Guild Wars 2

Since I saw a criticism on the Living story achievements, and I thought it very correct, I wanted to see if other people are of an equal mind on the matter of achievements in general.

Most achievements at this time seem to be ‘farm x’, ‘kill y’, etc. They don’t require any skill and are usually extremely easy but very very time-absorbing. For example the obelisks for the krait historian living story achievement. So you want us to go find obelisks. The usual procedure: avoid any mobs, get to the objective, done.
Nothing about this is hard. Everything is repetitive.

My concern is that Anet mistakes ‘time-consuming’ for ‘challenging’. Sure visiting all these obelisks will waste away a few hours. Same goes for the seeds you have to give to Marjory. They aren’t hard to get, but the amount you need is so pathetic that you take a long period to finish it.

Achievements, however, could be fun, if they were challenging (yes they would still be time-consuming), but not repetitive. Instead of letting us kill ~200 mobs, let us solo bosses. For example, I don’t get why so few of the achievements were tied to the initial instance. That instance allowed a lot of personal tests and challenges, which would be found amusing to the general player, maybe frustrating at a certain point, but certainly not boring.

Do you (players and devs alike) think this is indeed a work point or not? Discuss away.

Well, they have released challenging stuff as well, so they quite clearly knows how to do it.
Keep in mind however that GW2 is a rather broad game, that want both casuals and hardcore players. Making stuff very challenging might please the hardcore but at the same time it might turn away the casual, and the casual gamer is a much bigger group than the hardcore gamer, thus they will most likely focus more on that group.

The problem is, that people who say they want “challenge” mostly forget to say that they in reality want better exklusive rewards. And if other players say that they want that in reality they mostly say : Nooooo .. we just want the challenge.

So, if ANet then creates more challenging content but without better/exclusive rewards, nobody plays it. Best example is Southsun.

yes and no. see… I don’t mind having challenging content for those who want it. But, I very much mind if the objective is: “complete all sub-achievements to get this goodie” and one of the sub-events is insanely difficult. Granted, this hasn’t been the case lately – if we keep it to the LS line. Instead what they do is have options: either complete the LS-related dailies or complete the LS challenges.

Thing is, I’m guessing I’m not the only casual player out there. And for us casuals… making gold takes AGES. We don’t have the time to champtrain for hours on end, or to collect mats from all maps for more hours on end; or… well, you get it. I’ve got a level 80 and a level 66 but it took me 7 months to get there.

Well, that’s why I consider the Bazaar to be the best release since summer. Some achievs sent you on a series of jumping puzzles, another forced you to win a really competitive race… And all this with absolutely no zerg to help you out. Had loads of fun back then.

Asmodeus.5782:

Well, that’s why I consider the Bazaar to be the best release since summer. Some achievs sent you on a series of jumping puzzles, another forced you to win a really competitive race… And all this with absolutely no zerg to help you out. Had loads of fun back then.

I only wished they already had the dailys there since i’m not good at jumping and so never got the meta

I don’t mind if there are some achievements tied to content completion, which needs to be something like what we have now (but far less grindy) for open world LS. They indicate you have experienced and completed the content, which makes total sense to me.
There should be a lot more tied to true challenges, tasks that deserve the achievement name, but if we look at how the whole achievement system works (with tons of AP tied to dailies, monthlies and other temporary content) there’s no reason at all for this. It probably would cause more harm that good.

I would be more than happy, however, if some kind of challenge (with some exclusive reward attached to it) were delivered from time to time.
After more than a year, “Light Up the Darkness” is probably the only one that I’ve felt like a real accomplishment, and I got rewarded just with a few meaningless APs.

You point out the 2 ‘grindy’ achievements in the Meta, and there is no mention of the other 12-20 achievements. I feel there is a variety of tasks to complete…something for most everyone. I am sure you could try soloing or using a very small group to kill the Krait Witches…they seem somewhat challenging.

Tequatl, the Aetherblade dungeon, the Karka Queen*, the Clock Tower, the Labrynthine Horror* and getting to all the Zephyrite Crystals were all quite challenging. Difficulty varies.
*These can be overpowered by sheer force of numbers.

JohnLShannonhouse.1820:

Tequatl, the Aetherblade dungeon, the Karka Queen*, the Clock Tower, the Labrynthine Horror* and getting to all the Zephyrite Crystals were all quite challenging. Difficulty varies.
*These can be overpowered by sheer force of numbers.

^That. Different people have different levels of skill, and for some what other’s consider easy is in fact not. I couldn’t complete the Clocktower no matter how hard I tried.

Anet has started giving us difficult and challenging content, that is permanent. Tequatl was a start. The new path in TA followed. Guess what, a very large chunk of the player base is whining that these things need to be nerfed, and/or don’t do them at all. “The rewards aren’t good enough” Here I thought people wanted challenging content for the skill involved…turns out that’s not what the players really wanted. They thought they did, but in truth all they wanted was a prettier shiny.

Sirendor.1394:

Most achievements at this time seem to be ‘farm x’, ‘kill y’, etc. They don’t require any skill and are usually extremely easy but very very time-absorbing.

You know why that is? Because they are achievements. They are not actual game content. They are side fluff. just a little something to fill a little time and space for those who it appeals to.

I personally, am baffled by the appeal if achievements in any way, shape, or form. I pretty much find them as an annoyance at best in any MMO I ever played.

That is why I enjoy this game though, I can simply focus on the content I do enjoy.

JohnLShannonhouse.1820:

Tequatl, the Aetherblade dungeon, the Karka Queen*, the Clock Tower, the Labrynthine Horror* and getting to all the Zephyrite Crystals were all quite challenging. Difficulty varies.
*These can be overpowered by sheer force of numbers.

These are good examples. Add in Queen’s Gauntlet, Super Adventure Box (hard for some, Tribulation Mode purposely hard for everyone,) and the list is longer than initially expected.

There are a lot of things on the list that we can look at and say, “Psh, that wasn’t challenging!” If you’re good at jumping puzzles, for instance, or get stacked up against easy competition in a PvP activity, or are just part of the mob doing one of the mob-dependent events, you might overlook the potential challenge. When you see them all together, I think there’s a good variety of challenges for players with different strengths.

Has already been previously stated, but challenging content is there, but those that want it, don’t do it. Tequatl and Southsun, Aetherpath as a few examples. Do those, or, if you will not do those, explain WHY you won’t. Lack of good drops is not an answer, because what that tells me is you want good drops, not challening content.

imo, Teq is not a good example, as in fighting it the individual skill is less important than the zerg coordination. I don’t want my achievements to be earned by dozens of other players, it’s hardly an achievement. Unless you call “camping the Splitered Coast all day” one, this might actually count.

Why not? Why not?! Do you remember the qq and outrage when not everybody
could beat liadri or when people complained aetherblade retreat was too hard?
(seriously?!) Did you not see how people hate the new teq encounter because
not everyone can beat it since you need a basic level of coordination?

I’m all for optional (as in not mandatory for the meta, but still awarding nice things like the liadri mini) hardcore and challenging content that only a fraction of the playerbase can beat but the past has shown how the casuals and baddies react to that.

Asmodeus.5782:

Well, that’s why I consider the Bazaar to be the best release since summer. Some achievs sent you on a series of jumping puzzles, another forced you to win a really competitive race… And all this with absolutely no zerg to help you out. Had loads of fun back then.

The bazaar was a challenge for me. It was hard, but it was just doable, even without playing all too much, and most of all it was fun. Personally I don’t think they should make any meta-rewards. That only leads to grinding achievements. Doesn’t give incentive for the achievements in se. Most people just pick the easiest ones.

Open world content will never be challenging unless they fix the current zerging meta.
If they make hard instances, people will moan and whine that they can’t solo/face roll it with ease.
So there, what can Arena Net do that would satisfy everyone? Probably nothing.

LanfearShadowflame.3189:

JohnLShannonhouse.1820:

Tequatl, the Aetherblade dungeon, the Karka Queen*, the Clock Tower, the Labrynthine Horror* and getting to all the Zephyrite Crystals were all quite challenging. Difficulty varies.
*These can be overpowered by sheer force of numbers.

^That. Different people have different levels of skill, and for some what other’s consider easy is in fact not. I couldn’t complete the Clocktower no matter how hard I tried.

Anet has started giving us difficult and challenging content, that is permanent. Tequatl was a start. The new path in TA followed. Guess what, a very large chunk of the player base is whining that these things need to be nerfed, and/or don’t do them at all. “The rewards aren’t good enough” Here I thought people wanted challenging content for the skill involved…turns out that’s not what the players really wanted. They thought they did, but in truth all they wanted was a prettier shiny.

Even those who want harder content for the sake of rewards will do content with lackluster rewards — once. Unfortunately, MMO’s need to entice players to repeat content many times, and even the most intriguing game play gets old after you’ve done the same thing many times.

I wish Anet would focus more on the “hardcore” player than the “casual player”. Give us a reason to farm something instead of buying it from the tp. I don’t mind the rewards, I just think that some content should defiantly be more challenging.

I still run around Southsun, however it’s like having your own instance since nobody goes there anymore I do enjoy it at times but there’s nothing you won’t be able to solo. I enjoyed Teq and I know a lot of people did not but that’s the content I would love to see all over the map. Something that’s challenging and takes up some time and organization.

I could care less about the reward or the achievement/story. I never even read the story since I am not interested in that. As it stands right now, you get your character to level 80, gear it and then that’s it. Most of the content doesn’t even require the gear you’re wearing and doesn’t make it challenging after all. Scaling your levels in some area’s, I do admit can be challenging at times but gets boring after 20 minutes. That includes dungeons too. You could go to sleep and still play GW2 that’s how challenging and interesting the game has become.

I think Anet needs to make a decision. Do you want to attract the “hardcore” players or the “casual” players? Both doesn’t work as we have seen, and sadly that doesn’t increase the player base or satisfies anybody at least not in the long run.

slurpey.6014:

I wish Anet would focus more on the “hardcore” player than the “casual player”.

If they did that the game would die fairly fast. There are simply not enough of you guys around to keep the game funded.

I think Anet needs to make a decision. Do you want to attract the “hardcore” players or the “casual” players? Both doesn’t work as we have seen, and sadly that doesn’t increase the player base or satisfies anybody at least not in the long run.

I tend to agree with this. Right now the game seems to be an equal opportunity offender that satisfies neither casual nor hardcore players a lot, and it doesn’t seem to know what it really wants to be.

Kimyrielle.3826:

slurpey.6014:

I wish Anet would focus more on the “hardcore” player than the “casual player”.

If they did that the game would die fairly fast. There are simply not enough of you guys around to keep the game funded.

I think Anet needs to make a decision. Do you want to attract the “hardcore” players or the “casual” players? Both doesn’t work as we have seen, and sadly that doesn’t increase the player base or satisfies anybody at least not in the long run.

I tend to agree with this. Right now the game seems to be an equal opportunity offender that satisfies neither casual nor hardcore players a lot, and it doesn’t seem to know what it really wants to be.

This. I wont elaborate since I agree with the OP. They need to make up their mind.

I am all for “personal” hardcore content. I love jumping puzzles. Give me a solo dungeon that is difficult (I try to solo dungeon paths and Fractals for the challenge) or even a 5 man dungeon that is difficult…I loved Aether Retreat and love the new TA path but I am not going to lie and say that I do not want the rewards. I have 3000 hours in the game and don’t have a legendary, because I hate grinding….I prefer to DO something, not grind. I will do a different dungeon path every day if given the opportunity…Since the reward is not there I haven’t gotten my legendary, because again, the rewards are not in the challenging content. I never succeeded at Liadri…but I LOVED the opportunity to try with multiple different classes….and personally loved this content.

I HATE HATE HATE (LOATHE, etc) the new Tequatl and Southsun and many of the new events that ANET has put in to satisfy the hardcore players (new laby). These are not personally rewarding in any way. Me, standing in a zerg and every once in a while dodging an extremely obvious attack is not challenging for me….and the fact that it relies on so many other people…does not make it challenging….it goes on my nightmare list…its like saying I will only get a paycheck if everyone in my company puts in 125% on their job. I know I can put in the 125%, but I guarantee, there is someone out there that wont….and I lose out because of it.

I would love if Anet gave us more solo challenges where the rewards scaled to how far you made it….like a solo fractals. Even for just simple bragging rights…a title instead of other rewards.

But do NOT make me depend on more than my small list of friends to do something and call that “challenging.” Because like it or not…90% of players are looking for “easy mode” and I don’t want to have to rely on them to do anything. I want them to nerf Tequatl, and southsun, and use scaling more for all world events…but then temper that with giving us solo or small group challenging content in instances….that would be best of both worlds.

How do people that want personally challenging (as opposed to group challenging) content feel about sPvP? I’ve never touched it, because I’m never a serious PvP player in games, but it seems like that stacking strong players against strong players would be very challenging. Is it too unbalanced? Is the inability to use your PvE/WvW rewards too off-putting?

(I’m honestly asking, because I’d like to hear what people think of “PvP as the ultimate scaling difficulty PvE.”)

Sirendor.1394:

Since I saw a criticism on the Living story achievements, and I thought it very correct, I wanted to see if other people are of an equal mind on the matter of achievements in general.

Most achievements at this time seem to be ‘farm x’, ‘kill y’, etc. They don’t require any skill and are usually extremely easy but very very time-absorbing. For example the obelisks for the krait historian living story achievement. So you want us to go find obelisks. The usual procedure: avoid any mobs, get to the objective, done.
Nothing about this is hard. Everything is repetitive.

My concern is that Anet mistakes ‘time-consuming’ for ‘challenging’. Sure visiting all these obelisks will waste away a few hours. Same goes for the seeds you have to give to Marjory. They aren’t hard to get, but the amount you need is so pathetic that you take a long period to finish it.

Achievements, however, could be fun, if they were challenging (yes they would still be time-consuming), but not repetitive. Instead of letting us kill ~200 mobs, let us solo bosses. For example, I don’t get why so few of the achievements were tied to the initial instance. That instance allowed a lot of personal tests and challenges, which would be found amusing to the general player, maybe frustrating at a certain point, but certainly not boring.

Do you (players and devs alike) think this is indeed a work point or not? Discuss away.

everything is easy because everything is timed, it goes away in 2 weeks so they want to give the casuals a chance to complete the meta. this is why temporary content is the cancer of this game

Redenaz.8631:

How do people that want personally challenging (as opposed to group challenging) content feel about sPvP? I’ve never touched it, because I’m never a serious PvP player in games, but it seems like that stacking strong players against strong players would be very challenging. Is it too unbalanced? Is the inability to use your PvE/WvW rewards too off-putting?

(I’m honestly asking, because I’d like to hear what people think of “PvP as the ultimate scaling difficulty PvE.”)

In theory you are right but it gets boring really quickly. There is only one game type,
ranks after 30 take an eternity to progress and new skins are unlocked only every ten ranks. So basically no rewards, no variety and (almost) no visible rank progression in one play session.

Dr Ritter.1327:

everything is easy because everything is timed, it goes away in 2 weeks so they want to give the casuals a chance to complete the meta. this is why temporary content is the cancer of this game

That’s why we have the dailies count towards the meta.

Redenaz.8631:

How do people that want personally challenging (as opposed to group challenging) content feel about sPvP? I’ve never touched it, because I’m never a serious PvP player in games, but it seems like that stacking strong players against strong players would be very challenging. Is it too unbalanced? Is the inability to use your PvE/WvW rewards too off-putting?

(I’m honestly asking, because I’d like to hear what people think of “PvP as the ultimate scaling difficulty PvE.”)

I don’t do PvP anymore (I have a bit in the past) because I am just not into fighting other players….to me, PvP is simply who can take advantage of their class’s strengths vs anothers weakness at that point in time (since it will change next patch). If you have two truly great PvP players it can be fun to watch, but then ultimately it comes down to who’s class is better and who tweaked it that slight bit better for battle against another player.

I play fantasy games (and sci-fi) to escape from reality and to have fun with the fantastical elements of that game. If ANET decided to give me a solo dungeon where all I did was fight a human or charr in each class I would get bored with it very quickly….I would much rather solo a giant, or a dragon minion, or a whole gaggle of dredge (they come in gaggle’s don’t they?) than fight another player…to me there is more fun in fighting game “creature” content. That’s just me though.

LanfearShadowflame.3189:

JohnLShannonhouse.1820:

Tequatl, the Aetherblade dungeon, the Karka Queen*, the Clock Tower, the Labrynthine Horror* and getting to all the Zephyrite Crystals were all quite challenging. Difficulty varies.
*These can be overpowered by sheer force of numbers.

^That. Different people have different levels of skill, and for some what other’s consider easy is in fact not. I couldn’t complete the Clocktower no matter how hard I tried.

Anet has started giving us difficult and challenging content, that is permanent. Tequatl was a start. The new path in TA followed. Guess what, a very large chunk of the player base is <bleep> that these things need to be nerfed, and/or don’t do them at all. “The rewards aren’t good enough” Here I thought people wanted challenging content for the skill involved…turns out that’s not what the players really wanted. They thought they did, but in truth all they wanted was a prettier shiny.

Careful. The W-word isn’t allowed to be used on the forums. I’d find another word to replace it before a moderator sees your post.

I hate Scarlet Invasion because it was a wild goose chase. Players spent more time running around and around in circles than fighting. Most attempts were not organized at all. People just farm champions and do not care about failing the event.

I like Teq as an event, but was very unhappy about the queues and very slow spawn time.

I think in the future, it is better for World Events to spread out across the whole map in a battle line fashion. This will spread out the players to reduce the lag. At the same time each guild has a defined role so the unity of the guild is preserved.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Battle_of_Kosovo_plan.png

Well the thing is that it did not matter whether you won or not to get credit for that map. It only mattered for one achievement point. You also needed an incentive for players to even do the invasion. Without people farming the champs, you’d have a map like the Mad Kings labyrinth and definitely would not be able to win.

I think they should build on the Tequatl fight. Make a guild alliance mission which takes an alliance of guild to accomplish.

The mission should take place in an instanced version of a map. A Divinity’s Reach in flames would make a good impact. There would be objectives which needs to be completed all over the map whilst the boss battle is happening, with enemy NPCs having their own set of objectives which the alliance must prevent form being completed.

There have to be a big percentage-chunk of the playerbase that is dying for difficult and good content with a good risk/reward factor.

Can’t really enjoy Dungeons all that much anymore. Done them so many times, and they’re not challenging which makes them fairly unexciting imho…

The most enjoyment I get from dungeons is running AC (i.e.) with guildies when we’re all about level 40. Usually some of them that’s fairly new to the game, so you really have to think things through (since a level 80 scaled down is actually much stronger than someone of the minimum req. level).

Actually, I love those runs…

Phadde.7362:

The most enjoyment I get from dungeons is running AC (i.e.) with guildies when we’re all about level 40. Usually some of them that’s fairly new to the game, so you really have to think things through (since a level 80 scaled down is actually much stronger than someone of the minimum req. level).

Actually, I love those runs…

Yeah, while scaling down to match the level of where you are is a great idea, it needs to be harsher. For example, if you’re in a level 15 area you shouldn’t have access to your level 20 utility skill or your level 30 elite skill. That would add to the challenge.

challenging content will most likely have a fail rate. And people arn’t happy they can’t get the whatever reward they want like what happened to the last few event.

laokoko.7403:

challenging content will most likely have a fail rate. And people arn’t happy they can’t get the whatever reward they want like what happened to the last few event.

The PvE is relatively filled with content for those people. As I said, isn’t it likely that there’s a huge amount of players that actually would love some difficulty – A good challenge?

Inculpatus cedo.9234:

You point out the 2 ‘grindy’ achievements in the Meta, and there is no mention of the other 12-20 achievements. I feel there is a variety of tasks to complete…something for most everyone. I am sure you could try soloing or using a very small group to kill the Krait Witches…they seem somewhat challenging.

That would be cause I just waypointed out of the zone after reading two random ones.
Most of the others are a laugh too, upon further consideration.

Phadde.7362:

laokoko.7403:

challenging content will most likely have a fail rate. And people arn’t happy they can’t get the whatever reward they want like what happened to the last few event.

The PvE is relatively filled with content for those people. As I said, isn’t it likely that there’s a huge amount of players that actually would love some difficulty – A good challenge?

Well yes, some dungeons are quite challenging, but there aren’t enough (//lack of variety) and there isn’t some sort of hard mode (//challenges when you mastered ‘normal modes’).

Sirendor.1394:

Phadde.7362:

laokoko.7403:

challenging content will most likely have a fail rate. And people arn’t happy they can’t get the whatever reward they want like what happened to the last few event.

The PvE is relatively filled with content for those people. As I said, isn’t it likely that there’s a huge amount of players that actually would love some difficulty – A good challenge?

Well yes, some dungeons are quite challenging, but there aren’t enough (//lack of variety) and there isn’t some sort of hard mode (//challenges when you mastered ‘normal modes’).

Just to be clear, I meant causal players that laokoko described when I said “those people”
Maybe changing the level 80 dungeons to be more challenging? Or adding a lot more fractals?