Guild Wars 2

lordkrall.7241:

haviz.1340:

I fully agree. Can you show me a single piece of content in the whole game that caters specifically to me?

Since I don’t know what you like that would be impossible.
My point however was that the game caters to different type of players, which means that not all parts can cater to all players.

Yes, but haviz’s point was that right now, not a single piece of content caters to us. The people that like truly challenging, skill gated (not time/gear gated) content. Fractals 70+ was the closest the game ever had to offer for such content. They took it away. And you keep defending them and try to provoke us by disagreeing with us wherever you go.

Everything they’ve done so far to the game was contrary to what we’ve asked of them. At not a single point in time did they take us as a part of their player base into consideration. No, even worse, when we ask for a compensation for equity loss, they refuse to answer and use the idea we gave them and give it to PvP players.

You know kitten well what haviz means when he says content that caters to him, you’ve been disagreeing with everything he’s said over the forums for the past 2 weeks.

We cannot play the way we want

How in the world does someone manage to go 71 pages of posts just defending an organisation on every single thing they have ever done. I just.. Wow.

Im a loyal customer to anet but that just takes it to a whole new level.

It’s called “Rose Tinted Glasses Syndrome”.

lordkrall.7241:

My point however was that the game caters to different type of players, which means that not all parts can cater to all players.

My point exactly. Shame that this “different type of players” doesn’t include us.

haviz.1340:

lordkrall.7241:

My point however was that the game caters to different type of players, which means that not all parts can cater to all players.

My point exactly. Shame that this “different type of players” doesn’t include us.

We are being apartheidised. I know someone who is turning in his grave.
Jokes aside, respect to N.M.

haviz.1340:

My point exactly. Shame that this “different type of players” doesn’t include us.

So what content is it your big group of players want that does not exist in the game?

lordkrall.7241:

So what content is it your big group of players want that does not exist in the game?

Something harder than pressing 1.

lordkrall.7241:

haviz.1340:

My point exactly. Shame that this “different type of players” doesn’t include us.

So what content is it your big group of players want that does not exist in the game?

Challenging
Which we somewhat had.
But we do not have anymore at all
Because living story
Now to champion farming
Yay.

haviz.1340:

lordkrall.7241:

So what content is it your big group of players want that does not exist in the game?

Something harder than pressing 1.

Dude … you don’t even need to press 1 ! There’s the auto attack.
“I swung a sword, I swung a sword again Hey! I swung it again, that’s great”

haviz.1340:

Something harder than pressing 1.

So, run dungeon on level? That would make it quite a bit harder, and just pressing 1 wouldn’t really work all that well.

I do agree though, there should be something in the game that is actually hard enough to even challenge max-level top-geared players.
The main issue is that it is usually a rather small part of the player-base that would clear that, which could be considered a waste of resources.

A developer do want as many people as possible to experience their content after all.

lordkrall.7241:

So, run dungeon on level? That would make it quite a bit harder, and just pressing 1 wouldn’t really work all that well.

I do agree though, there should be something in the game that is actually hard enough to even challenge max-level top-geared players.
The main issue is that it is usually a rather small part of the player-base that would clear that, which could be considered a waste of resources.

A developer do want as many people as possible to experience their content after all.

How does something challenging stop people from experiencing it? I thought it just makes it harder to complete.

That’s probably why every single update we receive more auto-attack content is introduced, so that everyone can experience that wonderful content that they would not be able to experience otherwise.

Zelyhn.8069:

Dude … you don’t even need to press 1 ! There’s the auto attack.
“I swung a sword, I swung a sword again Hey! I swung it again, that’s great”

I don’t but I’m sure there are people that do

lordkrall.7241:

haviz.1340:

Something harder than pressing 1.

So, run dungeon on level? That would make it quite a bit harder, and just pressing 1 wouldn’t really work all that well.

I do agree though, there should be something in the game that is actually hard enough to even challenge max-level top-geared players.
The main issue is that it is usually a rather small part of the player-base that would clear that, which could be considered a waste of resources.

A developer do want as many people as possible to experience their content after all.

Solution:
Remove scripted agony
Make all agony attacks avoidable so it takes skill to be free of agony
Make agony farmable but not buyable so people spend time in fractals instead of champion farming therefore they learn the mechanics and get better
Make more AR drop the higher you go in levels as to reward risk taking

Effect:
Skilled players go through
Less skilled players learn at their own pace and get agony anyway so they progress anyway

Conclusion:
This would act like raids in wow: skilled players did them first, then the studio would nerf the difficulty therefore by the end of the content period everybody would be able to do it

How to keep progressing:
Add more levels
Add rewards

How to keep coming up with good ideas:
Hire me

haviz.1340:

How does something challenging stop people from experiencing it? I thought it just makes it harder to complete.

That’s probably why every single update we receive more auto-attack content is introduced, so that everyone can experience that wonderful content that they would not be able to experience otherwise.

If something is challenging enough people won’t be able to get past the first parts of it, thus won’t be able to experience the whole thing.

If you choose to simply run stuff in a massive blob then yes it will probably be seen as “auto-attack content”, if you do however try to do stuff in smaller more organized groups you will see quite fast that it is not the case.

Good luck getting up the top of the Tower with everyone simply auto-attacking.
Good luck defeating Tequatl with everyone just auto-attacking.
Good luck clearing Temple of Grenth and Baltazhar with everyone just auto-attacking.

There are stuff in the game that is more than just spam auto-attack, but people do seem to ignore that and just join the big blobs simply because that is more rewarding.

lordkrall.7241:

haviz.1340:

My point exactly. Shame that this “different type of players” doesn’t include us.

So what content is it your big group of players want that does not exist in the game?

More challenging content. A new permanent dungeon path that does not replace an existing dungeon path every 2 weeks and a hard-mode version of an existing path to go with it would be sufficient!

The whole point of challenging content is that not everybody must be able to experience it.

That’s what difficulty serves: if you are able to tackle it, you experience the content and get the rewards. If you are not good enough yet, you might take more time or more tries to clear it. If you are a bad player, you won’t experience it as long as you do not improve.

The whole casual “That’s not right, everybody must be able to experience everything in the same way with same chances” mindset is just driving PvE community downhill.

Unless you consider champ farming, achievement hunting or LS worthy of be considered playable content.
The only somewhat enjoyable – yet broken and deeply bad designed at times – PvE content, the DGs, are gettin ignored so hard that’s not even funny.

• I got to the top of the tower solo just by auto attacking and running.
• I went afk for tequatl and died less than most people around me.
• Grenth you can solo by auto attacking. I personally havent done balthazar in a small group. But heres rT vs Balth: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rrhOsoeu58o

lordkrall.7241:

If you choose to simply run stuff in a massive blob then yes it will probably be seen as “auto-attack content”, if you do however try to do stuff in smaller more organized groups you will see quite fast that it is not the case.

My massive blob I’m the part of rolls everything on its way.

Good luck getting up the top of the Tower with everyone simply auto-attacking.
Good luck defeating Tequatl with everyone just auto-attacking.
Good luck clearing Temple of Grenth and Baltazhar with everyone just auto-attacking.

Thanks for good wish but I’ve already done those. Can’t say I was impressed. Pick something a little harder please.

There are stuff in the game that is more than just spam auto-attack, but people do seem to ignore that and just join the big blobs simply because that is more rewarding.

Maybe it’s time to trash that idea of “everyone is rewarded for his participation”? Or make champions a bit harder. Removing aoe limit of their attacks would be a really nice addition I’m sure most of the community would appreciate.

lordkrall.7241:

So, run dungeon on level? That would make it quite a bit harder, and just pressing 1 wouldn’t really work all that well.

If we have to resort to actively crippling ourselves in order to find challenging content in the game, there is an issue with the challenging content in your game.

Also, doing dungeons on level is hardly difficult. We planned on doing video guides of every single dungeon path done on level in level appropriate gear, but due to time-issues, we never actually got around to doing it. But it should have hardly posed a challenge to be honest.

lordkrall.7241:

If something is challenging enough people won’t be able to get past the first parts of it, thus won’t be able to experience the whole thing.

If you choose to simply run stuff in a massive blob then yes it will probably be seen as “auto-attack content”, if you do however try to do stuff in smaller more organized groups you will see quite fast that it is not the case.

Good luck getting up the top of the Tower with everyone simply auto-attacking.
Good luck defeating Tequatl with everyone just auto-attacking.
Good luck clearing Temple of Grenth and Baltazhar with everyone just auto-attacking.

There are stuff in the game that is more than just spam auto-attack, but people do seem to ignore that and just join the big blobs simply because that is more rewarding.

GW1 had plenty of challenging stuff. Sorrow’s Furnace was challenging before Factions came out, it didn’t stop anyone from doing it. Underworld and Fissure of Woe were pretty challenging at launch too. In fact, I think it took at least around a month or more before a team succeeded in completing UW. Most teams wiped on the first mob, and a wipe in UW meant you’d be kicked out. Whenever new elite areas were launched, it took a while to get good at it. The Deep and Urgoz first took like 1 hour or more to clear. UW in the prophecies days took 2-3 hours or more. DoA first full clear took 12 hours. It didn’t stop anyone from getting better at the areas and improving their play/builds. The reason being that those areas were also highly rewarding. The problem now is that the challenging areas aren’t challenging, just tedious and pointlessly long and far from rewarding.

Every single elite area in GW1 was fully optional, you didn’t need it to proceed in the game or you didn’t get better gear, yet people loved doing them.

People are being turned away by challenging content in GW2 because it isn’t even challenging, and it rewards you very poorly.

I don’t understand how you can defend the game’s lack of challenge by simply saying well, then just make it harder on yourself without seeing the irony of it all.

Also, as for open-world content being hard in small groups: you couldn’t be more wrong. The scaling got fixed with the Tequatl patch, meaning that if you’re with very little people, bosses will simply melt if you do decent DPS. I’ve solo’ed Mark II on my warrior and my ele, and that went pretty fast. The solo on my ele was pretty funny, because I used FGS and the fight was over in like kitten . On my warrior it took me around 90-120s.

[rT] does open world bosses in small groups all the time, and they completely wreck them. Not to mention, I got to the top of the nightmare tower by not even attacking once. How challenging. So hard, much challenge, wow Anet.

swiftpaw.6397:

How in the world does someone manage to go 71 pages of posts just defending an organisation on every single thing they have ever done. I just.. Wow.

I wonder if he likes the Dredge Fractal. I’d like to hear anyone take a positive spin on that trainwreck of content.

Nokaru.7831:

I wonder if he likes the Dredge Fractal. I’d like to hear anyone take a positive spin on that trainwreck of content.

I like killing Dredge, but that is only because I hate them so much.
There’s your “positive” spin :P

lordkrall.7241:

haviz.1340:

How does something challenging stop people from experiencing it? I thought it just makes it harder to complete.

That’s probably why every single update we receive more auto-attack content is introduced, so that everyone can experience that wonderful content that they would not be able to experience otherwise.

If something is challenging enough people won’t be able to get past the first parts of it, thus won’t be able to experience the whole thing.

If you choose to simply run stuff in a massive blob then yes it will probably be seen as “auto-attack content”, if you do however try to do stuff in smaller more organized groups you will see quite fast that it is not the case.

Good luck getting up the top of the Tower with everyone simply auto-attacking.
Good luck defeating Tequatl with everyone just auto-attacking.
Good luck clearing Temple of Grenth and Baltazhar with everyone just auto-attacking.

There are stuff in the game that is more than just spam auto-attack, but people do seem to ignore that and just join the big blobs simply because that is more rewarding.

I know its hard but you have to fight the urge to acknowledge this guy, seriously, look at their history.

Getting back on topic what’s the point of blocks and dodges if you can’t block or dodge things like scripted agony? When ever i get hit by it with no means of escape it feels cheap because its completely unavoidable. A good game will always have more than one way to deal with a problem.

Bright.9160:

Yes, but haviz’s point was that right now, not a single piece of content caters to us. The people that like truly challenging, skill gated (not time/gear gated) content.

I don’t want you to get the impression I’m trolling here but … after playing the game for the year it’s been out, why would anyone even think the game even attempts to cater to those people? It never has. In fact, I’m convinced it’s the opposite …

When I can team people who have no clue and junk gear in a PUG and complete a dungeon, I’m convinced that the game couldn’t be farther from catering to people that like truly challenging, skill gated content.

Think about it … the whole premise of the game is to collect skins … Sure there is some gear progression but nothing in PVE is rewarded for ‘doing it better/faster’. Don’t be fooled, if you aren’t working on how you look ingame, you better like PVP encounters because there isn’t much for you.

Scripted Agony is a little lazy and feels artificial but I wouldn’t confuse it with ‘dumbing down’ a game that already appeals to some lowest common denominators in MMO gaming.

A good game caters to all types of people. GW1 catered for skill demanding players. Pretty sure its not intentional that they are dissapointing us.

Obtena.7952:

I don’t want you to get the impression I’m trolling here but … after playing the game for the year it’s been out, why would anyone even think the game even attempts to cater to those people? It never has. In fact, I’m convinced it’s the opposite …

I’d like to think they did want to cater but they don’t want to or can’t do it anymore.

When I can team people who have no clue and junk gear in a PUG and complete a dungeon, I’m convinced that the game couldn’t be farther from catering to people that like truly challenging, skill gated content.

I am pretty sure you would have some problems with some of the content like old fotm 50+ or even arah.

Think about it … the whole premise of the game is to collect skins … Sure there is some gear progression but nothing in PVE is rewarded for ‘doing it better/faster’. Don’t be fooled, if you aren’t working on how you look ingame, you better like PVP encounters because there isn’t much for you.

How collecting skins contradicts having something difficult? Correct me if I’m wrong but that’s what gw1 was about. And most people I know really do not like gear progression so I don’t know why you brough it up here. Wasn’t “skill > gear” one of the game pillar?

And I do pvp. In fact, I bought this game for pvp. But after a year it’s still in pre-alpha state so I’m chilling in pve and complaining about its depth.

I’m not disagreeing with who the game caters to because I don’t know Anet’s scheme bit I am basing my opinion on how I see the game work. Why does the game not have challenging content for PVE players? Why is there no rewards scaling with performance. Hey, we know the answer … it caters to casuals. Any content that doesn’t alienates your customer base.

I don’t feel that collecting skins contradicts difficult content but I do feel that skins appeals more to players that do PVE content (which is what appeals more to the LCF) as opposed to PVP stuff (which appeals more to the competitive player). Hence why I think PVE is aimed at allowing all people a way to ‘look pretty’. Generally, IMO, PVP people are less interested in how they look vs. who or how many people they defeat.

I like to “look pretty” but i like to obtain the skins i want while having fun with challenging content. Cosmetics have no relation to this issue.

I have to agree with your first statement because that’s what you like. If you don’t recognize that cosmetics are the reason for PVE, I doubt I’m going to convince you otherwise. What I do know is that the level of challenge from PVE content in this game is relatively low and has been since it started, so it’s a stretch to make generalizations that people PVE in this game for a challenge.

If you have tried SWTOR nightmare mode raids, you know what I’m talking about.

You misunderstood me. PvE being for cosmetics is not relevant to wanting challenging content. Every game should cater to all types of players and challenging content is pretty much mandatory in any game, even the most casual games.

Obtena.7952:

I have to agree with your first statement because that’s what you like. If you don’t recognize that cosmetics are the reason for PVE, I doubt I’m going to convince you otherwise. What I do know is that the level of challenge from PVE content in this game is relatively low and has been since it started, so it’s a stretch to make generalizations that people PVE in this game for a challenge.

If you have tried SWTOR nightmare mode raids, you know what I’m talking about.

Again, like spoj mentioned, cosmetics have no relations with challenging content. It’s the similar system to what we had in gw1. In fact, I prefer this system than chasing a carrot with +5 power. I just want to have something remotely hard that rewards you with unique skins. Similarly to what arah skins could be considered at the start if you excluded “shard farmers”.

Player Character.9467:

But it’s also completely ignorable if you gear properly. That’s the value of having more infusion slots. That’s why +20’s cost so much more than 2 +10’s. They want you to get the gear, and they want that to be the value for getting that gear.

You need 1024 +10s to make a +20, not 2.

Spoj The Second.7680:

You misunderstood me. PvE being for cosmetics is not relevant to wanting challenging content. Every game should cater to all types of players and challenging content is pretty much mandatory in any game, even the most casual games.

That’s fair because it’s not what I’m saying. There is a recognizable connection to why people play, what kinds of things they want to achieve and what audience GW2 caters too. Don’t you see that ‘average’ players, looks and PVE content everyone can do and enjoy have the highest association and therefore the best market share?

Should GW2 cater to everyone? I don’t know but I do know that it’s business model requires it to cater to the largest audience; that’s the average players, it’s not the players that want to play nothing but the most difficult content.

If they cater to everyone comes down to 1) resources to implement and 2) fitting with the philosophy of the game. They probably have #1, I can only speculate based on the history of the game so far that the highest challenging content doesn’t fit with what GW2 is about. You can argue what it should or shouldn’t be but what is relevant is what Anet want’s GW2 to be.

Personally, I would like to see nightmare mode dungeons added. I agree that the content is a little bit on the ‘my little pony’ side for experienced, skilled gamers. I can’t agree that players know better than Anet what the game should be.

Okay Obtena, much has been said, and I’m not going to quote everything you said, so I’ll just tell you why a game should/can cater to everyone.

First of all, GW1 did it. And it did it good. Really good even. It was a skin-based game that had challenging and casual content. Not to mention great lore and fun campaigns. Now, what made GW1 so great was that the challenging content was really rewarding, because everything that dropped in it was sellable. And of course, the things that drop in hard content are worth a lot of money. Of course, by the end of the game, that had changed a bit for some areas, but people still ran them for fun and the little profit it did give.

But, if content is too hard, I won’t be able to obtain the rewards! And I want everything, even if I don’t deserve it because I’m a scrub! some people might say. Well, that’s where GW1 also excelled. Because everything was sellable, it was possible to acquire money in more casual places, and buy the gear you wanted. You’d spend more time farming the money than someone who did challenging content, but you’d be able to get your shiny weapon if you really wanted it.

GW1 had 7 elite instances by the end of the game (Sorrow’s Furnace was technically an elite area before power creep made it into Hello Kitty Wonderland). Every single one of them was optional, unless you wanted a statue in the HoM for it. Every single one of them was hard, unforgiving (wipe = kthxfortryingcya, except in Slaver’s Exile) and most of all, rewarding. That’s why people kept doing them.

Not to mention fun. The Deep and Urgoz’s Warren were far from profitable post 2008/2009 but we were still doing it, even in 2011, just for the fun of it. We could be grinding out DoA all day every day (which is what my guild usually did) and make similar money to top-end GvG’ers, but we also did other elite areas, because they were fun.

But those people aren’t the people that stick around and buy gems, so Anet shouldn’t cater to them. some people might say. To which I usually say: You could not be more wrong. The community that stuck around the longest in GW1 was the Speedclear community. There are even still speedclear guilds that play the game, I can know, I am in one and play with them from time to time. We might buy less gems than the average-joe casual with too much money and too much time, but we’re more loyal and we bring more to your gaming community than that average joe that just plays for a couple of hours a week.

Imagine if none of the current and former top-end PvE players would have stuck around more than a month. No dungeon video guides, no great build guides, people might still be ranging lupicus, everyone would be running Guardian Burning builds, and stuff like that. Although some of us might not be the nicest people (on the forums, we are really nice in game), without us, the game would look a lot different.

I’m not saying it can’t be done (because clearly other games do it), I’m just saying that the direction a game takes determines who it caters to and it’s clear that GW2 direction caters to top-end PVE players the least. Should it cater to everyone? The answer isn’t ‘YES’ just because GW1 did it. It’s a matter if Anet decides it should and it’s a business case decision.

Maybe this is all a little off topic but really, I think background Agony just ensures a necessary progression and a skill matching in players for teaming. Albeit, its based on flawed assumption that players get better as they progress to harder fractals, but likely the best one that can be implemented without actually ranking and testing each individual player. From that perspective, it’s actually helping prevent certain mismatches that would put unnecessary risk on successful completion, but I agree, it’s effectiveness is questionable.