Guild Wars 2

This is a game. A game is supposed to provide challenge. No challenge, no fun. Imagine seeing Tim Henman just volley balls from a serving machine for hours. Or watching Sebastian Vettel drive an entire F1 race on his own. Maybe watching someone pack sandwiches in a factory is more your thing, although is there a little bit too much challenge when the plastic wrap machine runs out of sellophane?

If you really don’t like dying, consider it as an ‘injured’ or ‘forced to retreat’. Or just level yourself to WAY past the story mission’s difficulty and faceroll it with exotic gear.

Why does EVERYONE want stuff handed to them on a plate? Life contains challenges, your character’s life should, too.

Let’s just dissect your arguments.

Conclusion: A game should contain challenge
Premises:
a) Guild Wars 2 is a game
b) a game is supposed to provide fun
c) challenge is the only way to provide fun
Argument:
Since GW 2 is a game and a game is supposed to provide fun then Guild Wars 2 is supposed to provide fun. Because Guild Wars 2 is supposed to provide fun and challenge is the only way to provide fun then Guild Wars 2 needs to be challenging/provide challenge.

This argument however is easily shown to be false by demonstrating that there are ways to provide fun that are entirely passive in nature such as watching a comedy show on the telly. It necessarily follows that if there are ways to have fun other than being challenged then being challenging is only a sufficient but not necessary condition for Guild Wars to provide fun. Since it could also provide fun by becoming a comedy show then Guild Wars 2 does not need to be challenging.

Life also contains permadeath, but I don’t think anyone, including you, wants Guild Wars 2 to feature perma death. So if we don’t want to replicate one aspect of real life then it is also possible we don’t want to replicate other aspects of real life. We certainly don’t want to replicate the fact that there is no magic in the real world nor that injuries cannot magically heal completely within 10 especially when injuries in the real world when left untreated or even when treated can lead to death. We also don’t want to replicate that having your unarmored arm get struck squarely with a greatsword would cut your arm clean off. Video games are a form of escape, they are not real life simulators (though some video games try to be but cannot ever actually be a true reali life simulator because not only is real life incapable of being simulated but simulating it in its entirety would be undesireable).

Obviously of course every game needs to replicate real life to a certain extent in order to function and be believeable, we could hardly play GW 2 if the devs hadn’t chosen to replicate the effects of gravity.

Quite franky, I really don’t like games that grab you and refuse to let go. (which they can do by requiring an onerous amount of grinding).

Here is my favorite quote from Ghost in the Shell: Standalone complex which addresses a problem of MMOs:

Kanazuki: What do you think [of the movie]?

Major: I have to admit, for a movie it wasn’t bad- but diversionary entertainment is transitory, it just comes and goes at the viewers whim. It’s the way it should be, but a film with no beginning or end that hooks an audience and won’t let go of them is harmful no matter how wonderful you may have believed it was.

Kanazuki: Ohh, you’re a tough critic. Are you saying that we members of the audience have a reality to which we should return?

Major: Yes I am.

Kanazuki: For some who sit and watch the film, misery will be waiting for them the instant they go back to reality. You’re willing to accept responsibility for depriving these people of their dreams?

Major: No, I’m not. But dreams are meaningful [only] when you work toward them in the real world. If you merely live within the dreams of other people it’s no different from being dead.

Kanazuki: You’re a realist.

Major: If a romantic escapes from reality, then yes.

Kanazuki: A strong girl you are. If the reality you believe in ever comes about, you give me a call. When it happens, that’s the time we’ll leave this theatre.

Wow, that was deep!

Okay, maybe some of these people complaining should just watch Youtube videos of someone else playing. That is my point, I guess. The game is meant to be engaging and interactive. Not very interactive if the enemies all roll over and die for you.

Thats the kind of mentality that makes people pay for cheats for games. Wanting all the reward for no effort.

GuzziHero.2467:

This is a game. A game is supposed to provide challenge. No challenge, no fun. Imagine seeing Tim Henman just volley balls from a serving machine for hours. Or watching Sebastian Vettel drive an entire F1 race on his own. Maybe watching someone pack sandwiches in a factory is more your thing, although is there a little bit too much challenge when the plastic wrap machine runs out of sellophane?

If you really don’t like dying, consider it as an ‘injured’ or ‘forced to retreat’. Or just level yourself to WAY past the story mission’s difficulty and faceroll it with exotic gear.

Why does EVERYONE want stuff handed to them on a plate? Life contains challenges, your character’s life should, too.

while i like a great challange there is a difference between challanging and cheap.Fighting a veteran yourself that bleeds you with guns and poisons and seems to have homing bullets and adds mobs when your just starting out is just cheap( it’s kinda like expecting Sebastian Vettel to win that F1 race in a GO KART, or having Tim Henman play volleyball against an olympic team with a toddler for his partner.)

You’re talking about Doc Howler right? That is one I DID have difficulty with – I just outlevelled her and got her. In fairness, not all new players would think of that.

Otherwise, I finished almost each story part first time and I am far from the sharpest knife in the drawer.

We could argue the definition of “game,” but if we accept that games must provide challenge, then what’s the baseline? There is no objective level of “challenge” that works for all people. Should people be driven off tennis courts if they can’t compete with professionals? If they can’t compete with college athletes? If they don’t meet some minimum requirement for hand-eye coordination?

Single-player games accommodate variable player capacity through difficulty settings, but MMORPGs are stuck with all players experiencing the same content. If a developer wants as wide an audience as possible, then the MMORPG has to offer different difficulties for different parts of the game…that are reached through conscious player choice. For example, if you want PvP action, you must go to a PvP region.

GW2’s Personal Story appears to be intended for all players, not to be an optional part of the game for players seeking a particular style of play or degree of challenge. If this is true, then it needs a low challenge baseline…or at the very least, a warning that certain missions require special care (and perhaps extra help). Sudden unexpected spikes of difficulty can seem to be a bait-and-switch trick.

For example, I just completed a Level-24 Order of Whispers story quest that was pure, intense close-quarters combat. With a Mesmer. I did not enjoy the experience, and died several times. Is the Personal Story the best place to raise the game’s difficulty (negate many class features and demand a new playstyle)? Is close-quarters combat a good result for a player choice to avoid combat (by choosing the Order of Whispers)? It certainly didn’t encourage me to keep playing (or to spend more money on the game).

Well… that failed. I downloaded FRAPS but for some reason it wouldn’t capture more than 28 seconds at a time. Probably because I haven’t paid for it.

What I wanted to do was tape myself playing a lvl 55 mission (“A Light In The Darkness”) with an lvl 50 character. No particular build, just going for it.

I finished it first time, downed twice but never killed. Got the gate guardian without my ranger pet even dying once.

And I am a self-confessed asperger’s sufferer. No eye hand coord, slow reactions, not very quick witted.

Seriously, if you can’t finish the PS in this game you are doing something SERIOUSLY wrong.

I’m going to make a thread moaning about people who moan about the difficulty of the P/S.