Guild Wars 2

Calae.1738:

Failure has little meaning when you don’t lose something valuable.

In video games this always translates to time. In most cases you only lose time relative to potential gain. In other more extreme cases; invested and banked time is literally taken away from you.

This gauntlet does a little bit of both.

You have to run back when you die and spend some coin for repairs and tickets. This shouldn’t be a new concept to anyone. World of Warcraft mastered this quite well with raids. Only difference here is that you don’t need 9 other players to do the content.

This is true, but again, it’s against the original ArenaNet/Guild Wars 2 design philosophy. The game was literally built around the concept of fun, and it was stated numerous times during the game’s development that if something wasn’t fun or didn’t add to the fun, it was removed. This is why global cooldowns were eliminated, it’s why spawn camping was done away with, it’s why long-distance travel was reduced to teleports rather than actual time-wasting beasts/mounts (as seen in WOW and SWTOR). It’s how the original concept of dynamic combat came about, it’s the reason why armor damage doesn’t cost much when paid for on occasion, it’s why the auction house was so well done, it’s the reason why energy was removed from the game, it’s the reason why health and energy potions were similarly discarded, and it’s the drive behind a lot more of this game’s specific and unique features. Even more so, it’s why Guild Wars 2, like Guild Wars 1, is Free-To-Play – because requiring continuous payment for entertainment is not enjoyable; rather, it’s stressful.

Simply put, Punishment detracts from fun, and in a lot of instances, Punishment was removed to allow for more fun. In the Queen’s Gauntlet, however, it seems that ArenaNet dropped the ball on their own design philosophy – it seems they’ve forgotten what they originally stood for.

Well as a gamer who enjoys being severely punished for failure I welcome this content. Even if they removed all the rewards and just provided goofy titles I would still do it.

In a game where 99.9% of the content is made for players like yourselves; it feels nice to know that Arenanet acknowledges my presence and designs a little something for players like me.

If you tell me to go play another game and that GW2 is not for me; well you can go do the following… http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KBXdTdaeSr0

Calae.1738:

Well as a gamer who enjoys being severely punished for failure I welcome this content. Even if they removed all the rewards and just provided goofy titles I would still do it.

In a game where 99.9% of the content is made for players like yourselves; it feels nice to know that Arenanet acknowledges my presence and designs a little something for players like me.

If you tell me to go play another game and that GW2 is not for me; well you can go do the following… http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KBXdTdaeSr0

You’re right; I don’t enjoy punishment while I do enjoy having fun, which is why I want to enjoy Guild Wars 2, as the developers originally shared my opinions about minimizing punishment and maximizing fun. I also do want challenges, however, which is why I want Liadri to remain unnerfed – I just want all the mistakes and glitches to be fixed.

yearsonehundred.6139:

Calae.1738:

Failure has little meaning when you don’t lose something valuable.

In video games this always translates to time. In most cases you only lose time relative to potential gain. In other more extreme cases; invested and banked time is literally taken away from you.

This gauntlet does a little bit of both.

You have to run back when you die and spend some coin for repairs and tickets. This shouldn’t be a new concept to anyone. World of Warcraft mastered this quite well with raids. Only difference here is that you don’t need 9 other players to do the content.

This is true, but again, it’s against the original ArenaNet/Guild Wars 2 design philosophy. The game was literally built around the concept of fun, and it was stated numerous times during the game’s development that if something wasn’t fun or didn’t add to the fun, it was removed. This is why global cooldowns were eliminated, it’s why spawn camping was done away with, it’s why long-distance travel was reduced to teleports rather than actual time-wasting beasts/mounts (as seen in WOW and SWTOR). It’s how the original concept of dynamic combat came about, it’s the reason why armor damage doesn’t cost much when paid for on occasion, it’s why the auction house was so well done, it’s the reason why energy was removed from the game, it’s the reason why health and energy potions were similarly discarded, and it’s the drive behind a lot more of this game’s specific and unique features. Even more so, it’s why Guild Wars 2, like Guild Wars 1, is Free-To-Play – because requiring continuous payment for entertainment is not enjoyable; rather, it’s stressful.

Simply put, Punishment detracts from fun, and in a lot of instances, Punishment was removed to allow for more fun. In the Queen’s Gauntlet, however, it seems that ArenaNet dropped the ball on their own design philosophy – it seems they’ve forgotten what they originally stood for.

You’re ignoring the fact that a universal concept of fun DOES NOT EXIST. To other players, being punished for failure is only fair, and makes overcoming an especially difficult challenge all the more satisfying. That’s fun to them, not fun to you… I would hope you understand that appealing to a wider variety of tastes is better than isolating a single like-minded audience. Because if ANet did that, we’d either have only PvE or only PvP / WvW, not both.

OtakuDFifty.2965:

You’re ignoring the fact that a universal concept of fun DOES NOT EXIST. To other players, being punished for failure is only fair, and makes overcoming an especially difficult challenge all the more satisfying. That’s fun to them, not fun to you… I would hope you understand that appealing to a wider variety of tastes is better than isolating a single like-minded audience. Because if ANet did that, we’d either have only PvE or only PvP / WvW, not both.

I’m speaking about ArenaNet’s original design philosophy – you’re talking about the personal preferences of a very small portion of GW2 players.

Calae.1738:

Well as a gamer who enjoys being severely punished for failure I welcome this content. Even if they removed all the rewards and just provided goofy titles I would still do it.

In a game where 99.9% of the content is made for players like yourselves; it feels nice to know that Arenanet acknowledges my presence and designs a little something for players like me.

If you tell me to go play another game and that GW2 is not for me; well you can go do the following… http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KBXdTdaeSr0

Let me ask you this. If the punishments hadn’t been in place from the start would you still feel the same way? Would you be on here posting that you’re not punished enough for failing?

I honestly doubt it. You wouldn’t think for a second that you needed to be punished for failing.

And removing the punishments that are described in the first two posts doesn’t in any way negate the challenge of the actual fights (except for the camera, if you want to think that’s part of the challenge).

There’s absolutely no reason why it needs to be as punishing as it is. Having to run back from the center after a death is just tedious. And no one, not even you, thinks that’s fun or compelling game play. All the while you know you’re running back because the 15 other people up there are in to much of a hurry to get to an empty arena to take 10 seconds to revive you.

yearsonehundred.6139:

OtakuDFifty.2965:

You’re ignoring the fact that a universal concept of fun DOES NOT EXIST. To other players, being punished for failure is only fair, and makes overcoming an especially difficult challenge all the more satisfying. That’s fun to them, not fun to you… I would hope you understand that appealing to a wider variety of tastes is better than isolating a single like-minded audience. Because if ANet did that, we’d either have only PvE or only PvP / WvW, not both.

I’m speaking about ArenaNet’s original design philosophy – you’re talking about the personal preferences of a very small portion of GW2 players.

And I’m saying that not ignoring that small portion of players is one of the aims of that philosophy.

OtakuDFifty.2965:

And I’m saying that not ignoring that small portion of players is one of the aims of that philosophy.

They never said that they’d appeal to players who enjoy punishment. For that matter, they never said they’d appeal to every single player group out there (such a claim on their part would be both absurd and impossible to fulfill). Their philosophy was rooted along the lines of minimizing punishment and maximizing the normal player’s perception of fun. There’s plenty of development updates while GW2 was still being created that stated and indicated this. And in this case, while Liadri is getting praise, the glitches and bad designs concerning the Queen’s Gauntlet are not.

yearsonehundred.6139:

They never said that they’d appeal to players who enjoy punishment. For that matter, they never said they’d appeal to every single player group out there (such a claim on their part would be both absurd and impossible to fulfill). Their philosophy was rooted along the lines of minimizing punishment and maximizing the normal player’s perception of fun. There’s plenty of development updates while GW2 was still being created that stated and indicated this. And in this case, while Liadri is getting praise, the glitches and bad designs concerning the Queen’s Gauntlet are not.

I never said that either. I said “wider variety” not “all.” But it seems I misunderstood the point you were trying to make and will admit that some of the punishment could be alleviated, but I don’t agree with removing all “punishment.” I don’t find requiring tickets to be a form of punishment. I think the regular costs of defeat in battle should apply to defeat in the arena. I might be inclined to believe waypoint cost should be 0 copper since it is technically still inside a town, and/or there should be a waypoint at each dome.

At any rate, I don’t think that one temporal feature is indicative of the developers turning away from the philosophy of the game as a whole. I think there’s a time and place for punishing mechanics, and an arena setting is one of those.

yearsonehundred.6139:

What Challenging Is Not:
Challenging Is Not forcing players to respawn at a waypoint that costs money in order to play a minigame.
For that matter, Challenging Is Not forcing players to respawn after a failed match at all. It would be super easy to have the time limit just boot players out, and have death do the same. Player death is not a necessity for a challenge, and in this case, it seriously dampens the fun of the content at hand.
Challenging Is Not doing the previous, and then having a dynamic event that blocks the pathways to the Queen’s Gauntlet with very difficult enemies that can easily take you out.
Challenging Is Not giving armor damage for a failed Gauntlet match. Can you imagine if armor damage applied to Belcher’s Bluff, the Keg minigame, Southsun Survival, the Aspect Arena, and other minigames?
Challenging Is Not requiring tickets to play, and then making them cost a boat-load of money (for players of average and moderate means) to purchase in small quantities, or making them requiring farming and grinding. These are for a minigame – they’re not specific grindy titles or pets here. And while Liadri is indeed a pet, that’s only because she’s so dang tough, and thus beating her warrants a reward of some sort for the continued persistence required to do so.
Challenging Is Not allowing awful camera angles to interfere with gameplay.
Challenging Is Not having a queue for a minigame. Furthermore, there have been times when I’ve shown a team player spirit by resurrecting people who have fallen, and by necessity (when it was just me and that one person) not queueing myself for a new match while I resurrected said player, and then in the middle of the resurrection, someone runs up, queues, and takes the turn that should have been mine.
Challenging Is Not putting a time and movement critical minigame in the same instance as another gameplay aspect that results in incredibly lag-causing zergs. Queen’s Gauntlet should have ALWAYS, both in conceptual creation and actual development, been tried, tested, and released in its own instance. With something so sensitive, a separate instance is an absolute necessity.
Challenging Is Not allowing dozens of bugs work their way into the “finished” product. Given the quality that usually comes from ArenaNet, I would have rather had the whole Queen’s party event delayed and the Pirate event continued until the bugs were ironed out, than had the awfully buggy mess that the Gauntlet currently is.

These (and more that I can’t think of) are not Challenging, they’re Punishing. Punishing is not Fun, it is not Challenging, it is not enjoyable – it is complete Frustration (and in the case of less patient players, it is rage/rage-quit inducing). And right now, Queen’s Gauntlet is mainly not Fun, nor is it mainly Challenging – it is mostly Frustrating, painful Punishment.

ArenaNet, I know what you’re capable of and I know that you have great plans for the future.

So please take the time to fix this – as for me, I’m going to go do some other things for a week (maybe some PVE, maybe some SWTOR, maybe some more Star Citizen forum surfing) and then come back and see if Queen’s Gauntlet is less Punishing and more Challenging/Fun.

If you forgot something, I don’t know what it is offhand. +1 for your nicely done write up.

I have to think that since these activities will be rolling out every two weeks that we are going to see more of the same. The 4 ? teams have just two months from start to finish for the content releases every 2 weeks.

I have an additional concern re the skill bar now set for Pve.

Liadra is great challenge. I have had to learn new skill techniques and builds to get to her on my elementalist. Unfortunately, I may not have time to master the skills I probably need to finish her off before the event will end. Did Anet have to make the use of hot keys to proc skills mandatory for mastery of the gauntlet? Is that now the level of expertise the game will now require for pve? That confounds me. That is the realm of sPvP. I have never before seen any mmo where Pve at the highest levels could not be mastered using a mouse on the gui to proc skills.

OtakuDFifty.2965:

I never said that either. I said “wider variety” not “all.” But it seems I misunderstood the point you were trying to make and will admit that some of the punishment could be alleviated, but I don’t agree with removing all “punishment.” I don’t find requiring tickets to be a form of punishment. I think the regular costs of defeat in battle should apply to defeat in the arena. I might be inclined to believe waypoint cost should be 0 copper since it is technically still inside a town, and/or there should be a waypoint at each dome.

At any rate, I don’t think that one temporal feature is indicative of the developers turning away from the philosophy of the game as a whole. I think there’s a time and place for punishing mechanics, and an arena setting is one of those.

Those are fair points – I appreciate your feedback and thoughts on this.

Calae.1738:

Spoken like true casual gamers.

No punishment and no risk means your achievements are empty. Just like the daily gathering achievement. Just another one of those laundry list of boring things to do.

I think this is the first time ever someone has called me a casual.

Personally I don’t think I’d mind the repair/WP costs too terribly since you can get money however you want outside QP, but the walk back up/wait to get an arena seem ridiculously fun-killing.

Luckily I’m new, not 80, and a Necromancer, so I’m fine giving up on 100%’ing this event.

laokoko.7403:

I don’t mean it that way. You dont’ have to enjoy “every single” content in GW2. As long as there are other content you enjoy.

If we follow that principle and just stop voicing concerns only because there are other content parts we still enjoy, then eventually we’ll find that nothing got fixed, and we just ran out of that “other content”. If you see a problem, you definitely should speak up. That’s the only way to make this game better.

yearsonehundred.6139:

-kitten -

Lets break A B and C down then: I’ve got exactly 201 gold on my account, I DID enjoy the content so that leaves me being messed up, and you base that on the fact that you didn’t enjoy content that, based upon your post, would indicate that you infact just couldn’t handle the difficulty. you then attempt to masquerade your grand failures within said content by making a absolutely fabulous list of is vs isn’t that doesn’t even hold true one bit.
But hey, since you’ve successfully determined that content that isn’t fun for you, must not be fun for anyone, I thought we’d break down your list into bitesized chunks before having the taste send these chunks flying in a remarkable cascade of bile.

yearsonehundred.6139:

Challenging Is Not forcing players to respawn at a waypoint that costs money in order to play a minigame.

You’re not forced to respawn at the waypoint, if you would’ve picked a platform with more people on it, you’d be revived, people do revive and if theres atleast 3 players at a dome, you can be certain that you will be ressed.

yearsonehundred.6139:

Challenging Is Not forcing players to respawn after a failed match at all.

So you don’t want to be punished for failing content, that has flat out never been a good idea in MMOs simply because people who aren’t punished for dying aren’t going to learn anything at all and when their ‘rush in and hit things’ strategy falls short, they go on the forums and start making pesky lists of why their fun is ruined.

yearsonehundred.6139:

Challenging Is Not doing the previous, and then having a dynamic event that blocks the pathways to the Queen’s Gauntlet with very difficult enemies that can easily take you out.

This one amuses me greatly because this is not a problem at all, there are several paths to take up to the gauntlet and if you HAVE to use the one that is currently blocked by the destroyers, well then it is you and not I that is messed up.

yearsonehundred.6139:

Challenging Is Not giving armor damage for a failed Gauntlet match.
Can you imagine if armor damage applied to Belcher’s Bluff, the Keg minigame, Southsun Survival, the Aspect Arena, and other minigames?

That you’re unable to see the difference between the gauntlet and belchers bluff, keg brawl, southsun survival and the aspect arena is yet again amusing.

yearsonehundred.6139:

Challenging Is Not requiring tickets to play, and then making them cost a boat-load of money (for players of average and moderate means) to purchase in small quantities, or making them requiring farming and grinding.

If you are interested in achievements, which I asume as you are shutting down the rewards from the gauntlet, you should be able to understand this: theres a bunch of NPCs in the center that has an achievement linked to them, talk to them, receive a boon and go kill 100 mobs, while you kill these 100mobs you are going to pick up enough silver and watchsprockets to buy the tickets for the gauntlet.

yearsonehundred.6139:

Challenging Is Not allowing awful camera angles to interfere with gameplay.

Haven’t experienced this, maybe you’re controlling the camera poorly?

yearsonehundred.6139:

Challenging Is Not having a queue for a minigame.

Apparently queuing is a challenge for you so I’d disagree.

yearsonehundred.6139:

Challenging Is Not putting a time and movement critical minigame in the same instance as another gameplay aspect that results in incredibly lag-causing zergs.

Didn’t experience this at all.

yearsonehundred.6139:

Challenging Is Not allowing dozens of bugs work their way into the “finished” product.

This isn’t Challenging, it isn’t Punishing either, just like your made up statistics, this is just a completely unrelated topic.

yearsonehundred.6139:

These (and more that I can’t think of) are not Challenging, they’re Punishing.

Well, no.
GW2 has close to nothing punishing at all, a death costs you about 2-2.5silver and some time running from the nearest waypoint, that is all.

Oh lol I thought this was on crit damage and how having it makes it more or less punishing rather than challenging

laokoko.7403:

Do people realize you don’t even need to do it?

There “are” people who enjoy it. Let them have their fun.

If you are not having fun, don’t do it. I don’t enjoy wvw and jumping puzzle too, I didn’t ask Anet to remove that from the game.

If Anet want a real suggestion, make an easy mode. To appease to the more casual player. Keep the hard mode since there are obviously people who enjoy it by the feedback.

So you really like and enjoy:
- Paying for: waypoints (if nobody resurects you), repair bills, 20s for every atempt with 5
gambits
- Waiting for you next fight.
- Having lags from the zerg during your fight
??

Or do you enjoy the actual fight, the thinking how and with which setup to beat the opponent. Even if it takes you 40 tries?
I think that is the diference the OP wants to show. Its not that the fights are to dificult, it´s rather the sorroundings that bother him.

adri.2476:

laokoko.7403:

Do people realize you don’t even need to do it?

There “are” people who enjoy it. Let them have their fun.

If you are not having fun, don’t do it. I don’t enjoy wvw and jumping puzzle too, I didn’t ask Anet to remove that from the game.

If Anet want a real suggestion, make an easy mode. To appease to the more casual player. Keep the hard mode since there are obviously people who enjoy it by the feedback.

So you really like and enjoy:
- Paying for: waypoints (if nobody resurects you), repair bills, 20s for every atempt with 5
gambits
- Waiting for you next fight.
- Having lags from the zerg during your fight
??

Or do you enjoy the actual fight, the thinking how and with which setup to beat the opponent. Even if it takes you 40 tries?
I think that is the diference the OP wants to show. Its not that the fights are to dificult, it´s rather the sorroundings that bother him.

You can bring a friend (it is MMO), buy better comp(it is MMO) and think why you failed and what to do better next time (it is challenging content).

Failure of challenge should be punishing.

What do you expect? To get 10s each time you lose Liadri?

Don’t like it? Go buy a kite and go run around in DR. That’s fun? Right? Takes no skill whatsoever.

Make MMO where you get awarded each time you press “W” “A” “S” or “D”.
People would still complain.

I lost to Liadri about 30 times till I nailed her. Inbetween the 29 first encounters I hit my back with a belt.

Lol I can see the post title “W key not awarding loot at same rate?” Or “Nerf the S key!”

You can really tell which people actually read the entire OP and then reply based on that and which people instead are “oh noes, words” and don’t read the entire post and then reply in the typical learn to play manner.

First of all, he is giving feedback, not asking how to beat the champions.
Second of all, he wants challenging.
Third of all, he doesn’t think walking back from the waypoint is fun or challenging. He doesn’t think waiting in a long queue is challenging. He doesn’t think staring at the blurred insides of his character due to the camera not showing what is front of him as challenging. He doesn’t think lagging out when a zergfest appears below him in the other part of the Queen’s pavilion is a challenge. He thinks that is punishing. The word I would have used for those things is annoying.

He thinks that fighting the actual target is the enjoyable challenging part.

And based on that he is giving feedback to ANET in hopes that they will improve future offerings. You may, however, consider all the things that he found punishing and that I find annoying as good features that improve your enjoyment of the game.

If you actually found that walking back from waypoints, waiting in queues, zergfests below you, and the camera not showing you what you should be able to see as fun and a pleasant and needed addition to make the experience challenging and want more of that in future encounters then by all means encourage ANET to have that feature more abundantly.

Ya, sorry for teasing, I do see where OP is coming from and he or she has a few valid points. I also thought the ticket cost was a little high although ANET is injecting a lot of gold into the economy and thus needs some strong gold sinks.

No worries. I think the queue was an attempt to encourage player interaction and think it might be a good idea. I also think the addition of observer mode would be good.

Camera viewing I would love to have improved not just for this type content but also for jumping puzzles, but I know that is difficult for them to address (I’ve read discussion on it before by the developers in relation to jp). Since they can’t make the camera work in that type encounter, I think it would be better for them to work to not have it shaped in a way that messes with the camera.

Some of the things I think could be addressed though.

fellyn.5083:

Calae.1738:

Well as a gamer who enjoys being severely punished for failure I welcome this content. Even if they removed all the rewards and just provided goofy titles I would still do it.

In a game where 99.9% of the content is made for players like yourselves; it feels nice to know that Arenanet acknowledges my presence and designs a little something for players like me.

If you tell me to go play another game and that GW2 is not for me; well you can go do the following… http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KBXdTdaeSr0

Let me ask you this. If the punishments hadn’t been in place from the start would you still feel the same way? Would you be on here posting that you’re not punished enough for failing?

I honestly doubt it. You wouldn’t think for a second that you needed to be punished for failing.

Punishment means you lose something valuable when you fail. This concept is not new. It adds risk. When you do something risky you feel an adrenaline rush because you know the consequences of failure.

Without risk achievements are empty. The encounter might of been challenging but; the reward for success doesn’t feel the same.

If everyone had been able to finish the Gauntlet in under a week (remember it only came out last Tuesday) when it was intended to last 4 weeks then it wouldn’t be challenging. In fact I think a lot of people would consider it extremely disappointing.

Remember when the game first came out and people were really struggling with dungeons – saying even the easier ones would take at least an hour and plenty of gold for repairs (or repair canisters).

I think the Gauntlet is similar – as more people beat it and learn and share tactics it will seem easier and more people will be able to beat it.

Personally I’ve found the walk back from the waypoint to be a non-issue. The alternative is to pick a more populated arena and get revived then wait your turn and it takes about the same time either way.

Same with the cost of getting in. I do 1 champion event every so often, roughly once for every 5-8 gauntlet attempts and I break even. I’ve actually made a little bit extra when I get good drops. I think it also helps that I think of spending money on gautlet tickets (and waypoints/armor repairs) as spending money to get the mini Liadri. If I wasn’t spending it on that it’d be going towards another mini anyway.

Disagree with nearly all the “punishing” points of the OP (technical,performance issues, and non-game play issues are argueably valid).

However, any penalities imposed due to player failure, are absolutely fine. What you’re asking for is reward with no, or maybe negligible risk.

Each one of those “punishing” (and I use that term with the utmost contempt) conditions is at best a consideration to the player if the reward for the challenge is worth the risk.

My opinion, there should be a price of failure, and along those lines current penalities are hardly excessive.

Katz.5143:

You can really tell which people actually read the entire OP and then reply based on that and which people instead are “oh noes, words” and don’t read the entire post and then reply in the typical learn to play manner.

First of all, he is giving feedback, not asking how to beat the champions.
Second of all, he wants challenging.
Third of all, he doesn’t think walking back from the waypoint is fun or challenging. He doesn’t think waiting in a long queue is challenging. He doesn’t think staring at the blurred insides of his character due to the camera not showing what is front of him as challenging. He doesn’t think lagging out when a zergfest appears below him in the other part of the Queen’s pavilion is a challenge. He thinks that is punishing. The word I would have used for those things is annoying.

He thinks that fighting the actual target is the enjoyable challenging part.

And based on that he is giving feedback to ANET in hopes that they will improve future offerings. You may, however, consider all the things that he found punishing and that I find annoying as good features that improve your enjoyment of the game.

If you actually found that walking back from waypoints, waiting in queues, zergfests below you, and the camera not showing you what you should be able to see as fun and a pleasant and needed addition to make the experience challenging and want more of that in future encounters then by all means encourage ANET to have that feature more abundantly.

First of all: Hes complaining about pretty much everything not being challenging but rather being “punishing”, the fact that GW2 has almost nothing that actually “punishes” you is something hes neglecting entirely.
Second: He may claim he do, but having seen his comments in this thread, I’m going to say no, he doesn’t want challenging, he wants to reduce the difficulty by removing the penalty of just mindlessly zerging the gauntlet without observing the fights.
Third: The longest queue I’ve had yet is roughly 1½-2minutes which in my view is perfectly acceptable, the waypoint is a swing and miss however, theres no reason there couldnt have been a waypoint in the center upstairs with connecting bridges to each of the domes.

Furthermore he is basing his entire claim on that noone finds this content fun, which is flat out false, he also makes up his very own statistics to back up his statements and that provides completely flawed data and as such messes up the actual information that COULD be used as feedback.

This isn’t feedback, its another “nerf the gauntlet” topic masqueraded as one.

The point is that you could be in an instance with unlimited tries and no repair costs and it would take exactly same amount of skill to complete as getting your account deleted whenever you lost.

Lue, I’m going to address your arguments one at a time.

Lue.6538:

First of all: Hes complaining about pretty much everything not being challenging but rather being “punishing”, the fact that GW2 has almost nothing that actually “punishes” you is something hes neglecting entirely.

Um, I actually had a list of Punishments concerning the Queen’s Gauntlet. I’d suggest you go and read them carefully, without your tinted lenses on.

Lue.6538:

Second: He may claim he do, but having seen his comments in this thread, I’m going to say no, he doesn’t want challenging, he wants to reduce the difficulty by removing the penalty of just mindlessly zerging the gauntlet without observing the fights.

Reducing penalty does not equate to diminishing the Challenge. Rather, it provides unobstructed access to to the Challenge without all the gunk in the middle that limits and blocks access.

Lue.6538:

Third: The longest queue I’ve had yet is roughly 1½-2minutes which in my view is perfectly acceptable, the waypoint is a swing and miss however, theres no reason there couldnt have been a waypoint in the center upstairs with connecting bridges to each of the domes.

I’m glad that you’ve had such good luck with queue times – I personally get queue-robbed a bunch. Or, even worse, I wait to queue so that I can resurrect someone, and then the person I resurrected hops up and quickly queues before me. So I’m happy for you, but unfortunately, your consistently good experiences do not match up with mine.

Lue.6538:

Furthermore he is basing his entire claim on that noone finds this content fun, which is flat out false, he also makes up his very own statistics to back up his statements and that provides completely flawed data and as such messes up the actual information that COULD be used as feedback.

The statistic was just a quip, but you’re right, I deleted it – it didn’t add anything to the post. And I never said that nobody found the Gauntlet fun, although I did do a lot of reading on this forum beforehand to I could see if anyone else agreed with me – and finding that the majority of people did at least to some degree was not surprising to me. Instead, I simply said that Punishment isn’t fun, but I would indeed have to take that back, as several players now have come and said that they enjoy Punishment. So then, I would have to maintain instead that Punishment is against the original design mandate of ArenaNet, and it was what first drew me to GW2 back in March 2007.

Lue.6538:

This isn’t feedback, its another “nerf the gauntlet” topic masqueraded as one.

This is entirely untrue, and is very slandering on your part. Actually, my whole point can be summed up by what Wethospu said:

Wethospu.6437:

The point is that you could be in an instance with unlimited tries and no repair costs and it would take exactly same amount of skill to complete as getting your account deleted whenever you lost.

I agree with the spirit of what you are saying, I don’t agree with any of those things you listed under not challenging. None of those things have any function to challenge, BUT they do add a sense of annoyance.
When You fail why should you die?
Why should they be a timer? (short timer)
why should you have to wait for someone to finish before retrying?

The problem with QG is that the bosses are cheap aka have snk-boss syndrome. Having a timer + cheap one shot mechanics on a short timer+ bad camera as a result of a small circular map+ lag + combined with RNG pulls from the orbs and the fact that some classes have a natural advantage and certain class mechanics become useless (Pets). let’s not forget for years Arenanet always talked about being able to see what your opponent and yet most of the bosses you had to take a leap of faith and dodge after 2 seconds without seeing the attacks.

the point being Queen’s Gauntlet great idea in theory, implementation is awful and cheap. IF you want to make tough content do it, don’t make content with cheap 1 shot and RNG mechanics. Leave the RNG at the black chest and mystic toilet.

laokoko.7403:

Do people realize you don’t even need to do it?

There “are” people who enjoy it. Let them have their fun.

If you are not having fun, don’t do it. I don’t enjoy wvw and jumping puzzle too, I didn’t ask Anet to remove that from the game.

If Anet want a real suggestion, make an easy mode. To appease to the more casual player. Keep the hard mode since there are obviously people who enjoy it by the feedback.

There is absolutely not one thing in the OP’s post that suggests they want an “Easy Mode.” Quite the contrary, they discuss wanting challenge and even go so far as to define the difference between challenge and punishment.

You are spot on OP. Like you I want to be challenged. Like you I don’t want to be punished because it takes time for me to rise to the challenge. I want the freedom to try, try again, until I am successful. This setup discourages people who want to rise to the task — the punishment in the forms of TIME (this is huge) and in-game currency outweigh any sense of accomplishment gained.

Agree with OP. I enjoy the difficulty of the fights but the tedious nature of reattempting them along with the cumulative cost of the Gauntlet doesn’t seem like a good gameplay addition. Honestly it’s starting to feel like more of a goldsink than anything.

Dying to the boss gives you a repair bill and without a ress buddy you’ll have a waypoint fee and a long run back. Running out of time gives no repair bill but ensures you have to waypoint/run back (no one’s going to ress you where you land). The amount of bugs I’ve seen it’s likely you’ll lose a portion of your tickets to bugged fights (mini oozes along with your boss, active gambits you didn’t select, falling through the floor along with the last player, etc.). The most reliable way to earn tickets is to just purchase them which ofcourse costs more silver.

Entrance fees, waypoint costs, bugs and repair bills. I get the feeling the Liadri pet is just a carrot on a stick, designed to make more people lose more gold to the Gauntlet.

Aye.8392:

You are spot on OP. Like you I want to be challenged. Like you I don’t want to be punished because it takes time for me to rise to the challenge. I want the freedom to try, try again, until I am successful. This setup discourages people who want to rise to the task — the punishment in the forms of TIME (this is huge) and in-game currency outweigh any sense of accomplishment gained.

That’s something I hadn’t mentioned too – for someone like me, it takes time and lots of repeated, continuous attempts to master something like this. When I have to wait, or spend time grinding and farming, or get some money so I can afford tickets, it takes up the available free time I have to enjoy this minigame. Furthermore, it makes it hard for me to learn the skills necessary, as my attention and energy are also being spent on a number of other things. Eliminating the Punishment of the Gauntlet would not only have the effect of making it more fun for most players, but it would also allow for said players to become better at the game. And that is something that ArenaNet also desires.

Agreed on every count. As much as I love the gauntlet, there are just so many poor implementation choices it is ridiculous. The worst ones being the fact it was put in the same instance as lag plaza and requires arbitrarily waiting for other players.

Lue.6538:

First of all: Hes complaining about pretty much everything not being challenging but rather being “punishing”, the fact that GW2 has almost nothing that actually “punishes” you is something hes neglecting entirely.
Second: He may claim he do, but having seen his comments in this thread, I’m going to say no, he doesn’t want challenging, he wants to reduce the difficulty by removing the penalty of just mindlessly zerging the gauntlet without observing the fights.
Third: The longest queue I’ve had yet is roughly 1½-2minutes which in my view is perfectly acceptable, the waypoint is a swing and miss however, theres no reason there couldnt have been a waypoint in the center upstairs with connecting bridges to each of the domes.

Furthermore he is basing his entire claim on that noone finds this content fun, which is flat out false, he also makes up his very own statistics to back up his statements and that provides completely flawed data and as such messes up the actual information that COULD be used as feedback.

This isn’t feedback, its another “nerf the gauntlet” topic masqueraded as one.

I think Lue, that you should read his posts again.

-He has nothing against challenges. Therefore he doesn’t want the gauntlet nerfed.
-He is simply pointing out the unnecessary annoyances that doesn’t need to be there at all. They should have nothing to do with the content being challenging.

It’s the challenge itself that separates good players from bad ones and the unnecessary annoyances should have nothing to do with this so getting rid of them would not harm the better players and their experience. It would only make it a more enjoyable event for everyone.

Punishing players like this is actually bad design for every playerbase. You also have to keep in mind that new players may not even be able to try this event to the full because of some of these things. If this content was here to stay then new players could grow their resources and do it later, but since it’s not here to stay, this is not okay… Thus while I understand that some players may like to lose something when they fail, I think it was a wrong move here since it’s just a short event and hurts only new players and very casual ones with low resources.

Queues, bugs, bad camera etc etc… Now these should not be there in any case.

yearsonehundred.6139:

Um, I actually had a list of Punishments concerning the Queen’s Gauntlet. I’d suggest you go and read them carefully, without your tinted lenses on.

A Majority of these so called “Punishments” are not unique to the Gauntlet and some of them are not a design error but may be percieved that way when approached from particular vantage points as a player.

Some of them are also flat out lies, such as your claim that dynamic events blocks access to the content and to be honest, I did not experience any issues with the camera.

yearsonehundred.6139:

Reducing penalty does not equate to diminishing the Challenge. Rather, it provides unobstructed access to to the Challenge without all the gunk in the middle that limits and blocks access.

Reducing penalty encourages players to take a vastly different approach to the content, the less penalty you have, the more “head on” a player will engage the encounter and the less likely they are to stop and observe what is going on.

yearsonehundred.6139:

I’m glad that you’ve had such good luck with queue times – I personally get queue-robbed a bunch. Or, even worse, I wait to queue so that I can resurrect someone, and then the person I resurrected hops up and quickly queues before me. So I’m happy for you, but unfortunately, your consistently good experiences do not match up with mine.

My point is that this is anecdotal, it is a piece of data that changes between players, as an argument, it holds little value.

That said, I would prefer the queues over non-queues, I would prefer non-instanced over instanced, simply because I enjoy watching other players approach the content aswell, this is hard to do with the way it is formed now, but with it being instanced, it’d be impossible.

All that aside however, you can impact your queues by choosing less populated domes, it is something you need to decide for yourself however: Is it worth spending more time in queue but with a likelyhood of being revived contra less queue but potentional waypoint runs.

[[/quote]

The statistic was just a quip, but you’re right, I deleted it – it didn’t add anything to the post. And I never said that nobody found the Gauntlet fun, although I did do a lot of reading on this forum beforehand to I could see if anyone else agreed with me – and finding that the majority of people did at least to some degree was not surprising to me.

Based on how you’ve worded it in your initial post:
_one thing that always stuck out to me was the idea that it would be built around the concept of “Fun”. Fun was the drive behind the game – if something wasn’t deemed Fun, then it would be revised or eliminated. _
In combination with what you wrote later on in the posts would imply that “The Gauntlet should be revised, noone finds this fun.”, What you are seeing is a minority of very vocal and very upset players that either dislike the content or simply can not complete it for various reasons. Most players will probably not even set foot on the forums.

yearsonehundred.6139:

Instead, I simply said that Punishment isn’t fun, but I would indeed have to take that back, as several players now have come and said that they enjoy Punishment. So then, I would have to maintain instead that Punishment is against the original design mandate of ArenaNet, and it was what first drew me to GW2 back in March 2007.

Fun is subjective, this game has exactly 2 death penalties(or punishments as you liek to put it) in place:
1. Repaircosts
2. Waypoint Teleportation

Both of these combined will cost you less than you can get by selling a single piece of Orichalcum Ore or completing 1 group event.

Furthermore I’m certain you aren’t really trying to claim that by implementing a non-instanced 1player Arena that has the aforementioned death penalties in place, that they’ve distanced themselves from the initial concept of “fun”.

yearsonehundred.6139:

This is entirely untrue, and is very slandering on your part. Actually, my whole point can be summed up by what Wethospu said:

What Wethospu said was an absurd simplification and not entirely correct, players do approach things differently when the risk changes as such, it’d be different, exactly how is however speculative.

As for slander, you summed everyone who enjoy the gauntlet up as this:
_If you do think it’s fun, you are either A) Seriously messed up, Lying, or C) Way too rich for your own good. _

That is all.

Thezy.4136:

I think Lue, that you should read his posts again.

I’ve read it quite afew times but I thank you for the suggestion and I politely cast it aside.

Thezy.4136:

-He has nothing against challenges. Therefore he doesn’t want the gauntlet nerfed.
-He is simply pointing out the unnecessary annoyances that doesn’t need to be there at all. They should have nothing to do with the content being challenging.

It’s the challenge itself that separates good players from bad ones and the unnecessary annoyances should have nothing to do with this so getting rid of them would not harm the better players and their experience. It would only make it a more enjoyable event for everyone.

That is only true if everyone agrees on what a nuissance or annoyance is, you dislike the queue, I actually don’t mind it as it gives me time to prepare for the next round or review what went wrong in the previous fight.

I’ve adressed this before tho and I’ve got no interest in repeating it, so we’ll just disagree on this.

Thezy.4136:

Punishing players like this is actually bad design for every playerbase. You also have to keep in mind that new players may not even be able to try this event to the full because of some of these things. If this content was here to stay then new players could grow their resources and do it later, but since it’s not here to stay, this is not okay… Thus while I understand that some players may like to lose something when they fail, I think it was a wrong move here since it’s just a short event and hurts only new players and very casual ones with low resources.

Queues, bugs, bad camera etc etc… Now these should not be there in any case.

The Gauntlet is confirmed to be returning, as such the content is here to stay and players can thus grow their resources and do it later.

I ended up beating Liadri today. Over 300 tickets spent, and it turned out to be as simple as purchasing gear with more toughness. All the while, the unnecessary annoyances and punishments just dragged it down. They simply aren’t necessary, and they detract from what could have been an amazing content addition full of great challenges.

Lue, I apologize for sounding irritated toward you. You are entitled to your own opinions and thoughts, and getting upset toward you was incorrect of me. I still believe you’re wrong, but I do appreciate the time you’ve spent responding with your own feedback to this post.

I don’t think the word is “punishing”. I think it’s “frustrating”.

Witch challenging content, either you are good and do it not.
But you always have the possibility of getting better and eventually do it.

With frustrating content, most of what prevents you from doing it it’s factors on which you don’t have any sort of control and unrelated to your skill on using the intended game mechanics, and getting better at playing will not prevent you from being affected by those factors. Like a performance issue that causes stutter, or glitchy camera movements, or lag.

Lue.6538:

—
What Wethospu said was n absurd simplification and not entirely correct, players do approach things differently when the risk changes as such, it’d be different, exactly how is however speculative.
—

True, but in this case the risk isn’t that big that you would play any differently.

I think a lot of people playing GW2 would have an aneurysm if they were raised on SNES/Genesis games where everything was a OHKO and if you didn’t make leaps of faith you’d restart the entire game lol

shimmerless.4560:

I think a lot of people playing GW2 would have an aneurysm if they were raised on SNES/Genesis games where everything was a OHKO and if you didn’t make leaps of faith you’d restart the entire game lol

We have an entire generation of gamers that are used to check points. In some games there is zero penalty for dying. You automatically revive after death.

shimmerless.4560:

I think a lot of people playing GW2 would have an aneurysm if they were raised on SNES/Genesis games where everything was a OHKO and if you didn’t make leaps of faith you’d restart the entire game lol

I grew up in that generation – with the Gauntlet, the problem isn’t with restarting or being forced back to a certain point, it’s with the fees and annoyances that are an unnecessary burden to it.

shimmerless.4560:

I think a lot of people playing GW2 would have an aneurysm if they were raised on SNES/Genesis games where everything was a OHKO and if you didn’t make leaps of faith you’d restart the entire game lol

We usually didn’t have terrible cameras in SNES/Genesis games, to put it fairly.
Imagine playing an old Mario game where the visuals zoom in when you’re near pipes or the border of the screen and you can’t see anything around you. Or enemies that due of some bug are immune to the fireballs every now or then. Or platforms that can kill you and whose appearance differs from normal ones for just a slightly different shade of color.
Not that fun, isn’t it?

Manuhell.2759:

shimmerless.4560:

I think a lot of people playing GW2 would have an aneurysm if they were raised on SNES/Genesis games where everything was a OHKO and if you didn’t make leaps of faith you’d restart the entire game lol

We usually didn’t have terrible cameras in SNES/Genesis games, to put it fairly.
Imagine playing an old Mario game where the visuals zoom in when you’re near pipes or the border of the screen and you can’t see anything around you. Or enemies that due of some bug are immune to the fireballs every now or then. Or platforms that can kill you and whose appearance differs from normal ones for just a slightly different shade of color.
Not that fun, isn’t it?

Any game with forced scrolling or leaps of faith.

OtakuDFifty.2965:

Any game with forced scrolling or leaps of faith.

Except they’re supposed to work like so, and “balanced” in that scope.
Unlike this game’s camera.

Also, the situational awareness of those platformers and this game can’t even be compared. When the camera scrolls, you still see a large portion of the screen around you. Here, when the camera goes wrong, you can’t see almost anything near you.

There are two types of people in this thread
- Those who agree with OP
- Those who don’t comprehend what OP is saying

Possibly the best post I’ve ever seen on this board. You should get a job with Anet and fix this mess of a game, OP. +1m

Calae.1738:

Punishment means you lose something valuable when you fail. This concept is not new. It adds risk. When you do something risky you feel an adrenaline rush because you know the consequences of failure.

Without risk achievements are empty. The encounter might of been challenging but; the reward for success doesn’t feel the same.

I will disagree to some extent with this line of thinking. Emotional rewards come from many different sources. The rewards from the social aspects of the game have far outweighed any boss or battle in the game for me.

For the “adrenaline rush” I’ve stated numerous times it is not why I play a game. In fact, inducing an adrenaline response frequently should not be the goal of a developer. Because the stress response is not a healthy state to induce often.

I completely agree with the OP. It appears over the past couple of months the feeling of being punished and not challenged, has been creeping further and further into content.

I’m also not thrilled with the handling of our economy and the Gauntlet farming. Just last night I needed a rez and a Deadeye farmer ran over. Instead of giving me a rez, they just started looping in and out, leaving me for dead. That’s the kind of behavior this content is producing…..