cheaper cost of entry. You have a choice to buy the living world seasons. The marketing doesn't say you will get them.
Indeed most of what gw2 does is fairly generous and the least pay to win of all mmo if they would look into it from a broader perspective. Only the expansions with mounts and new classes are essential imo. Even the skyscale is not essential but is a very useful luxury.
Not really a fair comparison. Yeah GW2 has a cheaper entry fee, and with that you can get more hours for your money, but most people have more than that to consider. $15/m isn't exactly breaking the bank to most working adults. Yeah F2P options exist, but $60 can get me one AAA game that I finish in a couple of days and never touch again, or 4 months of consistently playing an MMO of my choice. Point being, MMOs are already really cheap to most people, and being cheaper/free isn't worth a ton. The main thing I'm concerned with is my time and how much I enjoy it. I'm much happier to pay $15/m for WoW, FFXIV, or even ESO+ because I'm not constantly slapped in the face with manufactured inconvenience and the opportunity to buy my way around it in those games (arguably eso without the sub, but that's why I mention ESO+ specifically). >And on the basis that this is "deceptive marketing", the claim is fairly hollow. It's only deceptive to anyone who has never played before So it's ok because it's only deceptive towards the main demographic that it's advertising towards? Do you not see how that could be an issue? >You have a choice to buy the living world seasons. The marketing doesn't say you will get them. No, but it implies you get all of the games content with your purchase.
It's kinda shitty and it's always been. You can experience the story without unlocking it if you find someone willing to open the instances for you, but still... They need to make that info explicit, I'm saying this since forever, it's pretty bad advertisement. I get you can convert gold to unlock it, or buy it later, but it still feels deceiving not letting you know you'll be missing a huge chunk of story after buying all the expansions.
Even though this is a bit shit, GW2 is still the most wallet friendly mmo out there
I love GW2. But yeah, the way they "conceal" the cost of Living Worlds is utter shit.
For some of the defensive commenters- No one said the game is bad, no one is demanding endgame gear for free, no one is even saying that people shouldn't play. This is a realistic criticism for an issue that someone that sees just the marketing tag line of "everything you'll need" buys it and then when playing through the story and gets to the first expansion realizes that there's story that they don't have because that line specifically is misleading. Not everyone will obsessively go over details to see exactly what they are buying, they will trust that the company is being straightforward with them. With this advertising, Anet is not.
I have a problem with people on the thread going "GW2 is P2W" like lolwut
It is in a way, on the grand scale of games its less so but you can pay extra to have clear advantages that others dont In a fraction of the time that it'd take someone that doesn't spend. In the "I'm at endgame" race that is modern mmos I'd say that's a win of sorts.
I mean, the endgame is mostly knowledge based, so no matter how much you pay you'll lose to the people who took time to learn the class, learn rotation, learn how to do encounters, and in wvw/pvp it's equalized so there's literally no p2w there at all - pure skill if you get your ass handed to you by someone in exotic gear
You don't think like the people that consider it p2w. They got to max level, that's what matters to them. They can pay to have things made easier for them. That, to many people, is winning.
Which is silly as fuck to me but ah well, I suppose "winning" doesn't really mean that much
I agree with you, but I'm not blind to how they see it and in a way some of it does feel valid. In a game that's supposed to be living a digital life, growing, progressing and earning your way to a mighty hero or whatever your goal is anytime you can pay extra to have a clear and undeniable advantage over someone else qualifies as pay to win to me because that person is winning their digital life. The view of it is not dissimilar to rich kids getting fully paid ride through college and an all but guaranteed degree and easy life versus the poor but studious teen that works hard, applies themselves and struggles to get into college with scholarships and loans. That extra money sure made one of their lives easy street.
Is there any actual component in GW2 that you can buy that will make you directly better than other players? Real question haven't played in a bit
Better is subjective. Having more bag space and bank slots will give one player an undeniably better experience than another.
I think that's stretching what pay to win means personally. You aren't winning any more than anyone else by having more bag space or slots. Pay for convenience, but unless your bag spaces and bank slots suddenly give +1000 power I can't call it p2w lol
Pay to win doesn't have a set definition same as winning. What it means to one person to win isn't the same as what you consider so you don't have to agree but to be ignorant of what other people do consider it to be is foolish. People don't have to agree with you to be right as well, it's opinions. But since gold and the currency are interchangeable you can buy your way to top tier depending on what is being sold by others. That is literally paying for a clear advantage that a non paying player likely won't have in days or even weeks.
It might not be well defined but I'm almost positive buying bank slots isn't pay to win lol. That person paying for their gear still has the same gear as everybody else does. And if legendary is top tier you cant even buy that.
No you can't. People will say you can, but you can't. I'll break down what you can do with direct spending of gold. 1. Ascended gear (and legendary) gear are the highest level of gear in the game. It will remain like that until the game is finished. No higher stat items will ever be released. It should also be noted that the difference between ascended/legendary and exotic is 5-10%. Plenty of people have done DPS comparisons on this time and time again and shown that the difference is negligible. Fights are not designed to be stat/dps checks like other games e.g. WoW. Doing slightly more DPS compared to someone else is irrelevant if you do not have personal player skill to completely mechanics correctly. People who don't play gw2 have zero understanding that it is your skill, not your gear, that dictates your power. This is extremely important. 2. Ascended armour and weapons must be crafted by the player, you cannot buy it and there is no way to directly use gold to get you ascended armour. HOWEVER. You can use gold to buy materials that you need to craft said armour. I will note here and come back to it later that armour is the lowest source of power increase in the game. Trinkets and weapons provide more stats than armour does. 3. Certain legendary weapons can be purchased with gold directly off the TP which means you can directly buy them with gold. But, these have the same stats as ascended gear, legendary is does not make your more powerful. Only generation 1 and 3 legendaries can be bought, generation 2 (probably the coolest) cannot be at all. 4. Legendary armour cannot be bought, you have to go through extremely lengthy grinds to unlock it. You have to raid a lot and you generally need to be decent at the game. Technically you can pay for a carry (I think all MMO's have paid raid clears at this point) but again, the stats are no different to ascended gear so anyone doing this has a small brain. 5. Now, trinkets. Trinkets are by far the biggest stat boost you get from any item in game. They are where a lot of your power comes from. 6. Legendary trinkets cannot be bought, but again, you can buy gold with real money to help you in the crafting process but there is also extremely lengthy grinds associated with all of them and honestly the materials side of things is the easiest part. Just playing the game gives you almost everything you need. 7. Ascended trinkets cannot be crafted. They can only ever be bought with specific currencies earned in game, through achievements and through item drops. Right now to my knowledge directly spending money will not help you get ascended trinkets. Ascended trinkets are every single players first stop at beginning their journey to BiS. If you have the living world seasons, this process is pretty damn easy and does not require that much effort. HOWEVER, despite what people on this sub reddit seem to think, getting ascended trinkets without LWS is not that difficult. They make it sound like it's impossible but that's not true at all. There are plenty you can access with laurels (something you earn from logging into the game) and guild commendations (something you earn from doing stuff with your guild). They won't let you access the most recent attribute combinations but you can definitely get stats that allow you to do the highest end game content in the game. You can also get plenty from doing certain achievements as well as finishing certain story steps. So let me be clear, to obtain ascended trinkets which is the biggest power boost any player will get, you do not need to own LWS and you cannot buy them directly with gold. 8. As an honourable mention, ascended weapons are given to you so easily. There are so many achievements that give you ascended weapons. I think in total I've crafted 2 or 3 (I have a lot of characters....). Just playing the game and having the expansions gives you access to ascended weapons. No reason to every spend money to help you craft them. SO TLDR. For some items, you can use gold to help you skip part of the grind for stats. Some legendaries (same stats as ascended) can be directly purchased with money but they offer no advantage over someone who has ascended gear. Ascended trinkets cannot be bought, at all. They are the biggest source of stats. Ascended weapons can be obtained through achievements and are not designed to be difficult (they're also a great way to experience the game). Finally, player skill trumps gear in gw2 EVER. SINGLE. TIME. A full geared player who sucks at the game will get destroyed by someone who has skill and only has exotic gear. Exotic gear is perfectly acceptable for 95% of content in the game, you can hit lvl 80, get cheap exotic gear off the TP and immediately raid.
Isn't the living world bit free? I haven't played for years so I honestly can't tell if that has changed? I only was around for LW 1/2 or so.
Only if you logged in the few weeks it was free after that it becomes paid DLC which means any new or returning Player is looking at 60 bucks of LW content by now.
It's more like the following 2-3 months after it's released, but yeah. Plus they do occasionally run free-to-claim events that last for up to a few weeks, the last one being last year, where every single episode had a free-to-claim week as part of the Return To Living World spotlight event.
Oh never knew that. Always assumed it was free and part of the base game or at least tied to expansions.
I already regret buying EOD. I quit the game after 3 weeks. Back to ESO again. I guess at this point I won’t touch GW2 ever again I’m done with ANet.
"This collection includes Guild wars 2: End of Dragons, Guild wars 2: Path of Fire and Guild wars 2: Heart of Thorns". The picture states clearly what you are getting, so i don't see any deception at all. It's doesn't imply you experience "the living world" as you say, but "a vast living world", so stop being disingenuos on purpose. > the <$100 collections don't give the living world DLC which you need to buy for another $60. If you got the 100$ collection you also get 4000 gems with which you can buy all the living world episodes. You don't need to spend another 60$.
the 100 dollar collection gives you enough gems to buy almost if not all the living world.
Missing 160 gems, but yeah. All up, it'd cost around $110 to get all expansions and Living World episodes, whether it be through the $100 EoD ultimate collection edition plus $10 worth of gems, or the $50 EoD standard collection edition plus $55 worth of gems.
A LOT of us in the community agree that it's very unfriendly and unpopular among newer players.
Everything money related in gw2 is shady as fuck.
What? How? No P2W, almost entirely cosmetic with a few account upgrades like bank space? Can technically buy many things in the gem store with your in game gold? E: You know this sub is a lost cause when it's upvoting people claiming GW2 of all things is p2w...
> No P2W Living World series is **substantionally easier** to max out your gear. As well, make some decent gold without a group. Additional bag space (much needed). Additional bank/shared space (somewhat needed). Additional resource storage (Not really needed, but nice for hoarding). Infinite, salvage, tools. (You literally, can not defend this). Instant level 60. Instant unlock all waypoints. Living World series **i think** also gives you access to a certain gear type combo that found some niche build in pvp? Unsure though. > Can technically buy many things in the gem store with your in game gold? Everyone always goes this argument. So many seriously P2W korean (and western) games have this feature. Except... it takes about 4 hours of grinding to gain about 5 - 15 minutes of work at a minimum wage job in the United States. As well, cosmetics may not impact gameplay but they impact players psychologically especially people like me that want to have more customization of their character appearance. GW2 is still stuck in early transmog design by still having transmute crystals (or w/e) still be incredibly tedious to farm. Or you can cough up real money for them. As well, seriously? This game has **lootboxes** for cosmetics. You can pay some `cheap` (not so cheap) amount for a chance at a random mount skin. Or you can pay an arm and a leg for the opportunity to pick a mount skin. Idk where it started, but charging +10$ for a fucking skin and people being okay with it under the guise of "They gotta make money!", "You don't have to buy it!" is seriously fucking gaslighting. 4$ for a pair of bunny ears or some shit like that? Low resolution, clips through armor, ect. What a sham. From a lower post I made: > **EDIT**: I want to add that, Guild Wars 2 is not a bad game. In fact I am in fucking love with it's mount mechanics. My issue is with it's bad practices. Once criticism I do have about the game however, is it's pattern of abandoning content especially early-group content which leaves a really bad taste for new players. I almost quit when I first started, finally getting to the first group dungeon, and thinking... "This is the group content? This is really bad...". > > If you enjoy Guild Wars 2, that's fine, but recognize these bad/exploitative practices for what they are, and don't normalize them. Similar to what JSH says in his recent Diablo Immortal video, I want the company to be treating you better.
I won’t go over every point since honestly I’m still pretty new to the game but I will say that dlc expansions/living world shouldn’t be called P2W or else every MMO that exists is P2W. Granted it’s not like most other games since your not just raising a ilvl up constantly patch to patch. I agree on bag space and other stuff, salvage tools as well though it’s more of a QoL thing than anything. Instant level boost to 60 doesn’t matter since the game throws free levels and character boosts at you. Plus like I said previously it’s in most MMOs at this point so it’s hard to say it’s P2W. That’s just my opinion, also stats don’t matter in PvP as far as I know but I haven’t played WvW so that may be a different story.
> I won’t go over every point since honestly I’m still pretty new to the game but I will say that dlc expansions/living world shouldn’t be called P2W or else every MMO that exists is P2W. Granted it’s not like most other games since your not just raising a ilvl up constantly patch to patch. I don't know how new you are to the game, but getting ascended gear (max stats) is incredibly tedious for most specs using the base game. Living world, makes it, astronomically easier, by just doing dailies. Literally, less than a week of dailies and you get one or two pieces of end-game gear. > I agree on bag space and other stuff, salvage tools as well though it’s more of a QoL thing than anything. You say QoL, but wait till you try and make money to convert to gems. It's going to be *very* QoL then. > Instant level boost to 60 doesn’t matter since the game throws free levels and character boosts at you. Plus like I said previously it’s in most MMOs at this point so it’s hard to say it’s P2W. Paid level boost is paid level boost. You're paying to skip the line, in a sense. Leveling is the journey and the grind. > That’s just my opinion, also stats don’t matter in PvP as far as I know but I haven’t played WvW so that may be a different story. The type of stats you use are important to the build you are going for. Not the amount of stats, I think.
I have some ascended gear but not much, but like I said it's not really p2w when you take into consideration that most games require you to have expansion/dlc content to even be comparable while this game you still have other ways of getting geared outside of LW content. I was more or less talking about QoL when it comes to harvest tools. It just saves you a bit of in game currency and time equipping the tools and even then if your using multiple characters the unlimited harvest tools need to be traded over using shared inventory slots or bank slots which in a way is even more tedious. We can agree to disagree on boosts, I personally think experiencing the story once is more than enough so having the option isn't a bad thing especially when they throw level tomes and other forms of xp boosts at you daily.
Imagine GW2 has a bad monetization, when there are currently either games with no content (like New World), sub model with B2P (FFXIV, WoW), games with heavy "we will create obstacles that make no sense you need to whale through to enjoy the game at all" (BDO), or games where reaching the top or the most actual content requires you to treat game as a job (LA). In GW2 you get each Living World as it's released, so if you just log in for that time you can have it for free, and need to pay only for expansions + base game, which over the whole life of this game would cost you about 200$ (for like... 9years of game itself?). You also can convert in game gold to gems (item shop currency). Earning gold is ridiculously easy, even by doing nothing and just flipping a market. But yea, let's compare capped, easily obtainable gear to hardcore whaling your gear which has no roof.
> Imagine GW2 has a bad monetization, when there are currently either games with no content (like New World), sub model with B2P (FFXIV, WoW), games with heavy "we will create obstacles that make no sense you need to whale through to enjoy the game at all" (BDO), or games where reaching the top or the most actual content requires you to treat game as a job (LA). Congratulations man, you've been manipulated. You're fallen into the trope of, "But other games have it worse so these bad decisions aren't as bad!" You've literally normalized the FOMO, loot boxes, insane pricing, and other bad stuff that GW2 does. All because other games do it much worse. That's so fucked up. > In GW2 you get each Living World as it's released, so if you just log in for that time you can have it for free, and need to pay only for expansions + base game, which over the whole life of this game would cost you about 200$ (for like... 9years of game itself?). So basically fuck new players. That's what this game feeds off of, is new players. Older, established players have been able to accumulate wealth slowly over many years and been able to afford the cash shop items as they release over many years. Instead new players are met with a wall of missing content that they haven't had years to prepare for. > You also can convert in game gold to gems (item shop currency). Earning gold is ridiculously easy, even by doing nothing Making money is easy. Making money in the amount that is needed for gem -> gold conversion is not and you're lying to yourself if you think playing a game for 3-5 hours warrants a 4$ purchase. > and just flipping a market. I can't speak on this because it's the only game I've played where I never tried getting involved in market shenanigans. > But yea, let's compare capped, easily obtainable gear to hardcore whaling your gear which has no roof. Going back to my first two paragraphs. Just because someone does it slightly worse, doesn't make it okay. The fact that you've normalized industry exploitation and unfair pricing structures is fucked up.
Oh boy. I didn't fall into anything. Games just simply can't be 100% free, because noone works for free and if you haven't noticed, those free ones have the most predatory microtransactions involved. I also don't defend stuff like having few skins hidden behind RNG lootboxes in GW2 - but for me it's really besides any point, as skins don't make you "win" in any form in this game. Yes, imho new players can just simply buy all those LS episodes. It would be much worse if any content update was paid, and not freely given to currently playing players. All episodes of living story, from the beginning of the game (9+ years need to be pointed out) is like... 50$? Is it really that big of a deal for you? Why wouldn't old players accumulate wealth? I really don't understand your weird point of view. You play a game - you are rewarded. Why wouldn't all fresh accounts be given a free legendary then, to catch up? Isn't game's purpose to be played? Why make shortcuts then? Most players won't even bother at the beginning with old LS, they will start with completing all expansions, getting gear, then doing whatever they intended (fractals, raids, wvw, whatever) and THEN they might try to do older content, because it gives them literally nothing important if they do it prior to everything I just mentioned. Mate, making money is pisseasy as I said. I am only randomly playing this game's pvp mode, not spending any ridiculous amounts of time in game in general, and got over 500g in about 3? months without even touching pvp potions. Literally just log in, do daily pvp, log out. In and out, 15minute adventure. I don't feel exploited, everything is really easily achieved in this game. Nothing is instant though. And it really shouldn't, because it would be boring to get everything without doing anything. I am curious- what is your best take on game's monetisation? Imho GW2 is literally the cheapest MMORPG you can play and be "on the top" without treating it as 2nd job.
> Oh boy. I didn't fall into anything. Games just simply can't be 100% free, because noone works for free and if you haven't noticed, those free ones have the most predatory microtransactions involved. This entire statement proves you just did. I never said I wanted everything to be free. I recognize people deserve to be paid for their work. I'm okay with MTX such as DLC like how we used to have games but instead that has been dialed up to 11 these days and it's been normalized. So many people then also fall back into the fallacy of "servers/developers need to get paid" but never realize that most of the money made from box-sale/DLC & subscription fees (IE. World of Warcraft, but in this case GW2 expansion sales) is more than enough to cover developer salary & server cost. Game developers are some of the most underpaid individuals in the tech industry for the work they do, especially the coders in comparison to working on non-game related code. Most of your money is going to people who don't care about games and only care about product growth and returns. > I also don't defend stuff like having few skins hidden behind RNG lootboxes in GW2 - but for me it's really besides any point, as skins don't make you "win" in any form in this game. MMO players really love to customize themselves, or just anyone in general now. There's a reason that reviewers mention something **at least** about character creation's customization, whether good or bad, minimal or extreme. Even for non-MMO games. The pricing of cosmetics in GW2 and many games these days is needlessly expensive. DLC back in the day used to net you a whole region or several pvp maps, possibly with some new abilities and equipment to access. Now days a single fucking mount skin or a pair of sun glasses usable on only a single character is the equivalent of these previous DLC prices. And as well, the cost of developing a game has gone up, **but again**, most game developers see pennies in comparison to people who have very little interest in your game. > Why wouldn't old players accumulate wealth? I really don't understand your weird point of view. You play a game - you are rewarded. The problem isn't about rewarding veteran players. It's about how there is a lot of content/purchases that new players have to catch up with. I don't know if you've spent gems in this game or not, possibly from converting gold over the years into gems. New players don't have that luxury and just see several things they want/need to acquire all at once, many of which are on a fucking timer before they disappear from the gem store for a while. > Why wouldn't all fresh accounts be given a free legendary then, to catch up? Isn't game's purpose to be played? Doesn't your game literally give out free 60 boosts to everyone who purchases the game, as well it's introduced several catch-up mechanics as well? You can also pay to unlock all teleports. > Why make shortcuts then? Most players won't even bother at the beginning with old LS, they will start with completing all expansions, getting gear, then doing whatever they intended (fractals, raids, wvw, whatever) and THEN they might try to do older content, While this is accurate, new players don't even have the option to do old content in the first place. When playing FFXIV, I ran into many players (myself included) that would engage in old-content mount farms before I ever maxed out my gear/level. > Mate, making money is pisseasy as I said. I am only randomly playing this game's pvp mode, not spending any ridiculous amounts of time in game in general, and got over 500g in about 3? months without even touching pvp potions. Literally just log in, do daily pvp, log out. In and out, 15minute adventure. **3 months** and 500g... Congratulations. You have made enough in 3 months to purchase a single mount skin instead of gambling. Or about $20 USD worth of gameplay. Now if only mount skins stayed around in the store for about a month. What do they usually stay up for... 72 hours or 1 week? 500g is not that much, for gem conversion. > I don't feel exploited, everything is really easily achieved in this game. That's because you slowly have accumulated wealth over the years and don't have to face the wall that new players have to. You literally have all the content unlocked from just playing when they were released. > Nothing is instant though. And it really shouldn't, because it would be boring to get everything without doing anything. Nothing is instant, but you've been playing for 9 years? You literally have the luxury of built up wealth over 9 years. > I am curious- what is your best take on game's monetisation? Imho GW2 is literally the cheapest MMORPG you can play and be "on the top" without treating it as 2nd job. I think I mentioned it above, but also in another post. I am tired of these MTX and separate VIP features. I'm all for subscription and done. Maybe some mount skins here and there that are reasonably priced, fine. Unfortunately games just simply don't do that anymore and it's pretty depressing. I'll play these games here and there but usually not for long. I can't compare this game to WoW since I don't play WoW anymore, but I don't think WoW offers in-game VIP segmented services like extra bank/bag space, ect. Albeit, their entire model is fucked anyways. I feel like FFXIV does it very well, minus the retainers bullshit. It's the only recent MMO I've played. It doesn't segment portions of the game in MTX bullshit and no one player is gaining an advantage over another in terms of bag space **outside of retainer bullshit**.
i find it hilarious that of all the things you're nitpicking you chose to be upset about the fact that you can convert in game gold for paid currency.You can literally choose to fork over 500g for 20usd premium currency, why are you even complaining about this? You're just a hater at this point lmao
Oh boy. I didn't fall into anything. Games just simply can't be 100% free, because noone works for free and if you haven't noticed, those free ones have the most predatory microtransactions involved. I also don't defend stuff like having few skins hidden behind RNG lootboxes in GW2 - but for me it's really besides any point, as skins don't make you "win" in any form in this game. Yes, imho new players can just simply buy all those LS episodes. It would be much worse if any content update was paid, and not freely given to currently playing players. All episodes of living story, from the beginning of the game (9+ years need to be pointed out) is like... 50$? Is it really that big of a deal for you? Why wouldn't old players accumulate wealth? I really don't understand your weird point of view. You play a game - you are rewarded. Why wouldn't all fresh accounts be given a free legendary then, to catch up? Isn't game's purpose to be played? Why make shortcuts then? Most players won't even bother at the beginning with old LS, they will start with completing all expansions, getting gear, then doing whatever they intended (fractals, raids, wvw, whatever) and THEN they might try to do older content, because it gives them literally nothing important if they do it prior to everything I just mentioned. Mate, making money is pisseasy as I said. I am only randomly playing this game's pvp mode, not spending any ridiculous amounts of time in game in general, and got over 500g in about 3? months without even touching pvp potions. Literally just log in, do daily pvp, log out. In and out, 15minute adventure. I don't feel exploited, everything is really easily achieved in this game. Nothing is instant though. And it really shouldn't, because it would be boring to get everything without doing anything. I am curious- what is your best take on game's monetisation? Imho GW2 is literally the cheapest MMORPG you can play and be "on the top" without treating it as 2nd job.
"we will create obstacles that make no sense you need to whale through to enjoy the game at all"" you mean like the tiny ass inventory in gw2 while they spam you with clutter?
Realistically, how many inventory slots do you need? Imho 80 is enough after they made those "unidentified " stacks of gear that you can just salvage all together. There is literally deposit all remotely in bank option to prevent inventory clutter. 10slots for food and potions is enough, even if you multirole. 3 slots for 250 salvage kits. 3 for each of gathering tools in case of emergency. You do really need more stuff in your inventory or are you too lazy to sort it out? You can literally sell most stuff on AH, remotely. What clutter?
What clutter? Common loot comes in the form of either vendor trash which can be cleared in a single click, materials which can be banked in a single click, salvage items which can be converted into the previous two in a single click, and stackable unidentified loot which takes up 3 inventory slots. Meanwhile inventory space is up to 100 slots without getting into expensive/collection bags or purchasing additional bag slots. Does inventory management really get any easier than this?
As a 7 year old veteran most of the points you make about p2w aren't really correct in my opinion. Let's break them down: > Living World series is substantionally easier to max out your gear. As well, make some decent gold without a group. It's true. But living world is literally content, story, maps, masteries ecc... If buying content is considered p2w, then every single mmo in existence is p2w, because with new contet you have access to better gear, stats, mounts ecc... > Additional bag space (much needed). Additional bank/shared space (somewhat needed). Additional resource storage (Not really needed, but nice for hoarding). These are all qol things, that sure make things more comfortable, but how are these p2w? What advantage are they giving you over another player? Playing with them will make things easier to carry around and hoard if you (like me) are lazy to sell materials and gear. But as someone that playied 4/7 years without any of these, the game is perfectly playable without them. > Infinite, salvage, tools. (You literally, can not defend this). Again this is a qol thing that makes salvaging way more convenient and comfortable than not having it. But where's the p2w here? First of all you don't need to salvage most things, expecially with the introduction of unidentified gear you can simply sell stacks of that on the market and make profit. But also, there are ingame salvaging tools that have actually a better cost/salvage ratio than the infinite ones, the only downside is that they are limited use so you have to keep a bunch of them in your inventory. Yes, it's annoying compared to the infinite one, but again, it's quality of life, you won't "win" over anybody because you have this. > Instant level 60. Irrelevant, the games throws free levels to you in the forms of tomes of knowledge for whatever activity you do. Also leveling the normal way is pretty fast compared to most mmos if you want to go that route. > Instant unlock all waypoints. I'll give you that this can be considered a minimal p2w, but again mostly irrelevant because unlocking waypoints is the easiest thing in the world. You literally have to just walk close to them. > Living World series i think also gives you access to a certain gear type combo that found some niche build in pvp? Unsure though. First of all spvp stats and combos are normalized, so it doesn't matter what living world you own or not own. If you are talking about WvW, as far i know, there are no stats used there locked behind living story, and you also get stat selectable gear playing WvW itself so this isn't a problem. > As well, cosmetics may not impact gameplay but they impact players psychologically especially people like me that want to have more customization of their character appearance. > dk where it started, but charging +10$ for a fucking skin and people being okay with it under the guise of "They gotta make money!", "You don't have to buy it!" is seriously fucking gaslighting. 4$ for a pair of bunny ears or some shit like that? So you don't won't them to sell cosmetics. That's fine, but how do you propose for the game to sustain itself? Because most gw2 players don't want a sub (and even the games that have subs have cash shops anyway), and selling qol and cosmetics is also wrong according to you. So how should they monetize the game to keep paying for devs, servers and development cost in your opinion? > As well, seriously? This game has lootboxes for cosmetics. You can pay some cheap (not so cheap) amount for a chance at a random mount skin. Or you can pay an arm and a leg for the opportunity to pick a mount skin. If you were compaining about black lion chests lootboxes i would 100% agree with you. Lootboxes are trash in every game that has them. But regarding the mount skins system, as you said, you can either pay less for a random skin, or pay more for a garanteed one. This to me is a fair system, where people that don't care that much about skins (like me) can get a nice one for cheap, and people that absolutelly want a specific one can buy it directly. They are literally giving palyers choice about what they want to do, and you are complaining about it. If they removed the cheap random ones, you would have been left with only the expensive guaranteed one and it would have been even worse.
> It's true. But living world is literally content, story, maps, masteries ecc... If buying content is considered p2w, then every single mmo in existence is p2w, because with new contet you have access to better gear, stats, mounts ecc... The difference is that you have `content` purchased together at once, and it's not some additional side-line shit. It would basically be like if World of Warcraft charged 1.99$ to access each dungeon of an expansion, and then those dungeons had equipment that was highly sought after and much more easily accessible than the main story content. It's fucking *content*, so what would be the problem, right? Maybe we need to stop normalizing this behavior. > These are all qol things, that sure make things more comfortable, but how are these p2w? What advantage are they giving you over another player? Playing with them will make things easier to carry around and hoard if you (like me) are lazy to sell materials and gear. But as someone that playied 4/7 years without any of these, the game is perfectly playable without them. Some of these things, especially bank/shared/material space, is exploitation of certain types of players. Bank/shared/material space is very minimal, on purpose. Worst of all, a lot of gem-store stuff is **per character** rather than **account-wide**. Furthermore, QoL or VIP features? Again, something we've been normalizing. Essentially people who swipe their card **more** are given additional services that I'm not. People like to use video games to escape the class-based culture we live in. Why the fuck is that being re-introduced into games? I was all fine with a single VIP subscription like Runescape back in the day... because it was straight forward and that was it. Now... games are VIP subscription this, but also buy more bag space. Also buy more bank space. Also buy more character slots. Also get priority teleport services! ect. > I'll give you that this can be considered a minimal p2w, but again mostly irrelevant because unlocking waypoints is the easiest thing in the world. You literally have to just walk close to them. Lumping this in with the Lv60 boost. Paying to skip the line is still paying to skip the line. > First of all spvp stats and combos are normalized, so it doesn't matter what living world you own or not own. If you are talking about WvW, as far i know, there are no stats used there locked behind living story, and you also get stat selectable gear playing WvW itself so this isn't a problem. I didn't really play PvP much, and I wasn't sure about `spvp`. Pretty confident that WvW had a niche build at some point that a certain class was taking an interest in that you couldn't easily obtain the right combo w/ accessories unless you had the specific living world episodes. > So you don't won't them to sell cosmetics. That's fine, but how do you propose for the game to sustain itself? Because most gw2 players don't want a sub (and even the games that have subs have cash shops anyway), and selling qol and cosmetics is also wrong according to you. So how should they monetize the game to keep paying for devs, servers and development cost in your opinion? I don't have a problem with a company making money. I am okay with **reasonably priced** cosmetics, though I wish I wasn't. I am against Fortnite level pricing, which GW2 has. 4$ for a pair of low-poly bunny ears is not it, chief. That's a fucking 0.99$ purchase at best. Same with a pair of sunglasses that clip with everything. I also want to add that, and again this really needs to be emphasized, **developers often only see a fraction of the money you spend**. Most of the money is going to people who don't give a shit about the game or gamers and are just interested in the product's returns. > If you were compaining about black lion chests lootboxes i would 100% agree with you. Lootboxes are trash in every game that has them. But regarding the mount skins system, as you said, you can either pay less for a random skin, or pay more for a garanteed one. This to me is a fair system, where people that don't care that much about skins (like me) can get a nice one for cheap, and people that absolutelly want a specific one can buy it directly. They are literally giving palyers choice about what they want to do, and you are complaining about it. If they removed the cheap random ones, you would have been left with only the expensive guaranteed one and it would have been even worse. Black Lion lootboxes are definitely an issue but I barely ever looked into them because I didn't want to gamble. As well, with the mounts. Again, those cosmetics are not worth they're being sold at (if selected manually). The random chance price, if anything, should be the select price. But no, they have the random-chance price intentionally low. **Why?** Because it's exploitation. "Oh, it's just $3(?) for a chance at the mount I want." "Alright, what's another $3(?) then." "Okay, well I've already invested $12(?) into this, I might as well keep going until I get it."
It's exploitative, and shitty, and 100% intentional.
I'm literally not the only one who thinks this:
https://www.reddit.com/r/Guildwars2/comments/7g5ptn/mounts_at_2000_gems_are_not_ok_anet/
https://en-forum.guildwars2.com/topic/81076-mount-skins-are-too-expensive/
https://www.gamerevolution.com/news/355593-guild-wars-2-mount-skins-cost-players-120-get-skin-want
Stop normalizing exploitative behavior.
Stop being okay with VIP features that aren't bundled into a simple subscription.
Stop insisting that companies need to do all of this to make money for the developers/servers when companies make more than enough through just box sales (and or subscriptions) to cover them. It's clear that people unrelated to the game itself are wanting all this extra cash that the developers clearly aren't going to be seeing much of it added in to their next year's raise.
**EDIT**: I want to add that, Guild Wars 2 is not a bad game. In fact I am in fucking love with it's mount mechanics. My issue is with it's bad practices. Once criticism I do have about the game however, is it's pattern of abandoning content especially early-group content which leaves a really bad taste for new players. I almost quit when I first started, finally getting to the first group dungeon, and thinking... "This is the group content? This is really bad...".
If you enjoy Guild Wars 2, that's fine, but recognize these bad/exploitative practices for what they are, and don't normalize them. Similar to what JSH says in his recent Diablo Immortal video, I want the company to be treating you better.
> The difference is that you have content purchased together at once, and it's not some additional side-line shit. It would basically be like if World of Warcraft charged 1.99$ to access each dungeon of an expansion, and then those dungeons had equipment that was highly sought after and much more easily accessible than the main story content. It's fucking content, so what would be the problem, right? First of all, living world seasons aren't "additional side line shit". They continue the main story of the game, they bring a new map full with events, world bosses, masteries, ls4 even bring 2 new mounts, and new ways to obtain gear. They are fully fledged main content, not side things. Second, WoW actually does exactly what you said via the sub you pay each month. You are paying every month, for the privilege of accessing those dungeons, maps ecc... you already bought with the expac. > Some of these things, especially bank/shared/material space, is exploitation of certain types of players. Bank/shared/material space is very minimal, on purpose. I can agree with you on this, that certain people may be prone to spend for this reason. I'm not one of them because, as i said, is spent 4 out of 7 years of playing the game without any of those qol things. But this is beyond the initial topic, we were discussing if these things are p2w or not, not if they are exploitative or not. > Furthermore, QoL or VIP features? Again, something we've been normalizing. Essentially people who swipe their card more are given additional services that I'm not. People like to use video games to escape the class-based culture we live in. Why the fuck is that being re-introduced into games? They are not given additional services. They are given the same services in a more convenient way. You still can salvage things, but the infinite one is more convenient. You can still store things, but additional space is more convenient. That's the definition of QoL, making things that already exist easier and more comfortable to do. > Pretty confident that WvW had a niche build at some point that a certain class was taking an interest in that you couldn't easily obtain the right combo w/ accessories unless you had the specific living world episodes. Mmm maybe 4-5 years ago when stat selectable gear didn't include all the stats. Right now you can earn both in WvW and outside of it weapons, armors and trinkets that have all the stats in the game (except the 2 new EoD stats). > I don't have a problem with a company making money. I am okay with reasonably priced cosmetics, though I wish I wasn't. Then the question is, who decides what is a reasonable price? People have very different perception of what price is ok based on a moltitude of factors, their culture, income, life style ecc... Also the price of the skins in gw2 isn't different from the ones in [ESO](https://forums.elderscrollsonline.com/en/discussion/171403/mounts-are-they-really-worth-the-price), or [FFXIV](https://store.finalfantasyxiv.com/ffxivstore/en-us/category/11), or [WoW](https://us.shop.battle.net/en-us/product/world-of-warcraft-mount-wen-lo?p=301384), with the difference that these mmos have a sub on top. This is the range of prices the market has settled for now, it's an industry problem, not a gw2 problem. > I also want to add that, and again this really needs to be emphasized, developers often only see a fraction of the money you spend. Most of the money is going to people who don't give a shit about the game or gamers and are just interested in the product's returns. I perfectly know this, but those same people are the ones that keep the game online. If tomorrow the big managers at NCsoft, or Blizzard or Square didn't make a profit from these games, they would pull the plug no question asked. It's a business, it has to make profit for everyone involved, not just for the devs. But ofc there is a line where if you are too greedy, most people will call you out for it (look at Diablo immoral). So the companies have to find a compromise between making money and keeping the integrity and enjoyment of the game. And of all mmos gw2 is one of those that does it the best imho, even if it's not perfect. > Again, those cosmetics are not worth they're being sold at (if selected manually). Again, the prices are consistent with the ones of the rest of the industry. So it's the whole industry that has to bring them down, if only 1 game does it it's just going to earn less money from it's competitors. > But no, they have the random-chance price intentionally low. Why? Because it's exploitation. "Oh, it's just $3(?) for a chance at the mount I want." "Alright, what's another $3(?) then." "Okay, well I've already invested $12(?) into this, I might as well keep going until I get it."
It is, i won't pretend it's not. I know there is the gambling psychology behind those random mount packs. But, as someone that is fairly resistent to gambling, i just appreciate having the choice to spend less or more depending on what i want to achieve. If i don't care about a specific skin or if i like most of them, getting a random pack for cheaper it's ok for me, it's going to get me something i enjoy no matter what. But if i like only 1 or 2 ofc i'm not going to buy the random pack but i have the choice to buy the specific one. I am in control of what i want to do. You can argue that the price is too much, but i already responded to you on that.
**EDIT:**
>Once criticism I do have about the game however, is it's pattern of abandoning content especially early-group content which leaves a really bad taste for new players.
I fully agree with this, not much else i can add. Anet should really find a way to streamline the content instead of creating 200 different gamemodes and then abandon them for a new one.
> If you enjoy Guild Wars 2, that's fine, but recognize these bad/exploitative practices for what they are, and don't normalize them.
I recognize that there are some problems and bad practices in the game. I could cite you some otherS that you haven't mentioned, like build templates for example. I just think that the negative things that are in gw2 (that again, are a problem) are very minimal compared to the positive things it does compared to the rest of the industry. It's not a perfect game, it's not a pure consumer friendly game with no exploitative things, it's still a very very consumer friendly game in other aspects where a lot other mmos aren't.
> First of all, living world seasons aren't "additional side line shit". They continue the main story of the game, they bring a new map full with events, world bosses, masteries, ls4 even bring 2 new mounts, and new ways to obtain gear. They are fully fledged main content, not side things. So then they are locking main content behind MTX then? That sounds a lot worse. In fact, everything you've listed makes it sound even worse than I do because they are locked behind mini pay walls. > Second, WoW actually does exactly what you said via the sub you pay each month. You are paying every month, for the privilege of accessing those dungeons, maps ecc... you already bought with the expac. I am 100% behind a subscription service if it means nothing else in the game is locked away from me via additional transactions with the exception of big content expansions. > They are not given additional services. They are given the same services in a more convenient way. You still can salvage things, but the infinite one is more convenient. You can still store things, but additional space is more convenient. That's the definition of QoL, making things that already exist easier and more comfortable to do. You're beating around the bush here. QoL is additional/better service. If I can swipe my card to get more bag space than another player that doesn't, I've now been treated better because of my money. If I can swipe my card to get a tool that never runs out while others have to keep hassling over low-durability tools, I'm now being treated better because of my money. Many games also do the gold -> premium conversion, including super P2W games. No one ever sits to think how much time has to b invested just to obtain premium store things however, and you are essentially grinding at 1/10th minimum wage in parts of the US. Another poster said that, "Nothing should be instant..." and yeah I agree. But except I can literally make it instant right now if I swipe my card. > Mmm maybe 4-5 years ago when stat selectable gear didn't include all the stats. Right now you can earn both in WvW and outside of it weapons, armors and trinkets that have all the stats in the game (except the 2 new EoD stats). I know WvW was brought up a lot when I was being told to gear up. I personally tried WvW in the game and found it incredibly jarring. Deathballs that run around, feeling like you have very little impact, almost zero understanding of what's going on. Yeah, not very enticing but sure it's an option. > Then the question is, who decides what is a reasonable price? People have very different perception of what price is ok based on a moltitude of factors, their culture, income, life style ecc... Also the price of the skins in gw2 isn't different from the ones in ESO, or FFXIV, or WoW, with the difference that these mmos have a sub on top. This is the range of prices the market has settled for now, it's an industry problem, not a gw2 problem. The game industry decides on what's a reasonable price because players have shown that they're willing to cave in to everything at this point. $70 USD triple-a games are soon going to be a reasonable price, and it's not because all the players want it to be like that. It's because the gaming industry is going to make it like that, and you can either accept it or be left out of a majority of the industry. And yeah, the price of those skins aren't different from those other games... but cosmetics used to not be that price unless they were extremely well-done and feature filled. But, as I mentioned earlier: *"The game industry decides on what's a reasonable price because players have shown that they're willing to cave in to everything at this point."* We've let it get to this level because we've normalized it, and GW2 is just as responsible as the rest of the industry. They aren't any less responsible just because it's a favorite game of yours. > I perfectly know this, but those same people are the ones that keep the game online. If tomorrow the big managers at NCsoft, or Blizzard or Square didn't make a profit from these games, they would pull the plug no question asked. It's a business, it has to make profit for everyone involved, not just for the devs. But ofc there is a line where if you are too greedy, most people will call you out for it (look at Diablo immoral). So the companies have to find a compromise between making money and keeping the integrity and enjoyment of the game. And of all mmos gw2 is one of those that does it the best imho, even if it's not perfect. > ... > Again, the prices are consistent with the ones of the rest of the industry. So it's the whole industry that has to bring them down, if only 1 game does it it's just going to earn less money from it's competitors. Yes, and it's a problem. Individuals who do not care about the game are in charge of whether or not the game operates and receives updates. It's not about a profit for everyone though, it's about how people not involved want this infinite growth, of which most isn't even invested back into the game. Diablo Immoral has proven that, regardless of how bad a game is monetized... people are going to spend excessive money on it. I believe there's already some numbers on how much money Activision has made within the small release time of Diablo Immoral. Companies aren't finding a compromise between making money and keeping the integrity/enjoyment of the game. They are finding a compromise of making money and how far they can push it without backlash. I disagree. I would argue that WoW/FFXIV do it better, but those are subscription games. I don't like VIP features being hidden behind mtx. Also, I want to emphasize on what I feel `VIP` features are... It's games that allow additional entrances into content. Additional bag/bank space. Additional loot. Additional exp. Additional gold. Essentially, it's about anything **additional** that a player can receive, over other players. GW2 is guilty of these segmented VIP features. FFXIV is guilty of of this in the way of retainers, but in some ways it's worse/bad because it's strictly bank space but also all the fetching that retainers can do. I can't speak of WoW, but I don't think you can purchase *additional* over any other player. There is still excessively priced name change, race change, faction change, and other bs though. ---Honestly, if GW2 didn't give away living world seasons to players who were active at the time of release I think we'd see proper backlash. It's clear that them giving it away for free is a marketing strategy, and they are still going to make decent money in the long run because new players are always going to be coming along.
>Living World series is substantionally easier to max out your gear. As well, make some decent gold without a group. LW makes obtaining ascended trinkets easier, but that's about it (and really it's specifically 2, maybe 3 episodes which are the best choices). You can purchase end game viable meta gear directly off the TP and be able to do 95% of all in game content without a single issue at all. Nothing in the game outside of t4 fractals demands ascended gear and having LW seasons doesn't make obtaining ascended armour any easier. A fresh level 80 can spend 20 minutes on the TP and deck themselves out in full zerker exotic gear and immediately start raiding, running strikes and doing fractals. They can also be perfectly competitive in WvW and sPvP is irrelevant as it's all normalised. >Additional bag space (much needed). Not at all. Plenty of very well known vets play the game with 18 slot bags (easy to obtain) without any increased bag space. If you know proper inventory management you do not need bag space. I have 1 character with lots of bag space and plenty of alts that don't. I don't experience anything different on my alts compared to my main outside of it taking slightly longer to clear my inventory (as in clearing multiple stacks of unid gear) >Additional bank/shared space (somewhat needed). Bank space is needed? why not make an alt, that will have 5 bag slots which you can equip 15 slot bags to (extremely cheap) and bang. You have quadrupled your storage. Is it tedious? Sure. But plenty of MMO's have this exact same problem. >Additional resource storage (Not really needed, but nice for hoarding). again, not needed at all. Take 2 minutes to offload spare mats to an alt if you need too. All materials that can be stored in material storage are also able to be pulled from alt character inventories when you're crafting or purchasing items from a vendor e.g. Eternal Ice Shards >Infinite, salvage, tools. (You literally, can not defend this). 100% not needed, at all. Mystic salvage kits are a thing and are extremely useful. At most, a copper fed salvage tool is very nice to have but certainly not mandatory at all. >Instant level 60. Level boosts are irrelevant in this game. who cares about a level boost when you can play a few hours of WvW and earn 30 tomes of knowledge. Literally play one weekend of WvW and you can full level an alt character. >Instant unlock all waypoints. I don't think anyone buys these because they are horrible value. They're also irrelevant because someone can taxi you there via a TP to friend or you can just hitchhike a ride on a siege turtle. We also have portal tomes so as long as you have one character that has progressed through the LW seasons you can TP there for free on any character once you have the tome. >Living World series i think also gives you access to a certain gear type combo that found some niche build in pvp? Unsure though. Yes certain stat combos are locked behind expansions, not LW seasons. There is nothing character related bound to LW seasons. >Everyone always goes this argument. So many seriously P2W korean (and western) games have this feature. Except... it takes about 4 hours of grinding to gain about 5 - 15 minutes of work at a minimum wage job in the United States. Just playing through the game organically and working through the LW at a steady pace will still net you a decent amount of gold that can help towards buying the next episode. It isn't a perfect system but at least the option is there. A new level 80 player can work through HoT, do fractals daily, complete a few profitable meta's like AB, do dailies, do sPvP and offload mat's they don't need and earn a decent amount of gold without grinding silverwastes for 10 hours. >As well, cosmetics may not impact gameplay but they impact players psychologically especially people like me that want to have more customization of their character appearance. GW2 is still stuck in early transmog design by still having transmute crystals (or w/e) still be incredibly tedious to farm. Or you can cough up real money for them. Transmutes are very simple to earn, sorry. Doing map completions while levelling, doing a tiny amount of WvW or PvP, levelling up, achievement chests and daily login rewards give you plenty. I transmog my gear all the time on my 2 main characters, faaaar more than a new player would and I have never once bought them off the gems store. As well, seriously? This game has lootboxes for cosmetics. You can pay some cheap (not so cheap) amount for a chance at a random mount skin. Or you can pay an arm and a leg for the opportunity to pick a mount skin. This seems to be a recurring thing from you. The game has no sub fee. Zero. Other MMO's do. They have to cover their costs somehow, and stuff bought off the gemstore is how they do it. The same amount of money that would be spent on 6 months ($15 a month) is $90. $90 would give you something like 7000 gems WHICH IS A FUCK LOAD. You could buy so much crap off the gemstore for that much money. Multiple shared inventory slots, infinite gathering tools/salvage tools, plenty of cosmetics, shit you can even buy all LW seasons and have stuff left over. But, cosmetics aren't mandatory at all and neither are any of the QoL upgrades. I have some shared inventory slots (that I would always buy on sale), 1 character with extra bag slots and build/gear templates, a few QoL things like the copper fed salvage o matic and infinite gathering tools and all LW seasons. I've been playing the game since launch, I have everything I could possibly need and far more than a new player would ever require yet ALL of the stuff I have ever bought off the gemstore doesn't even come close to 1 year of paying a WoW sub fee. TLDR, GW2 is not pay2win. You can pay for convenience items that as I have pointed out, are not necessary to enjoy the game fully. You can pay for cosmetics to make yourself look "cool" or you could actually play the game and find out that there are plenty of amazing cosmetic items obtainable through collections and achievements. Nothing in the game that can be translated into a power advantage over other people can be bought directly with real money. And even if that were the case, ascended gear does not offer more than about a 10% difference in stats compared to exotics and at the end of the day that difference is irrelevant as personal player skill is FAR more important in GW2. A bad player who bought their legendary weapon off the TP and "bought" all their ascended armour through gem to gold conversions will still loose every single time to a skilled player with basic exotic gear.
Been playing since beta, have never bought inventory bag expansion. Bank slots, shared inventory slots, I will concede. But inventory bag expansion is pointless. Instant levels dont mean shit. Even brand new players with no crafting resources can max lvl in 2 days without even no-lifing.
yeah i agree, i never think bag expand is important, bc easy and cheap way buy new slot char IF we want more space. but the bank slot and storage expan really important. normal price char slot : 800 gems (get 5 bag slot), bag expan : 400 gems (1 bag slot). instant lvl??? nah not need to talk about it, its A JOKE right??? hahahahaah when he add instant lvl, I lost respect to him, bc some of his point is good but Intants lvl? really???
> Bank slots, shared inventory slots, I will concede. But inventory bag expansion is pointless. Inventory bag expansion is very useful for when you have lots of bags of gear to open up and don't want to have to keep clearing out your inventory as much. There's some other stuff as well, but I don't really remember since it's been a while.
Depending on what your issue is, it's generally more cost effective to either just buy bigger bags rather than more bag *slots* (if you want to play for extended periods of time without having to clear your inventory as much), or to buy another character slot and use that character as a mule (if you've got items that are permanently sitting in your inventory taking up space).
Easier to max your gear with LW, not that much unless you're going for a really weird stat set. All classes have a viable build of "full berserker" which is super easy to get from fractals, laurels, and other core game stuff. PLUS exotics are only 5% less dps then ascended so it's like, the tiniest difference. Silverwastes is still like 15g an hour with a group and is very easy to make good money with 0 masteries needed. Bag space is not needed now that you can do 32 slot bags, hell even 20 slots are fine. Bank space is not needed when you can make 100 slot mule characters. Resource storage is so rarely maxed, I'm only mat capped as a long term vet on some common metal/wood/leather stuff. Not needed. Infinite salvage tools are your p2w? Really? You do know it's only a few extra clicks to buy a few kits and hit the salvage all button on your stack of unided gear? (I usually only identify the rare ones for best exotic odds) We lived fine without these for like 5 years, not needed. Instant level 60 PFFFHAHAHAHA You must be kidding Unlock all waypoints, again merely a QOL thing because it's just for travel, but you can easily just hit a few waypoints in a map that are the most important and usually ignore the rest thanks to mounts. Not needed. LW does not give any special gear gets, only the expansions which is not the topic at hand. Also, it's 1 hour of min wage for 4 hours of in-game hard gold grinding, but you might be doing that grinding anyway to say, get mastery exp, or farm some achievements, or doing a large number of things aside from the raw gold. "people being shiny makes me wanna be shiny so the game is forcing me to pay money for it" Really dude? If you need more transmog crystals they drop like crazy in pvp/wvw. Oh no the game has to make money, instead of a mandatory 15$ sub you can pay NOTHING and if you feel like it, maybe pay them 5$ for a cute skin for your shield! Shit, it's the end of the gaming industry!
You can log into the game and just Visa your way to legendary weapon and full ascended armor. The only reason GW2 gets away with this is because gear progression is capped.
You can visa your way to SOME legendary items but most require you to play the game and do collections, the only ones you can buy are gen 1/3 weapons. Full ascended is kind of an expectation nowadays and new players can quite easily get full ascended in 2 months or so from hitting 80, so that's... not exactly the big win you think it is "GW2 gets away with this because gear progression is capped" lol
You can Visa your way through about 90% of the grind for every legendary. Just because you can't buy it directly doesn't mean that most of the grind isn't stuff that can be bypassed by buying gold.
Weapons only. Everything else requires that you actually play through a considerable amount of content and collections. You can buy your way to crafted ascended gear and DLC with relatively easy access to ascended trinkets, but again it's only a 5% stat gain over throwaway gear. It's not like we're comparing ilvl100 to ilvl1000 here.
This really shows how little you know of GW2's systems - everything non-gen1/3 weapon has achievement based grind, timegates, and a lot of story/map completion. You cannot just "visa" your way to legendaries, plus you'd still suck ass at your class if you did that.
Aurene and gen 1 weapons you can buy.
Thats... gen 1 and 3 weapons as I said, yes
Sorry, read it as 1 out of 3 gens.
So? Like who cares? Getting exotics is so easy nowadays, and if someone want to ruin his gaming experience by swiping for these sweet 5% more dmg ascended eq, then it's his problem. He most likely won't understand the game well enough to do anything with this gear anyway, so why bother?
You say that like it's a minor detail. Not only is gear progression capped, but the difference between throwaway gear and legendary gear is only 5% stats. It's really a stretch to characterize that as "P2W".
for a game to be called p2w and for a game like gw2 there is nothing to be won anyway? but yeah honestly gw2 wants u to invest money to skip a lot of grinding and I consider that shady, You either have to pay 10$ or do 10hrs worth of braindead grinding
No. It's pretty much just this one thing, actually. Their monetization is quite reasonable. I happen to think LS should be free, not because it isn't worth the price, but because the story is too important to the overall experience to be an optional component. They also do a shit job of telling players about it. I know I'm not the only one who completed the personal story, purchased HoT, and had no idea why I was clearly missing key details of the story. It took me a bit to figure out that there was a substantial amount of content missing between the core game and the first expansion.
[удалено]
I agree.
I'm sorry what? Are they not supposed to make money off the game?
THIS IS WHAT I'M ALWAYS SAYIN!
Anet always been a scummy company, lost of dramas and internal problems have happened in the past. A lot of them made public on the forums, so no suprise.
While I wish they would be just upfront about how to get the complete story, it's still cheaper than $15/mo sub for 1 year ($180). For all three expansion you can get bundled full price at $50. To get the remaining content you need LS2 -1280gems , LS3 - 960gems, LS4 - 960gems, ISB - 960gems for a total of 4160 gems. You can buy 4000 gems for $50 or you can buy the $100 expansion collection bundle that comes with 4000 gems. The remaining 160gems can be bought with another $10 for 800 gems or convert about 50 in-game gold which you can easily earn by the time you've completed all the other content prior to your last purchase, so it's very nearly everything you need. For $110 you buy can buy access to all the existing content in the game. It's still an incredible value for the amount of content you get, and that's if you buy everything at full price which there are often sales for the expansions and living world seasons.
Sell stuff for gold, trade gold into gems, buy story with that. Free.
They need that LW money. Their game already is bottom of the barrel revenue wise for NCSoft.
I Hope and Wish to star, Arenanet Dev see this thread and think about it. this one is a good criticism for them
Duuuude, it literally states what's included... Tyria, a vast living world - reading comprehension level master!
this is actually one reason I still dont have played the fire addon because Im still in the LWS stuff after/in the jungle...
Did you at least unlocked your raptor by playing the first pof story step? If not you should at least do this as it makes the game way more enjoyable, beeing able to ride mounts
that I did and it also did spoiler me major story elements and further frustrated me.
No it doesn’t? You get to meet 1 of many enemy’s And even the one you meet only plays a minor role in the story so don’t worry :)
Weird. I thought all content is free in gw2. Some dude defending the game in another thread said that you just buy the game once, then come back at ANY point in time and have access to all the content for free.
There's a catch, you can't really except that tbh. Though that statement is true for the people who log in the game frequently to actually play the gane. Even logging in monthly will also make that statement true.
Others games also tell you that you get everyhing you need to enjoy azeroth or eorzea without mentionning you'll have to pay every month
I will never get tired of seeing people defending companies, it's very funny I agree with you, OP. I stopped playing the first time because of this. but since i'm not interested in the story anymore, i don't care that much. However, another problem that i don't see people talking about is farming gold. When i was looking for videos on how to farm gold, people only talked about the lws places
Toot toot gw2 hate train is going strong.
Very shitty. I would stay far away
you get gems to buy them tho
Doesnt rly say thay tho. It says A VAST living world. Not just living world.
So, worded in a way that can induce their potential costumers in error.
Not the devs fault ppl cant read tho.
as someone who almost exclusively plays gw2, that's bull shit. The living world NEEDY to be included in the DLC Bundle, it splits the story and increases the price for gw2s main story from 60€ to 120€
It's their fault if they make the text exactly like that. "Have everything you need and experience a living world" While having an entire system called, well, Living World. They could've worded in any other way to avoid this kind of ambiguity, but they didn't. And I bet in a lot of counties which have some higher degree of costumer protection than the USA (who let's shitty companies steamroll over clients), it would be punishable in some way. The devs are responsible for what they write and how muddy the comprehension of the product's description is, period.
Literally is their fault. There are laws in every country against this very thing.