Guild Wars 2

For those of you who like to just read the title and post things along the lines of ‘you just don’t know etc.’ or ‘you haven’t done etc.‘, stop now while you’re ahead; this game has a serious lack of competition.

I am aware of the keg brawl PvP activity. And while it is fun, it still isn’t very competitive.

I am aware of the Halloween PvP activity. And even though it is fairly more competitive than the keg brawl, once the sides get too lopsided, the competitiveness goes out of the window.

I am aware of sPvP. I’ve tried it and I’m not overly impressed by it.

I am too aware WvWvW. But there is almost no competition in zerg vs. zerg vs. zerg.

This game, in general, lacks competition. Arenanet, with the best of intentions, seemingly designed the game to cater to solo players (not including dungeons). Aside from dungeons requiring parties, there is nothing in the game that cannot be done as a solo player. GW2 is not a MMORPG; it is a MSPORPG (Massive Single Player Online Role-Playing Game). There is no:

- “I have to get to that node before they do” mentality
- “I have to get better gear so they can’t roll me anymore” mentality
- Drive to work on better gear (at the moment it’s so casual it’s not funny)
- Necessity to continuously improve play style
- Need to join a guild
- Need to do a lot of damage to get credit for a kill (yay for taggers!)

But to top it off, there really are no ‘open-world’ goals to work towards. Yes there are achievements, but those are for vanity purposes and offer nothing for the player. Besides, completionists who have never played GW1, like me, will never be able to complete all of the achievements because of the ‘Hall of Monuments’ category. Why even bother trying to gain all of the achievements if I will not be able to complete that category without actually buying GW1? In my opinion, having the ’Hall of Monuments’ category is redundant.

But to get back on topic, Malicious.6742 said it best when they stated:

That WvWvW is supposed to be the actual end game content but it is neither competetive nor motivating at all. Wow, there are even people who PvE there just because WvWvW has PvE elements. And that it is hard to effectively organize attacks.

I cannot begin to emphasize enough on how much I would love to have a PvP server, or at least the option to engage in open-world PvP (a toggle). I think that one of the biggest reasons that WvW is so popular is because it resembles open-world PvP, something that a lot of players are interested in, and apparently miss. But, like Malicious said, there really isnt’ a way to be victorious in WvW; everyone shows up as X Server Invader and the only thing that you have to show for it is silly PvE buffs. Also, with all of the zerg groups running around, there is no way of knowing how much, if any, of a contribution that you put in.

Malicious also goes on to state that guilds bring almost no real benefits to players. They’re not needed to PvE, PvP, or WvW either.

This goes back to my previous statement about there not being a need to join a guild. What does a guild have to offer the average player? Banners, if there’s anything else, please say so, constructively. And even then, there is so much work that should be done to the guild system that it’s not funny; it’s that lack of content that is preventing me from wanting to join a guild. There has been numerous management suggestions made that would improve managing a guild. Also, I am not particularly fond of how a player can join multiple guilds; a player should be limited to one guild per character.

But the big question that really has me going WTF??? is why title the game GUILD WARS 2 when there are, in fact, NO guild wars? As previously stated, guilds don’t really have anything to offer the average player to begin with. Going purely on how the game is, at the moment, a more appropriate title for it would be ‘World Wars’ or ‘Server Wars’, since that, in essence, is what it is.

I sincerely believe that GvG and open-world PvP would add whole new dynamics to the game that would have the potentials to increase the player-base.

Open-world PvP would add the individual competition that this game is lacking, without needing to go to WvWvW for the POSSIBILITY of finding it there. Players would have to be constantly alert of their surroundings for the possibility of being attacked by another player. Upon being defeated, a ‘you have been killed by (insert name) message would appear in the chat box. It would also push players to make sure that their gear is properly repaired and ’up to snuff’. There would be no zerg groups running around so the individual player would be able to get a better idea of how they match up gear and skill wise; sPvP does not grant this due to the PvP gear that you get outfitted in upon entering.

Malicious had commented on GvGvG, but I believe that this could be expanded upon.

Currently, large guilds tend to migrate from losing WvWvW servers to winning WvWvW servers, leaving their old servers to suffer in WvWvW. GvGvG would add a new dynamic to GW2 that would, hopefully, lead to keeping guilds from migrating while adding more competition to the game.

GvGvG would entail guilds to bid on territories in Tyria to ‘conquer’ and defend. Bidding for territories would begin, for example, on Monday and close on Wednesday. That would give guilds 48 hours to place their bids on places like Bloodtide Coast and Sparkfly Fen. The winning bids would be announced on Wednesday, after the bids have been closed. The winning guilds would then have 48 hours to organize their ‘troops’ to build their offensive/defensive. The territories would be tiered; tier 3 would be the easiest, tier 2 would have a medium difficulty, and tier 1 would be the hardest to capture. If the territory is not already held by a guild, all attacking players would be auto-leveled to 80 and would have to clear the territory of all mobs and a main champion mob before being able to claim the territory. The level scaling would not be applicable if the battle is between guilds. Before being able to bid on a tier 1 territory, a guild must own one tier 2 and two tier 3 territories; one of which must be touching the tier 1 land. The tier 1 lands would be Divinity’s Reach, The Grove, Rata Sum, Black Citadel, and Hoelbrak. A guild will not have an attack and defense on the same day.

When/if guild bases are implemented, then the base wars would take place of the territory wars; whatever happens, happens; I’m not advocating for both. But as it stands now, the game is lacking viable competition. When you’re low level, your goal is to hit 80. But, once you get there, there is little left for you to work towards. I am aware that implementing any of the above would open the door for drama and griefers, but the lack of competition has the potential to do more harm than the occasional ‘that person stole my iron’ spiel.

Good sir, I feel like you have hit the nail on the head.

One of the best ( if not THE ) best thing in this game is that theres is absolutely no competition in PVE. And i believe they wont change that. I agree with some you said about pvp, and some i just dont understand as i dont pvp much. But the major problem for me, that you brought up and i agree, are the guilds. Guilds need SERIOUSLY thought from now on,first of all, whats this bullkitten of 5 guilds at once? seriously anet i am yet to meet a single player that liked the ideia, or even didnt mind, everybody hates that. And second, yes thay are completely useless, other then chat. In ‘Guild Wars’ they could really use a bigger role, i would not say something vital, far from that, as i love to play solo many times, but at least something interesting, theres nothing to guild in this game at the moment.

I’m personally happy they’ve eliminated the competitiveness in PvE. As a player that doesn’t get to play much, I don’t feel like I’m going to fall behind in terms of gear, gathering etc because of things out of my control.

That’s not to say I wouldn’t like to see an extreme ramp up in the difficulty of DE’s, because they’re laughably easy right now, but that’s another issue altogether.

Rather than bring in open-world PvP and competitiveness into the PvE world, I think they need to improve / adapt WvW to the point where it can function as the open-world, competitive PvP that so that would be the ‘hardcore’ part of it. Stuff like node-stealing, guilds ect.

Oh, and Guild Wars is called Guild Wars because of the lore, not because of GvG

http://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/The_History_of_Guild_Wars#The_Guild_Wars

Capo.4970:

and i guess we all need to read the lore…lolwut?

Not at all. I was just providing an explanation as to why Guild Wars is indeed called Guild Wars.

Capo.4970:

and i guess we all need to read the lore…lolwut?

You do if you are one of the people who sees “Guild Wars” and then wonders where the guild vs guild war is.

Very good write-up OP.

This in particular.

That WvWvW is supposed to be the actual end game content but it is neither competetive nor motivating at all.

This game seriously needs some form of benefit for winning WvW.

I honestly appreciate the level of competitiveness in PVE as a casual player. But I would love for GW2 to somehow work on individualism and give players more sense of progression. Everything gets scaled down to maintain balance… but on the down side, strips us of the feel of progression and makes it seem like all our time and effort didn’t pay off to a certain extent.

Our generation loves fast-pace… and the dungeon explore just seems like such a drag and super time-consuming with very little pay-out in the end. If it is going to be time-consuming… at least make the dungeon more captivating, engaging and exciting!

jayvux.4128:

Our generation loves fast-pace… and the dungeon explore just seems like such a drag and super time-consuming with very little pay-out in the end.

Amen…….

Yeah the Dungeons are pretty bad…I can farm more karma from doing 2 lvl 55 world events in the same area then grinding out dungeons because of the length (and consistency). As for Dungeon armor…meh don’t care, I just want karma.

In pvp the lack of a rating system and MMR make it unattractive for me. Sure you can beat everyone and maybe get a cool title, but no recognition for it as anyone can grind those titles out. Since it doesn’t matter how good you are to get pvp objectives, just how fast you are at getting them, I’ve completely lost interest in it.

WvW is the same deal. Although it should be getting better soon with the transfer limits. Whichever server all the guilds decided to transfer to will win, and there’s no way to shine and a guild, or as an individual in WvW.
Take this for example: The first week of Guild Wars 2 my guild(Arrogance) decided we wanted to try to take Stone Mist. We spent around 4 gold(was quite a lot at the time) of our money without any other guilds or individuals assisting with siege or coin to take it. However, when we broke the final gate and rushed towards the NPC to claim it for Arro, someone beat us to it. Their guild got full credit simply for being the first person there, not the people who spent all the money to make it happen. It almost makes me want to make a guild called “I got there first,” and just run around solo claiming things for myself… As far as I’m aware, there still isn’t a contribution system for WvW, and I’ll never take it seriously until that happens.

As far as PvE goes, after you finish your karma grind there isn’t any point in doing dynamic events other than for fun. I found myself just collecting Orichalcum ore and Ancient logs every time they were up.
As far as dungeons go I personally thought they were brilliant, but not many of my friends thought so. I have the CoF and Arah armor sets. I never liked the way the CoF set looked, but if i wanted something to do in PvE, that’s what people were doing. After everyone had that they moved on to Arah.
In an attempt to get the TA set I literally had to beg people in Lion’s Arch to come with me, because they thought it was too “hard.” The TA set was the only set I wanted. I finally got one piece and realized it was going to take me another month or more if I was just picking up anyone who was willing. 90% of the time someone who was a first timer in the dungeon would leave after their first death(no penalty for screwing another group over.) People were satisfied with the gear they had already and didn’t want to go out of their way for any armor sets other than the ones they already have, or to help others get the set they wanted. I can understand though, there isn’t any reason to unless you really want the set. I despise the feeling of being pigeon holed into doing something, when what I really want to do is near-impossible or will take forever since hardly anyone is willing.

There isn’t a way to shine in PvE either. No server firsts, no quickest runs. Everyone and their mother already have the Arah and CoF sets. Getting people willing to run the dungeons is more difficult than the dungeons themselves. World PvP on a PvP server would be good enough to keep me in the world, but the casual player base would completely disagree.

I hope Anet addresses these issues someday.

@Aurie (quote and other options not visible at the moment, woo)

I love the ideas of server firsts in all aspects of the game, however I think they might want to hold off on that till they can launch it with new expansion, as the current content has lost pretty much any chance of such things being representative of the achievements.

On Contribution in WvW, absolutely. I don’t want a system like another thread was talking about where names are visible on some leaderboard (cue top-rated person being the first target on everyone’s hitlist essentially making it a Player vs. World scenario), but the idea of how much one person/group/guild has contributed to a given task really does need to get some attention/implementation in the rewards/mechanics of rewards.

Timed scenarios seems a little bit of a stretch though. This isn’t really the kind of game for it, and whether by design or chance the Mad King’s Clocktower reflects this. If you go too fast there’s a point where you have to wait again, just like at the start of the run. In MMO’s being able to say you’ve done something the fastest/most efficiently has always been more of a personal bragging right than something associated with an achievement/title anyway in my experience.

On non-server/world first titles/rewards: if it’s something a player can get by doing a thing, it’s going to be something they can grind for. Periodically updating a title name would be the most appropriate fix, so if you did this within X date and Y date you got this title, but if you did it after that you get this other title. Then the issue becomes “well it’s the same task, why did the reward change?”

Shining in PvE is, as a lot of people would say, cosmetic. “Wow that set looks great, where’d you get it?” “that one dungeon everyone says is balls hard.” “Wow, I want it too!” I’m kind of exaggerating since the chances of someone not completely new reacting like that are pretty low, but still. Working as intended on that front.

Sidenote: I also think the dungeons are awesome and I don’t get why more people don’t. Sure they need a little mechanical tweaking but overall they are (or can be with minimal effort) the best dungeon scenarios I’ve experienced in an MMO.

And yeah, I disagree with PvP in the PvE, but not because I’m casual and don’t want to deal with it. If they could find a way to effectively overlay WvWvW onto PvE areas without compromising the experience for PvE individuals then I’d be all over that. Their PvE event designs seem to be workable around such an idea. I just don’t know what it would take to accomplish that, so I don’t know how worthwhile it would be to pursue from an opportunity cost perspective.

Just some ideas really. I felt like I wasted my time getting to level 80, and before the first month of the game was over I had run out of things to do. Adding some levels of competitiveness to the game would at least temporarily address that issue.

It doesn’t have to be a change to the title for world/server firsts. Just some kind of recognition for it. For example, on Rift you can see exactly how many world firsts and server firsts you’ve acquired. If you look for a guild you can see how much the guild as a whole has acquired. They don’t necessarily need that, but they definitely need something to make being in a guild worth something.

Dungeons could be the greatest thing in this game. However, it’s not so much that the game needs tweaking. It’s more so that people aren’t willing to do any explorable dungeon other than CoF and Arah(I’ve only been able to persuade friends and VERY rarely a random person to do anything else.)

Also, having some dynamic events in the world that put even people on the same server against each other could be fun. I’d mainly hope for one or two servers to have world pvp, but that won’t ever happen. I’m waiting for a game to come along with a fable-ish aspect. Choosing to be good or bad. Along with more realistically placed monsters and randomness. I always know EXACTLY where to go if I want to find a skelk in Guild Wars 2. Once again though, casual players wouldn’t like that either. Always looking for something is inconvenient I suppose. I’d probably get more of a thrill looking for monsters than actually killing them.

Archmortal.1027:

And yeah, I disagree with PvP in the PvE, but not because I’m casual and don’t want to deal with it. If they could find a way to effectively overlay WvWvW onto PvE areas without compromising the experience for PvE individuals then I’d be all over that. Their PvE event designs seem to be workable around such an idea. I just don’t know what it would take to accomplish that, so I don’t know how worthwhile it would be to pursue from an opportunity cost perspective.

That’s what the toggle that I had mentioned would be for; it would be a ‘switch’ to turn PvP mode on/off. The players who wanted strictly PvE would leave it off and never have to worry about anything; those who want a PvP twist to the open-world would leave it on and would have to remain constantly aware of their surroundings to make sure that some other player isn’t coming for them.