Guild Wars 2

Any sort of death penalty just doesn’t fit with this game. Who would want to play any sort of squishy support class or full zerk build when there is a massive death penalty or even a ‘die and your toon goes poof’ mode?

We’d see even more pvt warriors and guards in wvw and almost nothing of anything else: ‘who wants to play the support ele’ would be greeted with a huge silence.

Azhure.1857:

Taygus.4571:

Azhure.1857:

To me it makes the game as hard as it should be because of the risk. You’re just calling it “frustrating”, when I call the very same thing “harder” or “more difficult”, because you don’t agree with the topic at hand.

You do not speak for everyone.

You can easily make this game harder for yourself, please go do that.

No kitten, Sherlock. That’s why I said “to me”.

As for just making this game harder for myself. I’m afraid it is harder because I’m surrounded by a large number of people that don’t care to actually play like they give a kitten .

Next time you want to call me out for making it sound like I speak for everyone, you may want to make sure I’m doing just that.

Well the changes YOU want is something that would affect everyone.

Also. how many players do you play WITH, that don’t want to do well? Pugs are rarely that difficult to play with, maybe a little slower for most dungeons. Of course you don’t have to pug if you believe most people don’t care.

I’m here to say MOST people don’t play to die, they do the best they can, just because it’s not your best, doesn’t mean they aren’t trying or don’t care.

Taygus.4571:

Azhure.1857:

Taygus.4571:

Azhure.1857:

To me it makes the game as hard as it should be because of the risk. You’re just calling it “frustrating”, when I call the very same thing “harder” or “more difficult”, because you don’t agree with the topic at hand.

You do not speak for everyone.

You can easily make this game harder for yourself, please go do that.

No kitten, Sherlock. That’s why I said “to me”.

As for just making this game harder for myself. I’m afraid it is harder because I’m surrounded by a large number of people that don’t care to actually play like they give a kitten .

Next time you want to call me out for making it sound like I speak for everyone, you may want to make sure I’m doing just that.

Well the changes YOU want is something that would affect everyone.

Your point here is?

The vast majority of suggestion threads for any change in the game are over things that would, if taken in by ArenaNet, end up affecting everyone.

You keep using the word PUG like I’m only talking about Dungeon content or something. This is an MMO with open world content, you don’t get to pick who you play with all the time. Especially now with megaservers.

Congratulations on having your say. But guess what?
I’m here to say that not enough people are playing to live.

Victory.2879:

Any sort of death penalty just doesn’t fit with this game. Who would want to play any sort of squishy support class or full zerk build when there is a massive death penalty or even a ‘die and your toon goes poof’ mode?

We’d see even more pvt warriors and guards in wvw and almost nothing of anything else: ‘who wants to play the support ele’ would be greeted with a huge silence.

Yeah because obviously no one plays full zerk builds at the present time…. oh wait….

Your comment about support eles….are you talking about zerker eles giving might to everyone or actual support built eles? I know quite a few support built eles that can handle themselves fairly well despite the constant smacks from the nerf bat. They have been the most nerfed class because when they are built right and played well they were nearly impossible to stop.

The mentality you are portraying is very short sighted. People play zerk classes atm because they are the best way to beat content quickly. At the moment Zerkers are the most common and overdone class in pve. and most will kick those not in zerk because it “slows down the group”. How many people actually run zerk in WvW? ask around and I’m sure you will find a lot more variety out there than you see in pve.

Try and step away from the massive cliff you ran over to when you stepped into this thread. There are more options than just “Stupid hard dp or no dp”. The world is not black and white. There are many shades.

Party wipes result in a dungeon kick.

Possibly fixes a lot of dungeon related problems?

Azhure.1857:

Taygus.4571:

Azhure.1857:

Taygus.4571:

Azhure.1857:

To me it makes the game as hard as it should be because of the risk. You’re just calling it “frustrating”, when I call the very same thing “harder” or “more difficult”, because you don’t agree with the topic at hand.

You do not speak for everyone.

You can easily make this game harder for yourself, please go do that.

No kitten, Sherlock. That’s why I said “to me”.

As for just making this game harder for myself. I’m afraid it is harder because I’m surrounded by a large number of people that don’t care to actually play like they give a kitten .

Next time you want to call me out for making it sound like I speak for everyone, you may want to make sure I’m doing just that.

Well the changes YOU want is something that would affect everyone.

Your point here is?

The vast majority of suggestion threads for any change in the game are over things that would, if taken in by ArenaNet, end up affecting everyone.

You keep using the word PUG like I’m only talking about Dungeon content or something. This is an MMO with open world content, you don’t get to pick who you play with all the time. Especially now with megaservers.

Congratulations on having your say. But guess what?
I’m here to say that not enough people are playing to live.

I find half of your posts quite rude.

Whatever you’re here to say, anet won’t change the death penalty as it currently stands, so to you and all the others who seem to have taken over this thread in favor of stricter death I say dream on.

Azhure.1857:

Taygus.4571:

Azhure.1857:

Taygus.4571:

Azhure.1857:

To me it makes the game as hard as it should be because of the risk. You’re just calling it “frustrating”, when I call the very same thing “harder” or “more difficult”, because you don’t agree with the topic at hand.

You do not speak for everyone.

You can easily make this game harder for yourself, please go do that.

No kitten, Sherlock. That’s why I said “to me”.

As for just making this game harder for myself. I’m afraid it is harder because I’m surrounded by a large number of people that don’t care to actually play like they give a kitten .

Next time you want to call me out for making it sound like I speak for everyone, you may want to make sure I’m doing just that.

Well the changes YOU want is something that would affect everyone.

Your point here is?

The vast majority of suggestion threads for any change in the game are over things that would, if taken in by ArenaNet, end up affecting everyone.

You keep using the word PUG like I’m only talking about Dungeon content or something. This is an MMO with open world content, you don’t get to pick who you play with all the time. Especially now with megaservers.

Congratulations on having your say. But guess what?
I’m here to say that not enough people are playing to live.

How does people playing in openworld maps bother you? seriously, just because they die lots doesn’t affect you at all.
Even with the ‘hardcore’ bosses, join a guild for it and now the scrubs won’t bother you.

My point is, you can already give yourself death penalties, that’s not what you want, you want to push your playstyle on everyone else.

Taygus, if you had read what I have posted throughout this thread and what others have said on the subject, you would know by now what “bothers” me and others.

There was one post in particular where I even listed off a couple of examples, a post I might add that nobody commented on.

Azhure.1857:

Taygus, if you had read what I have posted throughout this thread and what others have said on the subject, you would know by now what “bothers” me and others.

There was one post in particular where I even listed off a couple of examples, a post I might add that nobody commented on.

quote it again,

Still, all I’ve seen is people wanting to push they’re playstyles on others. because some people die..and somehow that affects ye.

Azhure.1857:

Yes and no.

Positive reinforcement > Negative Reinforcement TRUE
+R and -R > Positive reinforcement alone TRUE

Positive Reinforcement alone has flaws. Major flaws.

I agree, a +R & -R system would be more effective at teaching players to perform better (programming them), but in the context of a game, I think a predominantly +R system would be a much better system. But by better I don’t mean more efficient in skill terms, I mean more efficient in creating fun.

I think we can easily forget that the primary function of a game is to entertain the players and give them a fun time, and because an MMO is supposed to cater to a wider audience than most genres it has a much tougher time balancing systems such as these.

Personally, and because of the overall feel of Guild Wars 2, I think a system that made you happy for playing well would be a far better system than one that scared or upset you for playing badly. But as I said before, these kinds of systems tend to take more work to get right and can lead to even bigger issues in implemented badly.

The problem is, that some people want harsher death penalties to create deeper content, which I understand and respect, but a lot of people hate harsh death penalties because they simply aren’t fun. Don’t forget, not every player wants a challenge, they simply want to have fun, and there is absolutely nothing wrong with that.

Another solution to this dilemma could be to add personal penalty options, that only effected you. However, that could potentially cause problems when teamed with others with different option settings. If done right, it could be a method for players to set their characters to a semi hardcore mode, adding more costly penalties such as high armour repair and waypoint costs. So long as it didn’t effect team play in any way I would be happy with this kind of option.

The important factor to note in any MMO is ‘options’. Without options you can only appeal to certain groups of players, and that will lead to lower profits. Anet is trying to appeal to as many players as possible, hence the game having a more casual feel than some MMO’s. But that doesn’t mean they cannot add more options for both sides of the fence.

Party should get kicked from the dungeon if everyone dies.
Just like in GW1.

Taygus.4571:

Azhure.1857:

Taygus, if you had read what I have posted throughout this thread and what others have said on the subject, you would know by now what “bothers” me and others.

There was one post in particular where I even listed off a couple of examples, a post I might add that nobody commented on.

quote it again,

Still, all I’ve seen is people wanting to push they’re playstyles on others. because some people die..and somehow that affects ye.

I’m not going to play fetch for you. If you truly cared about what people have to say on the subject, you would read the thread – paying equal attention to all corners of this debate. But you aren’t, at the moment, doing that. * sigh *

Nick.6972:

Party should get kicked from the dungeon if everyone dies.
Just like in GW1.

I don’t necessarily disagree, but you forget Anet changed that design intentionally because people hated it, because it resulted in a tremendous waste of time and people opted not to do certain content rather than get all the way to the end to fail.

Take a step back and look at the UW and the Deep and even Urgoz pre-Ursan era, hell pre-hero era. Unless you were lucky and belonged to the select groups that were doing it, you probably didn’t do it, and if you did, it wasn’t often. A lot of people really just did not like pugging that content simply because one screw up means game over for everyone.

I can see having that feature in parts of the game, such as if they were to bring back FoW or UW, but not for all of it. It would add a little more to those areas, but I don’t necessarily think it’s right to implement it into all of the existing dungeons. Especially this late in the game.

I always like to imagine ways to implement the wishes of some of the player base without impacting the rest that think that “it’s fine the way it is”.
The thing I imagined was a “Legendary Mode”, which would work kinda like Hardcore on Diablo.
Players that, on character creation, chose “Legendary mode” for this character, would have the “Legendary” title and even the purple character frame for that character, and would enjoy something like 500% magic find.
If they were able to complete Story Mission (or some other equally distant objective) without dying, they would be rewarded with a Precursor instead of the weapon that is currently the reward for completing Story Mission.
Also, some achievement points would apply for the people that chose to play on this mode when they reached a milestone.
And LFG could have an option to limit your search to Legendary characters because their play styles would probably be much different from the normal playerbase (imagine a bad kite on a dungeon, could ruin 80+ hours of game). And also the option to keep those players out of your “normal player” search, because of course there would be a lot of people using this to try to farm Precursor and using “normals” as shields to avoid risking their precious Legendary characters.
(Oh, maybe the Legendary character could choose to ressurect on death, but if he/she did that, it would lose the chance to precursor, the magic find bonus, and the accolades. And would have permanently the title “Disgraced hero”. Nasty!)
In summation, great rewards and a lot of recognition for the ones that choose that path, and strictly optional so the people who prefer Theme Park Wars continue happy (like me! I play this for fun…).
Do you guys and gals see problems with that idea?

DDCarvalho.2071:

I always like to imagine ways to implement the wishes of some of the player base without impacting the rest that think that “it’s fine the way it is”.
The thing I imagined was a “Legendary Mode”, which would work kinda like Hardcore on Diablo.
Players that, on character creation, chose “Legendary mode” for this character, would have the “Legendary” title and even the purple character frame for that character, and would enjoy something like 500% magic find.
If they were able to complete Story Mission (or some other equally distant objective) without dying, they would be rewarded with a Precursor instead of the weapon that is currently the reward for completing Story Mission.
Also, some achievement points would apply for the people that chose to play on this mode when they reached a milestone.
And LFG could have an option to limit your search to Legendary characters because their play styles would probably be much different from the normal playerbase (imagine a bad kite on a dungeon, could ruin 80+ hours of game). And also the option to keep those players out of your “normal player” search, because of course there would be a lot of people using this to try to farm Precursor and using “normals” as shields to avoid risking their precious Legendary characters.
(Oh, maybe the Legendary character could choose to ressurect on death, but if he/she did that, it would lose the chance to precursor, the magic find bonus, and the accolades. And would have permanently the title “Disgraced hero”. Nasty!)
In summation, great rewards and a lot of recognition for the ones that choose that path, and strictly optional so the people who prefer Theme Park Wars continue happy (like me! I play this for fun…).
Do you guys and gals see problems with that idea?

No, an idea like that I wouldn’t have a problem with because it doesn’t affect the way I want to play. These other people proposing harsher penalties across the board are ideas I have a problem with.

DDCarvalho.2071:

I always like to imagine ways to implement the wishes of some of the player base without impacting the rest that think that “it’s fine the way it is”.
The thing I imagined was a “Legendary Mode”, which would work kinda like Hardcore on Diablo.
Players that, on character creation, chose “Legendary mode” for this character, would have the “Legendary” title and even the purple character frame for that character, and would enjoy something like 500% magic find.
If they were able to complete Story Mission (or some other equally distant objective) without dying, they would be rewarded with a Precursor instead of the weapon that is currently the reward for completing Story Mission.
Also, some achievement points would apply for the people that chose to play on this mode when they reached a milestone.
And LFG could have an option to limit your search to Legendary characters because their play styles would probably be much different from the normal playerbase (imagine a bad kite on a dungeon, could ruin 80+ hours of game). And also the option to keep those players out of your “normal player” search, because of course there would be a lot of people using this to try to farm Precursor and using “normals” as shields to avoid risking their precious Legendary characters.
(Oh, maybe the Legendary character could choose to ressurect on death, but if he/she did that, it would lose the chance to precursor, the magic find bonus, and the accolades. And would have permanently the title “Disgraced hero”. Nasty!)
In summation, great rewards and a lot of recognition for the ones that choose that path, and strictly optional so the people who prefer Theme Park Wars continue happy (like me! I play this for fun…).
Do you guys and gals see problems with that idea?

i actually do

a lot of things had to be changed like tomes of knowledge cant be used u cant equip equipment that u havnt found with this special character otherwise itd be waaaaay too easy
story line no party members can join up and “help you” without scaling the whole instance (or rather just disabke this function)
the storyline itself would need some sort of remake because it is too easy for such a reward
many precursors would swarm the trading post (unless you make it account bound on aquire)which then follows in less players want to buy them from trading post thus prices still drop…

i think thats it

however i really like your idea
and just to make something like that and once youve survived the storyline or something challenging…
getting rewarded by a few achievement points and a unique title would be enough i think
like gw1s survivor title (was)
if your char dies you still got your chra u dont need to delete him
but.. you cant get the title…
later they changed it so you can…
they could pretty much bring exactly this back..
i think
would not be much but would be another target players could set themselve and would try to not die
also it shouldnt be too difficult ^^

Everything would need a remake. I can just see “legendary” purple characters afk stacked next to events like boss blitz. No you would pretty much have to separate those players. I don’t think that’s the way the developers want to go.

Rin.1046:

Personally, and because of the overall feel of Guild Wars 2, I think a system that made you happy for playing well would be a far better system than one that scared or upset you for playing badly. But as I said before, these kinds of systems tend to take more work to get right and can lead to even bigger issues in implemented badly.

I think we’re in agreement that a system that both rewards and penalizes is good, just that we need to find the right balance? If its just black or white, one extreme or the other, it would have issues.

Rin.1046:

The problem is, that some people want harsher death penalties to create deeper content, which I understand and respect, but a lot of people hate harsh death penalties because they simply aren’t fun. Don’t forget, not every player wants a challenge, they simply want to have fun, and there is absolutely nothing wrong with that.

Some people do want harsher penalties and unfortunately many people that see them on this thread instantly have an instant rejection to all DP ideas on this thread, instead of considering them each in turn.
I understand that not everyone wants a challenge. However there is no real form of difficulty in the majority of GW2. Which results in laziness and inattentiveness.
Yes, EVERYONE should be playing for fun. However doesn’t that have its limits? For example there are individuals that find enjoyment out of trolling. Its not something we can really stop, mind, but its not something we should be supportive of either. Right? Not even though they enjoy it.

Rin.1046:

Another solution to this dilemma could be to add personal penalty options, that only effected you. However, that could potentially cause problems when teamed with others with different option settings. If done right, it could be a method for players to set their characters to a semi hardcore mode, adding more costly penalties such as high armour repair and waypoint costs. So long as it didn’t effect team play in any way I would be happy with this kind of option.

I’m not asking for a Hard/Legendary Mode in this thread. I’m asking for each player to take personal responsibility for their actions, or lack there of, as it does effect the players around them. This isn’t a single player game, its an MMORPG. Each players actions effect those around them. But we currently have a system where stupidity isn’t being discouraged – in fact it is in most cases being rewarded.

Rouven.7409:

Everything would need a remake. I can just see “legendary” purple characters afk stacked next to events like boss blitz. No you would pretty much have to separate those players. I don’t think that’s the way the developers want to go.

Yeah, agreed.

Relshdan.6854:

…..
i’d rather they significantly increase rewards for no deaths (in instanced content). that would go farther in promoting less “zerk or nothing” parties.

Now that is NOT a bad idea but could promote the “run away” attitude mentioned above. Still, in an instanced area, simply surviving an encounter does not mean you wold be able to complete the objective to gain the reward anyway (as others would likely need to survive as well).

In regard to the different “tastes” of game-play (Challenge vs Fun). I suppose either a selection at Character Creation or some NPC to alter the “hardcore” setting of the toon could be possible, but would likely create a caste system among the player-base that Anet would likely not want in the game (any more than there is right now between Hardcore Zerkers and those that want to play “how they like”).

……. But we currently have a system where stupidity isn’t being discouraged – in fact it is in most cases being rewarded.

I wouldn’t say it’s encouraged in MOST cases, but I agree it is not discouraged enough. Also, in many of those cases it is more “lazy” than “stupid”, IMO (tho there certainly plenty of both to go around).

Again, when the goal of the game for any player becomes obtaining the reward rather than playing the game for entertainment, this becomes an issue that is likely unavoidable. If the entire objective of the game is MOAR REWARDZ!!!!! then the player needs to reconsider WHY they are playing in the first place.

Azhure.1857:

I think we’re in agreement that a system that both rewards and penalizes is good, just that we need to find the right balance? If its just black or white, one extreme or the other, it would have issues.

Yes, definitely. A good balance of both systems is important. I guess I am just more in favour of a +R system than a -R system, but that’s just me. I think the difficulty is tailoring the system to the players, but each player requires differing levels of each system. One universal system will always upset someone somewhere, they just need to find a balance that appeals to the majority.

Azhure.1857:

Some people do want harsher penalties and unfortunately many people that see them on this thread instantly have an instant rejection to all DP ideas on this thread, instead of considering them each in turn.
I understand that not everyone wants a challenge. However there is no real form of difficulty in the majority of GW2. Which results in laziness and inattentiveness.
Yes, EVERYONE should be playing for fun. However doesn’t that have its limits? For example there are individuals that find enjoyment out of trolling. Its not something we can really stop, mind, but its not something we should be supportive of either. Right? Not even though they enjoy it.

Indeed. I’m not saying the devs should cater to trolls just because that’s what they find fun. And the problem with fun is it is always going to be personal. Making balancing the fun in an MMO’s even harder.

As to there being no difficulty in GW2, I would not necessarily agree with that, but that doesn’t mean you do not find anything challenging. There is challenging content in GW2, but no matter what Anet add, a coordinated and skilled group of players will always, eventually, trivialize it. But again, it’s all a personal thing. What you or I find challenging, others will find easy, and visa versa. This must always be kept in a developers mind when adding new content.

Azhure.1857:

I’m not asking for a Hard/Legendary Mode in this thread. I’m asking for each player to take personal responsibility for their actions, or lack there of, as it does effect the players around them. This isn’t a single player game, its an MMORPG. Each players actions effect those around them. But we currently have a system where stupidity isn’t being discouraged – in fact it is in most cases being rewarded.

I agree. Each player effects other players to some degree, depending on the content of course. I also agree that this game doesn’t encourage good play that much. It’s a difficult situation, because if you reward too much players will find easy ways to acquire the rewards, and if you punish too severely you will drive players away (which is the last thing Anet wants, as much as we might want measures in place to prevent afking etc.).

Back to the death penalty thing though, I still feel that harsher global penalties are not the way to go. They run the high risk of driving away paying customers, so it is not something Anet will add lightly. But I agree that something needs to be done to encourage better play.

I hated everything which involved pvp until last winter when I played Snowball Mayhem a LOT (wanted to get the rewards which were only available there) and found that me dying had positive affects for my team as one could troll around for a long time when downed and keep everybody occupied. Since then I don’t really mind when dying although I wish that all classes would have reasonable chances to get themselves from being downed. Anyway: I accepted that I can’t avoid being killed from time to time and that it’s sometimes neccessary to help my team. Having a system which would penalize death a lot more than it’s now would make it harder to encourage (newer) players to get in dangerous situations and I don’t think that is cool. Also I usually die when rezzing someone, so I wouldn’t do that anymore.
So if you think that all these changes would be good for pve then please keep in mind that there’s also pvp and wvw which would be affected by this as well.

Rasimir.6239:

If the game penalizes me for trying challenging content in a way that hinders my ability to keep trying, that content (and most likely that game) isn’t something I want to play. I love this game because it allows me to choose what part of it I want to play, instead of randomly restricting me from content just because I was unlucky, didn’t know the boss/event inside-out yet, or worst of all had an unlucky disconnect or family aggro at the wrong moment.

thank you, that sums it up perfectly for me.

Azhure.1857:

Taygus.4571:

Azhure.1857:

Taygus, if you had read what I have posted throughout this thread and what others have said on the subject, you would know by now what “bothers” me and others.

There was one post in particular where I even listed off a couple of examples, a post I might add that nobody commented on.

quote it again,

Still, all I’ve seen is people wanting to push they’re playstyles on others. because some people die..and somehow that affects ye.

I’m not going to play fetch for you. If you truly cared about what people have to say on the subject, you would read the thread – paying equal attention to all corners of this debate. But you aren’t, at the moment, doing that. * sigh *

I’m not reading 6 pages of posts to find one that MAY answer my question.
How other people play, don’t really affect you. If you don’t want to do events and such with “bad” players, you don’t actually have to.

I like the positive reinforcement route that was previously mentioned, although I lost track of the post to quote it.

Greater rewards for completing a dungeon quicker? Although that would likely result in more “Zerkers or GTFO” mentality.

Perhaps greater rewards for beating bosses a certain way. “Defeat X boss that has PBAOE attacks with only melee weapons” and get a greater reward. Or bonus rewards for something like defeating Lieutenant Kholer without anyone getting pulled by his aoe scorpion wire.

ammayhem.5962:

Greater rewards for completing a dungeon quicker? Although that would likely result in more “Zerkers or GTFO” mentality.

Depends on what they set the timer values at, but this could also encourage people to get better. It was just one of many options that popped into my head.

Perhaps greater rewards for beating bosses a certain way. “Defeat X boss that has PBAOE attacks with only melee weapons” and get a greater reward. Or bonus rewards for something like defeating Lieutenant Kholer without anyone getting pulled by his aoe scorpion wire.

Exactly. Positive rewards for getting better at the game’s mechanics. Obviously some balancing would be required, as someone else pointed out, we don’t want this stuff to be abused either.

@ Azhure “I understand that not everyone wants a challenge. However there is no real form of difficulty in the majority of GW2. Which results in laziness and inattentiveness.”

Just because not everyone is “skilled” enough to play to your satisfaction, that
doesn’t mean that they are all lazy or inattentive. They may be playing the game for a different purpose than you. ie families or couples or friends that play together just to do something together.

Lynne.8416:

@ Azhure “I understand that not everyone wants a challenge. However there is no real form of difficulty in the majority of GW2. Which results in laziness and inattentiveness.”

Just because not everyone is “skilled” enough to play to your satisfaction, that
doesn’t mean that they are all lazy or inattentive. They may be playing the game for a different purpose than you. ie families or couples or friends that play together just to do something together.

That’s what me and my husband do, and we’re total noobs.
Contrary to what others have said and seem to think, this game DOES have a somewhat steep difficulty curve. We played wow before, and it was much easier in our opinion. Why should ALL players be “punished” for not knowing what they’re doing? All includes new players, who OF COURSE will not know what they’re doing. If the game is too hard and too unforgiving, they will just find another one and this conversation won’t have to happen.

Two points:

1) This is not a difficult game and it does not have a steep learning curve. Compare the difficulty of this game with even the easiest entry into the Soul franchise (Dark Souls 2) and you’ll see the difficulty level is not what one would consider hard. Furthermore, you want a game with a steep learning curve; try Dawn of War 2. A mistake in managing a single squad at the start of the game can completely lose you a match. Guild Wars 2 is pretty adept at both holding your hand in the early stages of the game and ensuring the difficulty never reaches a point where you have to look away from the cat videos playing on your second monitor.

2) Imposing harsh penalties for simple tasks does not make the simple tasks more difficult or more fun. If the problem is “the game is to easy” then the answer isn’t perma-death. The answer is to make enemies something other than damage-sponges. There are tons of interesting ideas out there how to make enemies more intelligent and engaging and no need for me to rehash those ideas.

All that being said; I have a nagging suspicion the majority of the GW2 community doesn’t actually want difficult content.

I like the way the death system is right now. And I’m gonna tell you why: I purchased the game on the release date. Never felt very motivated to play it. I didn’t understand very well how classes work – there are too many possibilities (for instance gear and its upgrades). I remember I wanted to explore the world, but as I was only a casual player, dying costed me too much. Being part of big events was something I never cared about as I couldn’t afford dying the N times we may do in such events. In the next year I came back and logged in to see how things were – I still didn’t comprehend well how the battle and classes work. My character didn’t last 5 minutes and between having to pay to fix his gear and then the WP tax or simply closing the game and going to play or do something else, I chose the latter.

In events like the Festival, for instance, you will die loads of times, if I had to pay each time I died and will die there, do you really believe I would bother trying? If for you it’s very easy to make 1 gold each hour, for me who can’t afford playing this game 24/7, ONE gold is too much. Know that implying that everybody is on the same boat you are is a fallacy.

If they apply “greater penalties” for sure I’m not playing this game any longer as I wouldn’t be able to do a lot of activities like joining the Boss Blitz knowing that I would die loads of times and the expenses would be greater than the fun I could have.

Perhaps the system could be like: you toggle between “Greater penalities” or “don’t touch it”. I sincerely doubt that people like the OP would pick the former.

tl;dr: Not everybody is and will be at the same expertise level. Greater penalties are a pain for casual and new players. The game is better the way it is now: I feel more interested in risking and doing things I always avoided.

NewTrain.7549:

All that being said; I have a nagging suspicion the majority of the GW2 community doesn’t actually want difficult content.

Essentially. Most players are primarily interested in rewards; titles, gold, tokens, skins, useful gear and so on. Everything else comes in second at best.

There have been attempts to create challenging content, but most of it was lacking in proper rewards and as such, was/is largely ignored.

Which is why I’m always surprised to see topics like these. The posters never seem to see beyond their own desires, or whatever lofty ideals they hold to. The bottom line, imho, is always will this add value to our game experience?

An increased death penalty simply won’t.

NewTrain.7549:

Two points:

2) Imposing harsh penalties for simple tasks does not make the simple tasks more difficult or more fun. If the problem is “the game is to easy” then the answer isn’t perma-death. The answer is to make enemies something other than damage-sponges. There are tons of interesting ideas out there how to make enemies more intelligent and engaging and no need for me to rehash those ideas.

All that being said; I have a nagging suspicion the majority of the GW2 community doesn’t actually want difficult content.

You have the right idea i think. Harsh death penalties aren’t the way to go, improve the AI, have more bosses or hell even open world champions/veterans depending on the area that are like the ones in the crown pavilion(arena thingy) that have unique mechanics to beat them and if you don’t know them you wont move on or be rewarded for trying. if there was harsh death mechanics as this topic suggests i would not have tried 50+ times to beat liadri, it took me that long to figure out what to do with my class before i beat her(didn’t want to look it up) trying different builds, different weapons and even different characters. if there was harsh death penalties i would have stopped after one or two tries.

there should however be a cost for dying, so i honestly think they need to bring costly armor repair back, i HATED dying and tried my hardest not to because i DIDNT want to pay for armor repairs. those add up quick if you die alot, 11 silver for a lvl 80 to repair all armor and a back piece. its not that harsh if you don’t die that often, but if you aren’t paying attention and pull to many monsters and die, you rush into a fight without looking around you will be punished harder than someone who does those things. and in conjunction with harder, better monster AI then i think you would have a pretty good system.

No, they want more difficult but not impossible content, but they also want it to be rewarded for that content being hard which this game does not do very well.

Just to point out the fact that during a world boss those that die DO effect the ones still alive. The world bosses don’t care if you are dead and will stay scaled up. So many people don’t understand that.

Jahroots.6791:

NewTrain.7549:

All that being said; I have a nagging suspicion the majority of the GW2 community doesn’t actually want difficult content.

Essentially. Most players are primarily interested in rewards; titles, gold, tokens, skins, useful gear and so on. Everything else comes in second at best.

There have been attempts to create challenging content, but most of it was lacking in proper rewards and as such, was/is largely ignored.

Which is why I’m always surprised to see topics like these. The posters never seem to see beyond their own desires, or whatever lofty ideals they hold to. The bottom line, imho, is always will this add value to our game experience?

An increased death penalty simply won’t.

Dont get wrapped up in the idea of a harsh penalty, it could be light, but it should make you not want to die. Some suggested things as light as a rare drop rate penalty. Maybe it could even be, purely cosmetic. Lets say it worked similar to GW1 where it was worked off through gaining experience, as it increases from repeated deaths in a short period it advances.
your armor loses its color and begins too lo look old/worn/rusty. A ghostly image follows you and gets more corporeal the more you die. when you reach max penalty it points and literally laughs periodically and your death count appears over your head as a ghostly number.

just an idea.

Being alive longer gives you a scaling dmg buff up to say 180power depending on experience gained through kills.

point is make people want to live/not die repeatedly.

I think good players are internally motivated. In dungeons, we try our best to avoid even getting downed so we don’t slow the group down. In large scale battles we’d rather not inconvenience others who’d have to revive us, or have to run all the way back from a WP.

You do make some very good suggestions, particularly the buff for surviving, but they seem like they’d be far too much trouble for the devs to implement at this stage in the game’s life cycle than they’re worth (monetizing anything related to a death penalty would be too ‘pay 2 win’ and cause quite the uproar).

Jahroots.6791:

I think good players are internally motivated. In dungeons, we try our best to avoid even getting downed so we don’t slow the group down. In large scale battles we’d rather not inconvenience others who’d have to revive us, or have to run all the way back from a WP.

You do make some very good suggestions, particularly the buff for surviving, but they seem like they’d be far too much trouble for the devs to implement at this stage in the game’s life cycle than they’re worth (monetizing anything related to a death penalty would be too ‘pay 2 win’ and cause quite the uproar).

I wouldnt monetize anything related to life bonuses or death penalties, and while it might cost resources, i think its important the game gets more depth. They dont have to do it through death penalty, but they will probably have to do it or lose some customers (keep in mind the game said it would have some challenging content through dungeons on release, so some bought it with that in mind) And, that will cost money.

Well, this topic is going nowhere.
Just the same people arguing for greater death penalty and completely ignoring the best arguments against it.

ofLegends.9853:

Well, this topic is going nowhere.
Just the same people arguing for greater death penalty and completely ignoring the best arguments against it.

heres a question, what is it you look for in a game? What makes you keep playing. Story? adventure, progress? im just curious to see what drives players, it may give me some perspective.

phys.7689:

heres a question, what is it you look for in a game? What makes you keep playing. Story? adventure, progress? im just curious to see what drives players, it may give me some perspective.

A sense of adventure, primarily, but strong primary and secondary stories sure don’t hurt.

I like a huge world to explore with plenty of ‘elbow room’. Minimal grinding to get to the fun stuff. An astonishing lack of red circles and the corollary need to repeatedly dodge out of them. Deep character customization that doesn’t require deep pockets or insane amounts of rat maze repetitive grinding to achieve fun and cool appearances. Enough variety in locations/quests/stuff to do that I am able to level up multiple new characters without having to repeat over and over again and again the experiences already experienced by previously leveled characters, which requires a steady influx of new, permanent content including new quests, zones, races, professions and the like. The ability to play solo ~OR~ in a group depending on how I feel at any given time.

Some things I don’t look for in a game are situations in which some sanity-challenged NPC uses a catapult to fling cows willy nilly about the landscape (and the associated quest isn’t about putting a stop to it, but instead saying ‘Me next plz!’), frequent raisings of the level cap, and Death Penalties.

phys.7689:

ofLegends.9853:

Well, this topic is going nowhere.
Just the same people arguing for greater death penalty and completely ignoring the best arguments against it.

heres a question, what is it you look for in a game? What makes you keep playing. Story? adventure, progress? im just curious to see what drives players, it may give me some perspective.

Story, collecting, leveling, Jp’s(well some of them), gathering, ….and anything silly/fun etc. In game toys, like bobblehead, music instruments, (needs more of these and not just through gemstore.)
I also like to kill stuff, but without too much effort.

Tachenon.5270:

Some things I don’t look for in a game are situations in which some sanity-challenged NPC uses a catapult to fling cows willy nilly about the landscape (and the associated quest isn’t about putting a stop to it, but instead saying ‘Me next plz!’), frequent raisings of the level cap, and Death Penalties.

That heart definitely should have had a “choice” option. “kill npc to stop him” or “help him”. My asura was just fine helping him, my sylvari on the other hand, disgusted.

There is already a penalty for Death… erhm, two, and they work just fine!!! The one where u get downed with lower healt for each downed state… I know u say.
And there is Another one too. The Group-breaking that frequent Deaths of party-members create. Many ppl dying often cause even more ppl to die. So the others in the Group have to put pressure on their mates to stay alive! That mecanism is a DP in itself…. Either it causes ppl to give up, or make them work better as a team. Those giving up are usually ppl who doesnt have the time to bother (often elitists).

The system in GW1 was NOT good! When things were really hard (Barley doable perhaps), the DP made it even HARDER….. mankes no sense, and is not incuraging to continue.

How about more rewards when you live, not punishment when you die.
Why do you need to pay silver to feel bad for dying?

I haven’t changed my playstyle since then. Waypointing still costs silver and in instanced areas you don’t wanna be the person that gets carried (and maybe your group doesn’t want you to be, either).

It’s good that they want to give you the opportunity to take risks – now all we need is new content x)

At the end of the day, death penalty is a very difficult thing to balance. If you punish too much you hurt players in unlucky situations. If you reward too readily you encourage some players to exploit the system.

I think Anet is slowly heading in the right direction. They have removed armour costs, great! They are adding more mechanics to determine failure in challenging content, also great. But what I would really like to see added is some way to reward players for playing a more active role in other aspects of content besided dealing damage. If we was rewarded for healing/supporting our allies, or for controlling enemies, that would be an even greater step in the right direction.

Taygus.4571:

Tachenon.5270:

Some things I don’t look for in a game are situations in which some sanity-challenged NPC uses a catapult to fling cows willy nilly about the landscape (and the associated quest isn’t about putting a stop to it, but instead saying ‘Me next plz!’), frequent raisings of the level cap, and Death Penalties.

That heart definitely should have had a “choice” option. “kill npc to stop him” or “help him”. My asura was just fine helping him, my sylvari on the other hand, disgusted.

got to realize charr are mostly carnivores, to him he was just playing with food. Your charachter maybe has no reason

Figgy.3856:

How about more rewards when you live, not punishment when you die.
Why do you need to pay silver to feel bad for dying?

I haven’t changed my playstyle since then. Waypointing still costs silver and in instanced areas you don’t wanna be the person that gets carried (and maybe your group doesn’t want you to be, either).

It’s good that they want to give you the opportunity to take risks – now all we need is new content x)

this is also an option, though its really just perception. psychologically it may make sense.

ofLegends.9853:

Well, this topic is going nowhere.
Just the same people arguing for greater death penalty and completely ignoring the best arguments against it.

…and people completely ignoring the best arguments for it.

go play runescape where you lose everything on death that looks like it will make you happy. this game is for fun I don’t see why you want harsh penalties for getting killed

Ozzy Toxin.3074:

go play runescape where you lose everything on death that looks like it will make you happy. this game is for fun I don’t see why you want harsh penalties for getting killed

Heh, imagine GW2 with old RS death mechanics. You die you lose all but 3 of your items. Catch is bloodstone dust is prioritized above your exotic gear because it’s ascended…..and you only keep 3 of them

Frostfang.5109:

There is already a penalty for Death… erhm, two, and they work just fine!!! The one where u get downed with lower healt for each downed state… I know u say.
And there is Another one too. The Group-breaking that frequent Deaths of party-members create. Many ppl dying often cause even more ppl to die. So the others in the Group have to put pressure on their mates to stay alive! That mecanism is a DP in itself…. Either it causes ppl to give up, or make them work better as a team. Those giving up are usually ppl who doesnt have the time to bother (often elitists).

The system in GW1 was NOT good! When things were really hard (Barley doable perhaps), the DP made it even HARDER….. mankes no sense, and is not incuraging to continue.

These are not death penalties. They are game mechanics. The Downed state is something they put in to try and hold back death and give players a second chance before ultimately having to run back (or wait for a res). Dieing in a group is not a death penalty. It doesn’t effect the player dead it effects the rest alive. Death penalty is a penalty to the one that died. Its normally brought on by the “death has no meaning” mentality or just a lacking the correct knowledge of the fight or other mechanics available to the player (such as evades in their skills and the ability to dodge).

I’ve seen so many players run into large bosses with massive melee skills and repeatedly drop because they fail to watch the boss and avoid its biggest attacks. Take Halmi for instance. The first guy in the queens gauntlet. So many players fight him and stand in front when he charges up his big attack, die, and go “wtf just hit me?” Its sad that some players just can’t be bothered to learn the games core mechanics and then go claiming the game is to hard.

In its current state death is more a penalty to those around the dead and not the dead itself. This has lead to so many instances of trollish behavior its impossible to count.