Why the complaining over titles?

Ok, so I am a relatively new Guild Wars player (a little over a year). I am at 17/30 towards GWAMM and 39/50 for HoM. I've noticed since the last update there has been a lot of complaining over three titles:

1. Drunkard - too easy to get now
2. Survivor - not fair for people who had to do it without dying
3. LDoA - not fair for people who had to death level, not mutually exclusive with survivor

I don't mean to come off as antagonistic, but how do these changes affect anyone? I did my survivor through normal game play, vaettirs, boxing, and skill capping. I also got my drunkard the old fashioned way. I don't feel cheated or see how it affects me or my game experience if people can get these titles easier and was hoping someone could give me a reason why I should.

Again, I hope this isn't coming off as antagonistic, I truly don't understand.

You can't please everyone. Make some change that affects the majority of people, and a minority will complain about it.

It doesn't matter what ANet does, there will be people who will scream "Not fair!" or some other QQ response. I just play the game, and enjoy it.

its just a matter of principle really. ANet has been making everything easier to accommodate the new players, and personally i think its kinda dumb

Since you are "newer" I will start with a friendly reminder that:

1. This game was based on the premise of "no grind". Those titles in their old implementation were among the most senseless grinding there was.

2. If the title cannot be achieved during normal playing, it needs to be changed. This is one of the arguments used by the developers for the change.

3. Fair or unfair are relative terms. This is a game. No one is winning a cookie for having titles. No one is "hurt", "demeaned", etc. from the title changes. Heck you can use the fact that you got it the old fashion way as a bragging right!

Example: I idled away for 144,000 deaths to get my legendary defender of ascalon! or I clicked Alcohol away without bots for 10000 minutes of my life! or I got Survivor the old fashion way! (Boxing! <-- joke).

A quick GWs history lesson for you.

Any change that has ever been made in the nearly 6 years of GWs has ALWAYS resulted in giant bitchfests from some faction of the player base { I expect this to continue until long after the servers have been shut down. }
Oddly enough the periods between changes result in giant bitchfests from several of the same people over the lack of changes.

From this long history of the same behavior you can figure out that it says much more about the people complaining then it does about any of the changes themselves.

well the could have just changed the title's name then everyone would have been happy - why didn't they do that?

GW PvE design (and PvP, to a lesser extent) has, unfortunately, gradually turned into something that's all about titles. Messing with ease of acquisition makes people angry.

You can't spell "entitlement" without "title".

People feel like they deserve something because of all their effort obtaining these titles. They're wrong.

you cant please all the people all the time ....
those with the titles may feel hard done by those who can now go for LDoA by playing instead of afking death leveling

Drunkard is a bit different purely because some IAH did play drunk ...using the drunk related skills in the game ...

Survivor ...well i think if people are honest most Survivors are done by boxing or Hammers .... at least there is more incentive to try to get the title by playing.... even if it is in stages ....

me personally ..... i think they fixed some broken titles with the update

every one is entitled to their opinion ...

If it is an achievement for them, they will never feel like being robbed. However if they do it to show-off with them, ignoring that people don't care anyway, their head will explode in rage.

It's just a matter of perspective.

Personally, I'm happy that I can now go for Survivor on my nearly 6 year old Warrior who never had the chance before, even though I already have it on another character. I already have Drunkard the hard way, but yay anyways for an easier way to earn it, because my excess booze just went back up in price. And LDoA? No way was I going to do it before, it was ridiculously boring sounding, but now my wife and I can have fun doing the new quests together and actually WORK towards it - and I've found 3 black dyes in 2 days in pre-searing. Win-win.

I don't understand people that complain about the grind in GW with one breath, then complain when grind is taken away with the next breath.

I am just mad about drunkard because I already spent 10,000 minutes of real life getting it..... I hated every min. of it... but now I am goin to get drunkard for a 2nd tune when before update I said I was never doing that title again....

survivor is only fair IMO because they didn't implament the title for the characters that were created pre titles..... my main is one of those... so now my main character CAN actually achieve this title like every other player in the game!!!

just my thoughts

People who get all bent out of shape over title changes - over a half a decade into an MMO are old dinosaurs who need to come to grips. Sure, I can understand where some people are pissed because they did it when it actually meant something and now a little brat kid as old as the game itself can come along and do it in a week.

When a brand new game first comes out, there is need for adventure, excitement and dedication. But, as time chugs along in terms of years, the developers make things easier for new players coming from easier or already-evolved MMO's and old veterans of the current MMO who are tired of doing the same ol' bullshit when they roll a new character.

Just like the need for convenience is constantly growing at an insane rate in real-life itself, evolution of convenience appears everywhere else, even your very own MMO.

To answer your question, some people have an insane authority and seniority complex and get sorely pissed off when "newbies" achieve equal to or greater value then themselves.

Not like I or anyone else gave two shits and a damn looking at other peoples' titles in outposts and towns BEFORE this change and going "WOW that guy must be 1337", these people can still brag about how they "got the title when it was hard" and it will still leave no effect on 99.99% of the population. Oh pity.

survivor became the easiest title to get after eotn release - to those this new way of survivor shouldnt matter as you can roll a new chr and get it to survivor in a few hrs - say 4 hrs max.The old survivor players are probably annoyed but then again it does mean you can easily have multiple survivor chrs ( yes there are ppl with multiple survivor chrs and gwamm ).

Am I the only one who finds that statement terrifying? This is a game, that you are paying (or rather, that you paid) to enjoy. Why would you do something like that that you hate? If playing the game in any way doesn't make you happy, then don't do whatever activity it is that upsets you!

People seem to forget that this is just a game, and that there are zero obligations. People seem to treat it like work, and complain about how much they hate going for certain titles. It's simple; don't go for the titles you hate! A game should be fun, and if it's not fun, then don't play.

I just don't get that mindset...


EDIT:

This is the truth. The only person whose reaction to your titles you should care about is yourself. dsielschott, you spent 166 hours of your real life to get the drunkard title and "hated every minute of it". Who were you trying to impress by getting that title? Why did you feel the NEED to get it? Because I guarantee you no one else cares what titles you have. Was it worth sitting alone at your computer for 166 miserable hours instead of doing something you enjoy?

That's basically my question for all the people who obtained the title the "hard" or tedious way. Was it really worth it, and why would you wish that on anyone else?

What a stupid idea. Why would anybody fix broken titles?

Fixing title lines to work in a manner that is more supportive of the player base is wrong.

We should all not drive cars and walk instead. Driving cars is unfair to the people who have to walk.

Electric devices are unfair to all the people who may not have access to the technology, therefore I will superimpose an arbitrary ideal of my own creation upon every person who uses electric devices because others cannot, and it is unfair to those people.



On a serious note, how do players wind up with such a false sense of entitlement?

I've met people in game who think Speed Clears and Shadow Form are intended by ANet to produce such broken tactics and time/reward ratios and believe that SC and SF doesn't fall under abuse or exploitation of the game.

They will defend something which is so obviously deviant in balance just because they somehow wound up with this sense of entitlement.

It's pathetic.

I understand the sarcasm... but then don't walk or drive, just FLY!
If you wish a title, just check the box next to it in the Hero Panel and voila, you've EARNED it.

Bitching because dying equals a startover rather than a reroll? bitching about drunkard being made equal to party and sweet? bitching about ldoa being made doable by actually playing, rather than some retarded , broken, death level fest? Shit, people will bitch about anything.

I think it was no forced grind which is still true.

Those things were probably added just so that people had something to do once they completed all the content.

I understand the exaggeration....wait, I don't.

Changing stupid game mechanics to something that makes sense and doesn't involve hundreds of hours of senseless grind is a good thing. How does it make it guaranteed? LDOA is guaranteed, but after a long time. Survivor can be guaranteed after a long time. Vanquisher, guardian, master of the north...guaranteed, but after a long time. There's no PVE title in this game that requires any special skill to get...there's no title that will block you from getting it if you don't do it this specific way. LDOA and Survivor were the only ones, now they're changed to match the rest of them. Drunkard made sense, but the mechanics were so unwieldy that it turned many players off. You could "come back" to guardian, vanquisher, skill hunter, etc. But if you "came back" to drunkard too often, you ended up wasting minutes. A lot of minutes. And it's so hard to do anything else in the game unless you gimp your enjoyment of the game by turning off post-processing.

It's old age.

Older people tend to feel less appreciated so they start telling their kids how life was tough in the old days and they come across as unwilling to let the past go. It's rare to find someone who constantly reinvents themselves and lives in the moment.

Same shit with any game , only the old people tend to be about 2-3 years older than the others in terms of gametime.

just make it part of the character creation. please mark off the titles you wish your character to have

Actually the only title I am kind of "upset" about, if you can even call it that, is LDOA. I didn't have it, was just about to start death leveling, but thought it was the only title that still kind of sparked a hey that's cool response. Whether dying 144,000 times was silly or not it still took a sort of dedication and drive to finish. I talked to many people who just gave up at around lvl 17. LDOA was still a fairly exclusive title which will now be watered down to appease the masses (business is business).

GWaMM at one point was a way to reward those players who were dedicated to the game and put in the extra time to finish everything and also earn enough money to purchase some titles. At first it was an achievement but now so many years into the title availability it is much more common place.
As for why other people get all pissy about the title changes it is probably that A-net continues to dumb down the game skill unlock packs, PVE skills, 7 hero parties, changing the titles. I understand why this was done, A-NET needed to keep the player base interested, but it you can't expect it not to rub some older players the wrong way. Remember when you couldn't get all the skill until you made it to Ring of Fire in Prophecies it forced you to learn how to use different skills and perform your jobin the party effectively. Now you could be UAS (unlocked all skills) before you set a foot outside of the noob area provided you have enough money. This is one reason you see so many people with no understanding of bar construction and skill point distribution. They just buy all the skills at a low level and then don't understand why they can't play the bar as it said on wiki.

The dedicated players by now already played through the game on multiple characters and have the titles they need so A-net needs to focus on motivating those who felt they would never get there. These changes are for the casual players who feel they should be rewarded for casual play. There is now nothing for those dedicated players who want to flex their e-peen and say look I am better then you. Personally I don't think there is anything wrong with having something that a casual player might not be able to achieve as long as it doesn't effect game play. Honestly I would mind another tier on the GWaMM title for 35 or all titles (with exception of LDOA as that is not available to everyone. Would I get it, most likely not but I would still push for it. It would give that small percentage of people who have already achieved most things something to go for. Of course if you did this you would have all the people defending the recent changes complaining that there was something that required them to play more to achieve.

In the end A-NET is a business and they will do whatever they need to so they appeal to the masses. It was has to happen if we want to see GW 2. So in the end like it or not the game will become easier and more people will achieve those elusive titles you may hold so dearly. If you feel you are less special now you may need to get out a little more smell the fresh air (or not so fresh if you live in China like me), drink a beer, get lai.....well anyway this wall of text is now long enough. If you are still reading this you are as bored as I am right now.

People are complaining because for example drunkard was a pain to get it is like 7 days played time and now u can do it in a few minutes. also i know that you can do drunkard while vanquishing and stuff... Also vanquishing and guardian are easier to achieve because of 7 heroes which means that you spend less time vanquishing areas. It only bothers me that I put all that time in and now some stuff take less time.

I suppose it depends upon why you want a "title" in the first place. For some people, they want a title because it represents some sort of accomplishment that actually acknowledges the time and effort it takes to get it. For those people, their Drunkard, Survivor, and/or LDoA titles are now meaningless, so they have a right to complain.

To expand your list:

Vanquisher - too easy now, with PvE skills and 7-Hero parties.
Cartographer - too easy with Texmod
Sweetooth, Party Animal - always were idiot titles, Drunkard just joined the club.
Skill Hunter - Tomes have kind of muddled this.
etc.

Personally, I stopped worrying about titles a long time ago. Back around the time that people were doing Ursan groups to get their Vanquisher titles (while I had gotten mine the hard way). For me, my titles are just a way for me to track my own personal accomplishments, instead of a way to display my "leetness". Practically all titles are meaningless these days - even GWAMM.
GWAMM now just means "I made (or bought) enough gold to get this title"

Lol, stating the obvious much? But that's OK.

I was speaking of the T R E N D... titles go account wide, then spamable, then ignore the limitations, more and higher powered cons, etc. The point is, just wait a while and you will be virtually able to just select the titles you want.

I believe Anet is simplifying title acquisition so more people will get their HoM up and increase motivation to purchase GW2 when and if it ever materializes.

As someone who maxed alcohol and survivor before the update - i don't really understand all the bitching.

You are doing well for just playing a little over a year. Good Job.

Just play the game and have fun, and don't worry about the whiners. Its just the nature of an anonymous internet.