Guild Wars 2

In every MMO I have played, I hear “It’s an mmo you should have to group to do everything”. Is this valid in GW2? As new areas are added, there is of course things you can do solo but for many without uber builds and the best of the best, they cannot. Do they deserve to complete the same story content as others, or should they accept their fate, GG or quit if they prefer no to, or cannot find groups? Some will suffer due to language barriers others don’t run the flavor of the month builds so they aren’t asked or accepted in raids, or they don’t know every facet of every meta and should not even login? Myself, on my Mesmer, I cursed this game and the developers and gave up on the story content once I hit the Silverwastes. Now that my Mes is a chrono, running Berserker, ascended trinkets, etc.. she can go back to running the story content, but I have MMO exp since 2003, so I know how to stay alive, and have the gear to let me (please don’t start giving me build complaints mine works for me, lets stay on topic. I can do the content, this is about those that cannot being left behind and revenues in game being effected by it – if they cannot progress they quit and do not buy future expansions so revs fall).

Sooo is FS the new meta? Will all future expansions have more group content then solo? Will story content always be fair for some and not for others? In GW1 you could offset such issues by using companions. But players whined and complained they couldn’t find groups and shouldn’t need companions. (ummm wat?).

Thoughts? Ideas? Too bad so sad go away?

The majority of the game can be done solo. Exceptions being dungeons, fractals, raids, and group events. With all but raids, you can be in a group with people but don’t have to interact with them.

Raids aren’t even much “content” to begin with so you are not missing out on much. There is plenty of content for solo players.

I don’t raid. I mostly play solo and farm stuff and I don’t care that I don’t get the shinies from raids.

Evon Skyfyre.9673:

In every MMO I have played, I hear “It’s an mmo you should have to group to do everything”. Is this valid in GW2? As new areas are added, there is of course things you can do solo but for many without uber builds and the best of the best, they cannot. Do they deserve to complete the same story content as others, or should they accept their fate, GG or quit if they prefer no to, or cannot find groups? Some will suffer due to language barriers others don’t run the flavor of the month builds so they aren’t asked or accepted in raids, or they don’t know every facet of every meta and should not even login? Myself, on my Mesmer, I cursed this game and the developers and gave up on the story content once I hit the Silverwastes. Now that my Mes is a chrono, running Berserker, ascended trinkets, etc.. she can go back to running the story content, but I have MMO exp since 2003, so I know how to stay alive, and have the gear to let me (please don’t start giving me build complaints mine works for me, lets stay on topic. I can do the content, this is about those that cannot being left behind and revenues in game being effected by it – if they cannot progress they quit and do not buy future expansions so revs fall).

Sooo is FS the new meta? Will all future expansions have more group content then solo? Will story content always be fair for some and not for others? In GW1 you could offset such issues by using companions. But players whined and complained they couldn’t find groups and shouldn’t need companions. (ummm wat?).

Thoughts? Ideas? Too bad so sad go away?

If you consider the current story ‘group content’, then yes. That adds up to most content being group content. Companions being as powerful as players (there are still companion npcs with you in the story, they’re just really bad at actually helping you, which I’m totally fine with) doesn’t really make sense in an mmo. I don’t think any content, not even story content, should be so incredibly easy that a chimpanzee can beat it using only his toes. If there’s no challenge, there’s no fun.

The amount of solo content in this game vastly outweighs the content which encourages players to socialise and group up. So I don’t think there’s ever a risk of solo players being left behind, particularly since all major story elements are served through either solo instance style content or open-world meta events.

The only place where grouping up is required would be raids/T4 fractals. But the only thing you might miss by not raiding is the ability to unlock spirit shards via your mastery track. In which case give me a poke and I can easily help you unlock that (EU).

All things said and done, this is a business. Anet must think that providing consistently more challenging content will make them more money, will make the game provide more money long term, or that those who enjoy that type of content spend more money. But, is it sustainable?

I don’t believe that is the case but they clearly do. If you played thru the first year of the living story, you saw them provide significant new content every two weeks. It was the most fun by far but they stopped and said it was just not sustainable. So they were spending more money generating content than they were taking in. They had all the original sales money to work with but they must have seen it wouldn’t last. Four years later and a change in leadership, and it looks like they will have to learn that lesson again. I believe those players looking for only the most challenging content will spend a bunch to prepare for it, but if it’s not sustained, they will move on to the next game real fast. Time will tell.

I just completed all of the new maps & new stories on a PU mesmer, without significant help from people I know. The build is only uber in WvW/PvP if played by a skilled condi mesmer (which I am not); it’s is decidedly underpowered in PvE.

In other words, if you don’t want to socialize, you don’t have to.

To be honest, I’m not a very good player, as builds and such are beyond my ken, and don’t interest me. Thus, I guess I’m as ‘casual’ as they come. I’ve done every Story and completed almost every map solo. Of course, some of it takes me longer, and really messes up my forum-browsing (difficult to avoid spoilers).

I very rarely use LFG for anything, but the once or twice I have for an instance, there was no issue, and all I said, pretty much, was “Hi”.

Maybe things aren’t as dire, and even not-so-good players can manage more than one thinks.

Good luck.

Tumult.2578:

All things said and done, this is a business. Anet must think that providing consistently more challenging content will make them more money, will make the game provide more money long term, or that those who enjoy that type of content spend more money. But, is it sustainable?

I don’t believe that is the case but they clearly do. If you played thru the first year of the living story, you saw them provide significant new content every two weeks. It was the most fun by far but they stopped and said it was just not sustainable. So they were spending more money generating content than they were taking in. They had all the original sales money to work with but they must have seen it wouldn’t last. Four years later and a change in leadership, and it looks like they will have to learn that lesson again. I believe those players looking for only the most challenging content will spend a bunch to prepare for it, but if it’s not sustained, they will move on to the next game real fast. Time will tell.

+10000000000000 Totally agree. There was a speech by Jeff Strain on gw1’s site (that has since been removed), that spoke of how to build a successful mmo. For better or worse, GW2 seems to be going out of it’s way to go against everything that made Gw1 great and brought us here expecting more. Yes there are many new aspects of the game here that I love, but the core ideals have been abandoned. One of the best points he made was to not try to be or beat WOW. Be the best game you can be. GW2 seems to worry more about the imaginary economy then the game itself. It’s become trade-wars, not guild wars now.

The thing about story content in a quasi-action game is that it cannot generate appeal to both tails of the player skill curve. Tune it to below average skills and those average and above find it too easy. Tune it to above average skills and those average and below struggle. So, if the developer tunes it to average skills, they please the most people.

The problem with average tuning is, the highly skilled are still going to throw insults at the content like “faceroll,” while the least skilled are still going to struggle. There are solutions for both groups though. The highly skilled have raids and T100CM fractals to conquer, so they can then claim those are too easy. The least skilled can still do the story content, but they might, as the OP discusses, have to group. While finding it necessary to group to complete a story episode may be inconvenient, that is the result of needing to please the greatest number of players.

I believe myself to be in the low end of the average range as far as skill goes. I’m not one of those being defeated constantly in open world content. I’m also not sitting in melee on open world bosses bored because avoiding their attacks is a cakewalk. While there are certain story fights that I find annoying rather than fun, I’ve yet to find one I couldn’t complete.

Now, the annoying I could do without.

IndigoSundown.5419:

The thing about story content in a quasi-action game is that it cannot generate appeal to both tails of the player skill curve. Tune it to below average skills and those average and above find it too easy. Tune it to above average skills and those average and below struggle. So, if the developer tunes it to average skills, they please the most people.

The problem with average tuning is, the highly skilled are still going to throw insults at the content like “faceroll,” while the least skilled are still going to struggle. There are solutions for both groups though. The highly skilled have raids and T100CM fractals to conquer, so they can then claim those are too easy. The least skilled can still do the story content, but they might, as the OP discusses, have to group. While finding it necessary to group to complete a story episode may be inconvenient, that is the result of needing to please the greatest number of players.

I believe myself to be in the low end of the average range as far as skill goes. I’m not one of those being defeated constantly in open world content. I’m also not sitting in melee on open world bosses bored because avoiding their attacks is a cakewalk. While there are certain story fights that I find annoying rather than fun, I’ve yet to find one I couldn’t complete.

Now, the annoying I could do without.

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Having once done the “defend the village” option in The Jungle Provides, I will on any other characters always do the “attack the Mordrem” option. Fighting the Staffmaster on a small platform and narrow pathways and having the flooring obscure the area of his AoE attacks was a fun killer.

I agree with all the above Indigo, and now I feel lucky that whenever I see a choice of defend or attack, I always go with attack. — For me the annoying story episode was the one in which you had to run and jump from Faolin. That one had no point whatsoever and didn’t add anything to the story.

GW1 had Normal and Hard Modes. But they didn’t have an open world. Maybe, a way exists to set modes to storyline missions in instances?

Although it has some situations that are something between unfair and annoying, story content in this game already is super easy. You can’t build an entire game for the lowest common denominator, i.e. least skilled player. Additionally, this is a bloody MMO, not a single player RPG.

Evon Skyfyre.9673:

In every MMO I have played, I hear “It’s an mmo you should have to group to do everything”. Is this valid in GW2? As new areas are added, there is of course things you can do solo but for many without uber builds and the best of the best, they cannot. Do they deserve to complete the same story content as others, or should they accept their fate, GG or quit if they prefer no to, or cannot find groups? Some will suffer due to language barriers others don’t run the flavor of the month builds so they aren’t asked or accepted in raids, or they don’t know every facet of every meta and should not even login? Myself, on my Mesmer, I cursed this game and the developers and gave up on the story content once I hit the Silverwastes. Now that my Mes is a chrono, running Berserker, ascended trinkets, etc.. she can go back to running the story content, but I have MMO exp since 2003, so I know how to stay alive, and have the gear to let me (please don’t start giving me build complaints mine works for me, lets stay on topic. I can do the content, this is about those that cannot being left behind and revenues in game being effected by it – if they cannot progress they quit and do not buy future expansions so revs fall).

Sooo is FS the new meta? Will all future expansions have more group content then solo? Will story content always be fair for some and not for others? In GW1 you could offset such issues by using companions. But players whined and complained they couldn’t find groups and shouldn’t need companions. (ummm wat?).

Thoughts? Ideas? Too bad so sad go away?

Hi

The game is an MMORPG genre, as such, doing group content is pretty much unavoidable and if you aim to make it into an exclusively solo game and have played MMOs since 2003 like you say, then you already know that you will miss out on many of the better aspects of the game.

As far as the story stuff goes, it is all soloable by every class. Albeit, not every build on every class and many builds are far more efficient at it then others. You don’t have to have an “uber” build to solo story either, its enough that you plug some holes by simply switching a couple traits and utilities that make sense to you, no metabattle or anything else needed or required. You have difficulty with X and Y out of the XYZ, you run mouse cursor over descriptions and pick traits / utilities to counter the X and the Y.

You can also switch a couple pieces of gear for super cheap exotics and any story issues disappear.

Thoughts? Ideas? Too bad so sad go away?

I dont totally get the complaint about “forced socialization.” In 99% of pickup groups I’ve ever participated in, the extent of my “socialization” is to say “hi” or “hey” at the beginning. And, unless you’re talking about raids or T4 challenge-mote fractals, nobody is ever getting kicked out of groups for their ridiculous/terrible builds. Then I think you touched on the issue of “not knowing every aspect of the event/content…” which can be solved, in almost every case by just watching a couple YouTube videos on it.

I think you’re kinda making something out of nothing. In fairness to your argument, people can be pretty obnoxious and insufferable sometimes. But those occasions are very rare. And you can blow it right back in their faces whenever it happens (seriously). I’m a VERY introverted person myself. But I just made the decision that I’m not gonna let my enjoyment of the game be limited by the possibility some land-whale might criticize my play. My advice is that you just make a small effort to grow a thicker skin. Do your best, and F the haters.

Ayrilana.1396:

The majority of the game can be done solo. Exceptions being dungeons, fractals, raids, and group events. With all but raids, you can be in a group with people but don’t have to interact with them.

um the only one that applies to is raids, and from some of the videos I’ve seen some people have even started to be able to 2-3man that stuff. plenty of people make a fair bit of money buy soloing arah paths by letting others ride off there work. fractals has been soloable sense pre hot, sa,e thing can be said with ~90% of group events (the exceptions being world bosses like teq, triple wurm, gerent, etc.) and even then I don’t consider most of those socializing as all you really do is find a map in lfg then you can ingore all the people in it

redwing.9580:

Ayrilana.1396:

The majority of the game can be done solo. Exceptions being dungeons, fractals, raids, and group events. With all but raids, you can be in a group with people but don’t have to interact with them.

um the only one that applies to is raids, and from some of the videos I’ve seen some people have even started to be able to 2-3man that stuff. plenty of people make a fair bit of money buy soloing arah paths by letting others ride off there work. fractals has been soloable sense pre hot, sa,e thing can be said with ~90% of group events (the exceptions being world bosses like teq, triple wurm, gerent, etc.) and even then I don’t consider most of those socializing as all you really do is find a map in lfg then you can ingore all the people in it

Can you solo that content? I’m not going to count content that only a handful of players can solo as solo content.