Guild Wars 2

Reikou.7068:

I think its a bit of both.

Anet was hoping for players to play the game and do things in game simply because they are “fun,” regardless of rewards. This mentality can be seen in all aspects of the game, PvE, WvW and sPvP. Unfortunately (perhaps other than sPvP,) we have seen that this is a very flawed concept, and it has turned out that players enjoy getting rewards as well. This, coupled with the absolute failure of the game when it comes to general PvE mechanics makes the game neither “fun,” nor “rewarding,” at all.

All in all, I do believe that the game requires a complete balance overhaul. Not so much class balance, but more regarding infrastructure and mechanics. Rewards and balance for dynamic events need to be re-calculated and redone. Some “core” PvE game mechanics and designs need to be thrown out the window (Defiant) etc. And get rid of shared loot/rewards. Honestly this is the single biggest reason why the game’s PvE is stale. This in and of itself is the reason why zerging even occurs, and zerging simply trivializes anything and everything that can be done in PvE. Remove it.

I do think that with some of the newer PvE things, specifically Liadri, that Anet is finally getting the picture. IMO, all bosses in this game should be similar to Liadri in terms of “difficulty.” From the Shatterer, to the wurm in Twilight Arbor.

This is possibly the only non bias post that actually takes into account both sides and not just blinding bashing the game because the game did not turn out to be THE MESSIAH you hyped up in your mind to be.

Personally, I would go one step further and completely remove drops from event mobs. After each event give everyone a chest (include up to 5 drops ranging from blue to exotic) that participated and the chest will depend on the player level and on the level of participation which will increase the chance of you getting loot. So this will allow non dps builds to have a fair shot at loot.

Also include Loot scaling depending on the type of event or include loot treshholds that means you most do a certain amount of damage or support you get loot. Not just simply tagging the mobs or being in a group that tags the mob. So you can still get XP, but the qualification for loot should be higher.

Finally, include loot scaling depending on how long an event as been up and or depending on the event level how many players are around. So this punishes zergs while rewarding smaller groups.

I think a combination of these things will work. But the point is that to minimize the reward from zerging and forcing the players to visit the world while still rewarding them since that is what really matters to them anyways.

It’s not the players, it’s the game! Players go where the loot is, Anet knows this very well.

Sola.7250:

It’s not the players, it’s the game! Players go where the loot is, Anet knows this very well.

Agreed. You shouldn’t have to go to a certain spot to get good loot drops. As for ANet being “disappointed” by it’s players. Ridiculous. And I don’t give a kitten if they are.

ANet created a game where there were basically no decent drops or rewards from the dynamic events. The dynamic events repeat every 10-20 minutes. So why do them? It’s not like the stories are particularly compelling. Save little Kari (the future darwin award winner) who’s too stupid to know not to play by cave of the lava monsters despite getting lost in there for the bazillionth time.

If you want me to do a dynamic event give me a reason. Make it interesting and fun. And FYI, 2 silver isn’t rewarding. Because you can legitimately buy gold with gems, I know 2 silver worth about a penny. Say a dynamic event takes about 5 minutes. That’s 12 cents an hour. I’m not working for that so I’d better enjoy it.

I would rather do a boring event for 10 hours and get rewarded properly for my time spent there, than do an exciting event and get trash in return. Take Sanctum Sprint for example. It was fun the first 10 times while trying to get the Wind Catcher skin, but after 50 runs of it, it got boring extremely fast because each time I didn’t get the skin, I got like tier 1 mats and useless items that made me die a little inside.

Obviously, players weren’t ready for this MMO change yet, but someone had to do it first. Therefor, the majority of players are still going to be the reward focused crowd. If anything, the blame should be on ArenaNet, for having their heads too much up in the clouds, instead of realizing what was actually possible, giving the current state of MMOs in 2012. They simply gave players too much freedom, and therefor, most players simply chose to neglect what they didn’t find interesting. Meaning, anything that doesn’t end with a valuable reward.

The game would have been a lot more successful, had it been more linear and helpful, in relation to content. For instance, the story should have been one long cohesive “quest”, and not a series of very small chapters that required you to level up. Dynamic story events should have been pointed out on the map, so more players could take part in them, instead of being one giant guessing game. They should have had some form of reward sentiment, as well, encouraging players to go to the next part of the dynamic event chain. When an NPC comes and asks you to help them, players should have been able to see exactly what kind of rewards it would give them, thereby encouraging them to take the quest. The map should have had a lot more ques, telling players exactly what’s happening on the entire map, and even suggesting them where to go next. But instead, the game is mostly just a lot of guesswork.

Galtrix.7369:

I would rather do a boring event for 10 hours and get rewarded properly for my time spent there, than do an exciting event and get trash in return. Take Sanctum Sprint for example. It was fun the first 10 times while trying to get the Wind Catcher skin, but after 50 runs of it, it got boring extremely fast because each time I didn’t get the skin, I got like tier 1 mats and useless items that made me die a little inside.

I don’t disagree. I’d like to be properly rewarded for my efforts. Frankly, the only time they did this correctly was at Christmas (IMO).

My main point is that if you bore me and aren’t going to give me something I want, at least make sure I’m making minimum wage while your doing it.

Frankly, the problem is not that Arenet is disappointed but rather that the players are working for scraps. The game itself has many gold sinks in it. Waypoint, kites,cultural armor, gear, runes etc. This would not be a problem if reward were actually decent for completing events but as it stands, finishing an event in a lvl 80 area is painful, rewarding depending on the RNG so you might get lucky or might not and disappointing when you finish the event and get 1 silver. I want for instance to get runes of divinity on my engineer armor and celestial gear. The runes cannot be crafted or acquired from dungeons but rather RNG based. To buy them it’s on average 81 gold. A casual player would not get that for a long time, and thank god I am not one, but I do not get so lucky to gather such an amount.

Now let’s take exploration for instance. Hardcore players say that exploration is for casuals, but I have to disagree. Every exploration map I’ve started is followed by many immobilize, knockback , cripple and tons of mobs everywhere. Underwater exploration is even worse when you have to deal with OP kraits that laugh at your toughness and apply conditions like maniacs. After say 2-3h of exploration, you get the reward which is a few silver and some trash mats. I’m not a casual player, I’ve completed liandri and got her mini and yet I still find exploration awful, so imagine the frustration casuals have to deal with it. I play an engineer so I can go bunker, but some other classes aren’t so lucky. If we are talking about high level areas it’s even WORSE. Orr has champions pulling 10-15 players in the same time and hitting them for 6-7k damage per second with a cd of 10 seconds, risen champion chicken comes with a horde of exploding chicken negating any toughness/vit you have, Jesters have tricks dealing insane damage and so on.

So it’s not necessary a different attitude, but rather the fact that sometimes you need gold in order to get things and since 90% of the game content is not very rewarding, it’s ignored. Arenet should rather buff the rewards on the areas and other content in the game rather than nerf to the ground every farming place because people will ALWAYS find another place to farm.

Adding better rewards wasn’t a bad idea. When I solo a champion I really should become something good for the time invested. It feels good too.

The problem is rather: the balance between rewards and difficulty is a total mess. I mean:

• you get a guaranteed rare for waypointing to a metaevent-boss and spamming 1 all the time VS playing an hour WvW in order to maybe get a rare.
• you solo a champion 10 minutes or longer for a champion loot bag VS you zerg down that champion for the same reward

Now what would be a solution to that? You can’t make the reward you get from that champion becoming worse if others join you, because you should always be happy to see other players. It’s a real dilemma. So can you make the champ scale up so that it stays equally difficult, the more players participate? – I haven’t seen that working in the game yet. if 5 players can aggro the boss by standing next to him, the other 30+ won’t have a problem 1-spamming him down from afar.

something I want to add: give champs less HP against Solo-players. The players may get the movement how to avoid damage but still needs way too long for killing the boss.

In addition to what I wrote earlier I’d like to add in this:

• Scale loot with number of players: zergs are able to take down content extremely fast, tagging a ton of monsters and getting a lot of loot. Solo players or small groups can not do this as fast and consequently get less loot. Change this. Give non-zergers better rewards and zergers crap.

• Encourage the at this moment not profitable content such as map exploration, jumping puzzles, completing hearts by giving out unique items upon completion and an interesting story. I’ll come back to interesting stories later.
  => You are in a random area and see an asura npc running around asking for help to kill a legendary ooze. Upon killing it, you get a unique ooze miniature and a chance to apply that oozes colour to a weapon!

• Interesting events: one-time events!!! Arenanet should make it interesting for the player to be part of an event, by making the consequences on the world upon completing the event real consequences! My idea would be for example, a dynamic event in Plains of Ashford in which Ascalonian ghosts break free, and if nobody stops them… they will conquer. They won’t just stand around in the arena and do nothing, upon which a group of players comes and clears them out, resetting the event. No.
  This is not what a dynamic event is, with all due respect to ArenaNet. No. A real dynamic event would be that the ghosts start killing players and turning them… making them an enemy. Potentially killing animals in the wild too. And after that… they destroy outposts. And by destroy, I really mean destroy. They kill npc’s, not so they get rezzed 20 minutes later, but they are killed. Their families may survive and new npc’s will come in their place. Houses and such can be destroyed aswell and after that npc’s can rebuild them in a random spot or players can help them and create something totally new.

and so the world lives. This is what arenanet was supposed to do. This is what they failed in. This is why we, the players, are dissapointed.

Introduce dynamic world PvP between the three Orders and randomized Rift-esque mega spawns.

Watch the farmers shriek in horror.

Seriously though… the world is too predictable, too easy and too kitten boring. It’s time to throw some curveballs in there.

I am somewhat amused at this topic’s new title. Oh well…

I honestly feel bad for ArenaNet. While I think they are partially to blame (they could have taken radical steps to make it clear how Guild Wars 2 was going to be a different game), I can’t help but feel like they weren’t expecting exactly the players they got.

Corian.4068:

They can’t ever say so, but yes, I imagine they’re tremendously disappointed, at the very least by the forum crowd. I think they understand that the forum crowd is a very small minority of total players, but it’s a very small minority with a very large majority of the feedback being provided publicly.

I imagine they’re also disappointed that the EQ-style MMORPG crowd is so addicted to their shinies that they’re completely unwilling to have fun with a fun game.

Not an enviable spot for them to be in.

In all fairness i was a Guildwars fan i enjoyed that the rewards took second place to the skills etc, but Anet removed all what i found fun..

So now i must chase shinies like all the other EQ players because that’s all this game has, DE’s, events etc give very little to the game apart from shinies..

Anet can be disappointed in me all they like, they designed the game to be this way people should expect people to play it like its meant to be played (reward treadmill), but i have zero respect for the company that made the game this way..

Dante.1508:

Corian.4068:

They can’t ever say so, but yes, I imagine they’re tremendously disappointed, at the very least by the forum crowd. I think they understand that the forum crowd is a very small minority of total players, but it’s a very small minority with a very large majority of the feedback being provided publicly.

I imagine they’re also disappointed that the EQ-style MMORPG crowd is so addicted to their shinies that they’re completely unwilling to have fun with a fun game.

Not an enviable spot for them to be in.

In all fairness i was a Guildwars fan i enjoyed that the rewards took second place to the skills etc, but Anet removed all what i found fun..

So now i must chase shinies like all the other EQ players because that’s all this game has, DE’s, events etc give very little to the game apart from shinies..

Anet can be disappointed in me all they like, they designed the game to be this way people should expect people to play it like its meant to be played (reward treadmill), but i have zero respect for the company that made the game this way..

I don’t think this game was meant to be a reward treadmill. You may think it was. I certainly don’t play for rewards, though I’m happy when I get them.

The problem is less the design and more the training players have gotten from years and years of MMOs with a specific theme. And yes, player expectations do get trained by games.

I’m pretty sure Anet believed cosmetic rewards would be sufficient for most people.

Anet was wrong.

I’ll repeat what I said in an earlier post. A company cannot blame customers for any perceived lack of interest. You can’t make money selling snow tires where it doesn’t snow. If you try that and your business fails, you can’t blame people for not buying your tires.

Providing people with goods and services that they need/want is the key to success. Did Anet provide us with a game that would appeal to players over the long haul? For some the answer is yes, for others no.

Anet wanted to be innovative and I can respect that. They experimented with new ideas like no trinity, dynamic events, living story, wvw etc. Now if they are finding that the response to their ideas isn’t what they had hoped for it’s time to reconsider what course to take moving ahead. Keep what’s working and revise what isn’t.

I loved the original Guild Wars game. It was my favorite game ever because it really matched my play style. Sadly, I can’t say the same for GW2. But I think if the devs take feedback from players along with their own metrics/ game data, they can make significant improvements that will move the game forward.

It’s never too late to survey the players and get their feedback. Forum posts only represent a small section of players. So one thing I propose as the one year mark approaches is to send out surveys to players and take their responses into consideration as they make changes. Iteration is the “name of the game.”

Sirendor.1394:

• Scale loot with number of players: zergs are able to take down content extremely fast, tagging a ton of monsters and getting a lot of loot. Solo players or small groups can not do this as fast and consequently get less loot. Change this. Give non-zergers better rewards and zergers crap.

What this will foster is players who will start an event, then rage at additional people who might arrive. These adds would be seen as reducing the loot of the ones who started the event. I’d rather live with the zerg situation than the one where I get cussed out for showing up to an event.

From Vayne: I’m pretty sure Anet believed cosmetic rewards would be sufficient for most people.
Anet was wrong.

I agree with this completely. I know it’s true for me. I don’t care for dungeon content in most games, but I will do them if I think it will help my character. I did the Mines of Moria dungeons for LOTRO because of the armor. (I never, ever want to do Forges again.)

In GW2 instead, I’ve only done a few story dungeons for the monthly achievement. Other than that none of the dungeon armor appealled to me and I have plenty of gold; so no need to run dungeons.

The difference between players is TIME.

Some play 70h in a week, others 50h while others get to 20h and even less then 14h. How would you make content worth for all these type of players? It is all based on the TIME to get something.

If you make the game centered on those with 70h then the ones with 14h will quit. If you make the game centered on those with 20h then those with 70h will get bored quickly.

So, the only difference is TIME.

And A-Net solution to manage the TIME is RNG which takes their responsibility and pass it on each player luk

IndigoSundown.5419:

Sirendor.1394:

• Scale loot with number of players: zergs are able to take down content extremely fast, tagging a ton of monsters and getting a lot of loot. Solo players or small groups can not do this as fast and consequently get less loot. Change this. Give non-zergers better rewards and zergers crap.

What this will foster is players who will start an event, then rage at additional people who might arrive. These adds would be seen as reducing the loot of the ones who started the event. I’d rather live with the zerg situation than the one where I get cussed out for showing up to an event.

One of the other ideas I’ve seen floated regarding this is more of have the reward increase based on the duration the event has been left alone. That way it would build and build to a certain point until it would be more than if it were done immediately upon its occurrence. I’m not sure how well this would pan out though.

Chipster.6713:

Ashen.2907:

Chipster.6713:

I do realize that the current system is not challenging and people with ranged weapons can pretty much /afk autoshot. Tbh it’s not really any more different than the zerkfest that is raidfinder in WoW. But I just don’t see how it can be drastically changed.

In another game I play from time to time one of the world bosses moves around. As in around the zone. You cannot afk autoattack a boss that moves away. In order to take this boss out players generally coordinate so that groups stalk his known stopping points while asking for sightings in zone chat. I’m not suggesting that every boss hop around his zone, but there are ways to ensure that people are not akitteng (AFK’ing) encounters.

It sounds great, but I can’t help but being sceptic
Let’s say that we implement those bosses in GW2: I guess those bosses have spawn times as well. They are not just there 24/7 I imagine. If people learn their spawn timers, they will farm them the same way.

It would just be a question about players splitting up and running around in zones searching for the bosses and write in chat “found him”.
You cannot prevent efficient players from playing efficient.

The main reason for the /afk shoot’n’loot is the huge numbers of players doing these things. Trust me, I’ve tried taking on shatterer with only me and 2 other people. It wasn’t possible. On the other hand, the difficulty isn’t scaled for 100+ people constantly providing boons, cleanses and a ton of damage.

Sure people will shout out in map chat that they’ve found the boss. People then would converge on him. That doesn’t mean that he stops moving around. Running battles against world bosses as they continue to move around the zone would make AFK’ing all but impossible (bots aside).

Lutinz.6915:

toafarmer.8401:

Point here is Anet promised to make a game they never delivered. They promise something new, creative, different and blablabla. They delivered a generic MMO.

This is as much I think player overexpectation as anything else.

My expectations were based on GW1, which was a great and innovative game.

Currently Wildstar, Elder Scrolls Online and, particularly recently, EQNext are getting that treatement.

I’m not expecting much of those. I had great expectations about The Repopulation, but now I have my doubts if it will be that good.

Almost without fail I can be certain that people will be accusing them of being boring, stupid and generic within a year of their release.

I can accuse them right now. None of them seems to be innovative. All of them seem generic to me.

I think GW2 has done pretty well for itself. Then again I generally dont expect to much from a game before I play it. Its certianly has a different feel to most of the other MMOs Ive played.

It is a decent generic MMO. Better than the other generic MMOs. Worse than TSW. If TSW didn’t lack content, I wouldn’t even bother playing GW2. But since it doesn’t have a lot of content, I have time to play GW2 and other games.

toafarmer.8401:

Lutinz.6915:

toafarmer.8401:

Point here is Anet promised to make a game they never delivered. They promise something new, creative, different and blablabla. They delivered a generic MMO.

This is as much I think player overexpectation as anything else.

My expectations were based on GW1, which was a great and innovative game.

Currently Wildstar, Elder Scrolls Online and, particularly recently, EQNext are getting that treatement.

I’m not expecting much of those. I had great expectations about The Repopulation, but now I have my doubts if it will be that good.

Almost without fail I can be certain that people will be accusing them of being boring, stupid and generic within a year of their release.

I can accuse them right now. None of them seems to be innovative. All of them seem generic to me.

I think GW2 has done pretty well for itself. Then again I generally dont expect to much from a game before I play it. Its certianly has a different feel to most of the other MMOs Ive played.

It is a decent generic MMO. Better than the other generic MMOs. Worse than TSW. If TSW didn’t lack content, I wouldn’t even bother playing GW2. But since it doesn’t have a lot of content, I have time to play GW2 and other games.

TSW disappointed me, because of some of their design decisions. Claiming they didn’t have level and though going to experience points and skill unlocking was at the very least disingenuous. It’s leveling without putting a number to the level…but it’s still leveling.

Also the choice not to voice the main character made everything that happened to me a monologue. like I’m going through the game as a mute. Completely killed the game for me.

Kisses.1054:

I don’t really get what youre trying to say. What else are players going to do?

Btw there are plenty of non-grinder/farmer classic mmorpg players. They played the game, levelled up, played dynamic quests, played the personal story, completed a bunch of dungeons/fractals/jumping puzzles/guild missions, maybe got map completion, tried some spvp and wvw (and presumably didn’t like it or preferred other pvp games, or they would still play). They all have either quit or just log in for a short time every few weeks to check out new content. I would guess the majority of players fall into this category. Any player which plays longer is either pvp player or grinder (grinder because clearly they would be repeating content they have already done a LOT of). I would like to say i fall in this cateogry of “players who have basically stopped playing” but lol no i am a qqer, and i doubt most of these people bother posting on forums.

Some of us were repeating stuff like the Temples once every day.
And all together, they filled up a nice 3 hour chunk of time while still being difficult.
They brought a huge portion of the server together as a community…
…well, until these last two updates sapped everyone’s will to keep doing them.
The head commander had been doing them since December….

…December

And now these completely unexplained actions by Anet has brought to an end something fun that no amount of “repetitiveness” ever could…

I honestly wonder if Anet even cares. It’s hard to believe they wouldn’t seeing as many of the participants were from one of their Main guilds ever since Gw1. So they were atleast aware of it… So there must be soemthing else going on that’s preventing them from talking to us Frankly about it.

Vayne.8563:

TSW disappointed me, because of some of their design decisions. Claiming they didn’t have level and though going to experience points and skill unlocking was at the very least disingenuous. It’s leveling without putting a number to the level…but it’s still leveling.

Also the choice not to voice the main character made everything that happened to me a monologue. like I’m going through the game as a mute. Completely killed the game for me.

Agree about the level thing. Understand the criticism about not voice acting the character (even though I don’t think it is an issue).

But it has a complex build system (like GW1) and lots of innovations for a MMO, which makes it a great game for my personal taste. Everything I wanted to see in GW2 concerning build and item system is in TSW. And none of it is in GW2. If you could add some ramdomness to loot system (like GW1 max q7s and stuff like that) it would be the game of my dreams.

Btw: I still hope to see improvements in GW. Stuff that was promised by devs, like getting “elite” skills by killing bosses and stuff like that. I hope to see content that makes me want to explore the game. I want GW2 to make me want to hunt champions (not loot that I can purchase on AH, but fun stuff like GW1 elite capturing).

toafarmer.8401:

Vayne.8563:

TSW disappointed me, because of some of their design decisions. Claiming they didn’t have level and though going to experience points and skill unlocking was at the very least disingenuous. It’s leveling without putting a number to the level…but it’s still leveling.

Also the choice not to voice the main character made everything that happened to me a monologue. like I’m going through the game as a mute. Completely killed the game for me.

Agree about the level thing. Understand the criticism about not voice acting the character (even though I don’t think it is an issue).

But it has a complex build system (like GW1) and lots of innovations for a MMO, which makes it a great game for my personal taste. Everything I wanted to see in GW2 concerning build and item system is in TSW. And none of it is in GW2. If you could add some ramdomness to loot system (like GW1 max q7s and stuff like that) it would be the game of my dreams.

Btw: I still hope to see improvements in GW. Stuff that was promised by devs, like getting “elite” skills by killing bosses and stuff like that. I hope to see content that makes me want to explore the game. I want GW2 to make me want to hunt champions (not loot that I can purchase on AH, but fun stuff like GW1 elite capturing).

I get the whole thing with the build system…but a build system does not a game make. It’s one aspect of a game. An important one for some people, but it shouldn’t override everything else either.

My problem is even though I liked the longer quests in TSW and I liked the voice acting and direction….I hated the way the combat felt…it felt far too repetitive. There wasn’t enough variety for me.

There’s nothing for them to be disappointed about. Players want content, you know, where the gameplay is at? Anet’s priority isn’t gameplay but gem store. People are annoyed because there’s nothing to do nor have anything worth waiting for and its anet that should be disappointed? If anyone, its the player that should be disappointed because he/she spent 60$ for an mmo that was suppose to last years, ran out of content in under 5 months. Now they’re talking about end of 2013 for minor content and all the stuff worth talking about is for 2014,,,,, what’s up with that? What next, when 2014 arrives they’ll be talking about 2015 for all their major content? Release an expansion already and stop with your Garbage Story that is insanely repetitive.

Nuka Cola.8520:

There’s nothing for them to be disappointed about. Players want content, you know, where the gameplay is at? Anet’s priority isn’t gameplay but gem store. People are annoyed because there’s nothing to do nor have anything worth waiting for and its anet that should be disappointed? If anyone, its the player that should be disappointed because he/she spent 60$ for an mmo that was suppose to last years, ran out of content in under 5 months. Now they’re talking about end of 2013 for minor content and all the stuff worth talking about is for 2014,,,,, what’s up with that? What next, when 2014 arrives they’ll be talking about 2015 for all their major content? Release an expansion already and stop with your Garbage Story that is insanely repetitive.

According to you, Anet’s priority is the cash shop not game play. Not everyone would agree with that assessment.

You keep bashing the game because you personally don’t like the content upgrades, but it seems a lot of people do. And free content every two weeks, without a pay to win aspect doesn’t seem like the cash shop is taking front and center here.

You’re talking about random skins, and shiny items? That’s what is supposed to be sold in a cash shop.

Vayne.8563:

You’re talking about random skins, and shiny items? That’s what is supposed to be sold in a cash shop.

I often disagree with you, but you are right on target there. GW2’s cash shop is one of the best Ive ever seen. QoL and cosmetic items in a cash shop where one can convert in game currency into cash shop currency. Well done indeed.

I never did events unless:

1) I was levelling and trying to get XP and
2) it just happened to start in the vicinity of a heart I was working on and I’d get credit for both at the same time.

Usually those events, however, don’t start until you’re almost done with a heart…so why bother?

I don’t know why ArenaNet are surprised that nobody notices or does events. They shouldn’t be. They’ve got almost a years worth of solid customer feedback in these forums that they’re mostly ignoring. It’s all spelled out here.

I will stop for events if I know I can finish them without help OR there are people actively working on completing them. Why? Because it rewards you with some cash and Karma. Karma I then turn into Orrian Jewelry Boxes later.

Events pay for my waypoint habits.