Guild Wars 2

There are several things I feel like are holding Guild wars back in terms of PVE content. I am just coming back from a long break and feel the PvE still lacks endgame.

1)LS bosses/Worldboss trains
The mob mentality of living story and world boss fights has its place, however they are the highest gold/time ratio and seem to have the lowest player input/reward ratio (auto attack with a staff or be highest dps, same rewards). For me it comes down too “is the reward enough gold/time? if so farm, else do it once and move on”. Hardcore raiders enjoy a challenging boss which they feel rewarded in killing, and are rewarded for killing. I could use a lvl 80 with max gear or level up an alt and still feel like i am contributing the same to the group.

Since picking the game back up I have been trying to catch back up on what is happening in the game. I found a lot of the community of Ex wow raiders like myself had stopped at the launch of Living story. However I found the recent (2014) bosses and content a lot better in terms of PvE mechanics. Unlike before where the most challenging boss (lupi) was recycled for all 4 parts of arah. Aside from the clockwork dungeon boss, most of the bosses are available to anyone rules it out as endgame content.

Perhaps If these were (5/10/more) party instances like a dungeon, It would feel much more rewarding to those who do it. For example have the knights/scarlett fight be a 15 man dungeon where it lets you split 5/knight, and then 15 on scarlett. It would allow players to feel more involved in the fight rather than just a mess of players on a boss. There is little to no reward for the players who really skilled at PvE that a little gold cant match. For example the fractals lvl 50 rewards (seeing as the effort/time required to get there, the player would be better off if he spent it farming gold). The players get to the end and feel like their time has been wasted. If difficulty causes an issue with content being able to be completed by all players, there can be a difficulty scale such as “hard modes” or fractal difficultys.

2)Rewards for Difficulty
It seems like boss achievements are the main reward for being skilled at PvE mechanics. however being someone who put the game down for 6-8 months, I find myself a solid amount of achievement point behind those who didnt. Not that those players shouldn’t be rewarded for it, i just feel daily and monthly achievements weigh very heavily against the difficult ones that really are prestigeous. Sadly i don’t have much to offer in terms of fixes for this apart from a change in the scaling. it seemed quite reasonable at launch, however now coming back to GW2 i see achievement point values way higher than i thought possible. Any thoughts on how you feel the fixed/daily/monthly achievement ratios are?

I have found a lot of discussion online about the availablity of the endgame items. For example other games have had the difficult and challenging bosses, and those bosses exclusivity reward players with the best items. However the “big ticket items” (I.E. Prerequisite exotics, ascended gear, even legendary themselves) mainly rely on gold. As for making gold, drops off mobs through out the world regardless of difficulty, seem to provide similar if not seemingly unbalanced rewards (meaning spending X hours in difficult content usually rewards a lot less than X hours in easy content). Thus a lot of players complain about RNG in the game. I dont feel the use of RNG has anything wrong. you may never see the precursor drop, that’s a reality of having it rare and changing it throws off the mechanics. However something should be done about the high difficulty encounters rewards. I don’t know how i feel about the daily 1-2g rewards for dungeons, you could do 7-10 quick easy dungeons and get more gold than doing 1-2 difficult ones and they would take the same time. This creates an endgame content based around farming/repeating easy content to get quick and easy rewards of money to buy the things you need. When you are max level and log on to play PvE, you want that to revolve around farming gold/using that gold to kill harder bosses to receive (X) where (X) is either prestigious loot, Greater gold than you could have farmed but is only available one week/month/day. Or maybe aesthetics, although aesthetics can only go so far especially sine the Value/Time+Effort Ratio should be considered. and farming aesthetics can cause a “what now” feeling upon completion due to the fact that they really haven’t gotten any stronger as a character.

3)The Progresssion/noob concept

For new players or returning players (my friends and I at least, forgot about it due to lack of endgame content after hitting 80 and doing all the dungeons). The noob to endgame PVE road is a rough and frustrating process. I spent 2-3 hours working with a group in arah part 4 yesterday trying to get it done, yet the people I was paired with through dungeon finder were having troubles with mechanics, after 2-3 hours of wiping on lupi (after 1 shotting parts 1/2/3 on my 1st ever time in there right beforehand) I gave up because i could go farm Tier6 mats, sell them, and pay someone to solo it for me and save time/effort/headaches. The fact that a dungeon is do-able with 1 person in itself is a quite large flaw in endgame PvE content as I see it. The bosses seem to do no damage if you can dodge, and 1 shot with massive death hits.

For people wanting to dip back into these dungeons the community is split at the moment between those who want that fast quick farm, and those who dont know the path yet. Here is what i see as the issue with this, The process at wich dungeons are completed has been worked down to a science. In most MMO’s dungeons have a 30-45 minute playtime. as too in GW2, but to get this time we have to skip 95% of trash mobs, and only if you are farmiliar with where to run/where to jump/where to de-aggro, can you complete this.( I found myself having to watch a youtube video of every dungeon every part to refresh on these paths in order not to kitten off people “AC P3 EXPERIENCE ONLY MUST HAVE LEGENDARY AND 10 000 ACHIVE POINTS”. I understand these people 100% because it feels like a massive time sink to explain every part every run when the rewards are so low. Furthermore without this methods the 2-3 hours of trash clearing becomes horribly ineffecient next to world T6 mat farming/worldbosses/pretty much anything. IMO the best way to make trash worthwhile is somehow preserving the >1hour dungeon run. (putting players into things for more than an hour can be a negative thing, unless it is an endgame progression like fractals), Having said all that I actually think fractals and fractal-type encounters, are where the should focus of PvE content should shift.

4) Fractals
I quite like fractals, they provide a repeatable dungeon that can be fresh and scales with difficulty. The perfect PvE formula and is why I recently got back into GW2. However I saw the level 50 rewards and got discouraged because it seems the main reward is doing the content, players need a sort of working towards new gear/items/rewards type of feel to stay active. Ascended crafted gear seems great in terms of its use for prestige and player advancement. but it falls into the trap of again being too gold depended, i already find myself floating 2000+ bloodstone and emphyral and it has been less than a month of getting them (another thing too add here is that I had destroyed 500 blade shards, having more than enough to make all the backpacks ill ever need, before i found a DEV post saying don’t, this info needs to be more readily available). The main components I now need for endgame gear, are gold based. Another flaw I see is with content being always acsessable. It is difficult to catch up in fractals because if players do them, they move on to 50+, or they run daily 1-9 runs, 10-40 has a void of players atm and having a steady flow from early-endgame to end-endgame is key in the PvE formula. Thinking back to how WoW pulled it off, you want the dungeons to have unique rare asthetic drops so theres always a reason to do them, and allows the older gear to easily filter to new players and let them catch up. Im not saying gear is an issue like this in GW2 because my old exotics from release are still a mere 5% stats behind ascended fractal loot. But that in itself seems odd that there is no gear progression endgame.

I feel like fractals and things like them should be the focus for GW2 in terms of building up an endgame content. There has been a lot of living story i missed, a lot of new minigames, yet i still see a gaping void in the PVE content of GW2. In fractals they got it 90% right, the boss fights are engaging, the trash mobs are at a minimum and the lack of open world-ness makes high level fractal actually prestigious to those who play PVE. the one thing that falls short is gear. it still seems Gold dependent. Even with high level fractals being challenging, the difficulty/rewards quite honestly doesn’t make doing them worth the time/effort. Get enough dragonite ore and you basically are best farming gold/shards for the gear, not doing the associated content.

TLDR

• Gold seems to be the most important thing to spend time on, is this what other pve gamers like? I certainly enjoy boss battles/dungeons
• Ways of getting gold are best spent on quick, easy, low difficulty content.
• Lack of unique rewards/lack of gold for doing difficult bosses
• Mass mobs of players in open world content make you feel unnecessary
• I enjoy fractals but i find the “skip all the trash” methods of old dungeons stale relative to other MMOs (dont get me wrong i played GW1 and did droks runs, i enjoy running stuff, its just not the PVE content i was hoping for)
• As someone who has learned the paths like most of you, I dislike the challenge new/rusty players will/do face when coming into the game, new players/ keeping players are how the game survives and becomes more fun.
• I enjoy fractals but the lack of rewards seems rather dissapointing considering ascended armor/ legendary wepons require mainly gold
• I have enjoyed GW2 a lot and hope they can keep improving PvE content
• I realise my post is massive, i didn’t intend this but ill try and respond less wordy <3
  Thoughts?
  Comments?

I was recently considering coming back to GW2 since I heard there was going to be no more living story. I’ve since learnt that we can expect more Living story in the upcoming updates and all the thing you outlined here are still an issue.
Your post all comes down to Risk vs. Reward, Something Anet seems to have no idea how to manage. Odd because they seemed to have it worked out to an extent in GW1.
If you are interested Dino I went into this 9 months ago here: https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/archive/suggestions/Risk-Vs-Reward-in-GW2-The-Underworld/first#post2170821
Or you could try https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TtvwXFLNCIQ&list=UUJTE1U_RsWh9Nl2hMZxMu5w if you prefer to listen over reading.

IMHO the problem with Anet is that they are always trying to invent the wheel, and refuse to adapt an already made solution. it is cool that they are innovative and everything, but sometimes it is good to stick to available solution.

there is a very good game named “DDO” it is very similar to GW2 in many aspects,
-the versatile character builds
-the soft trinity, you don’t have to have tank and healer, and tanks are not always tanks and healers are not always healers.
-the active combat and avoidance of damage through positioning.

all this lead to exactly the same problems like in your points 2 and 3.

what turbine did, is it rewarded the players in dungeons for “playing” and not for “skipping” all mobs in a dungeon are counted, all bosses in the dungeon are counted, all secret chests and doors are counted and all traps are counted.

you get bonus percentage reward for completing mob kills, boss kills, trap disarms, secrets found,
killed 50% of mobs? 10% bonus to all rewards gold and XP.
killed 75% of mobs? 15% bonus to reward.
killed 100% of mobs? 20% bonus to all rewards.

so a party can spend 10 minutes on the dungeon skipping all content and get the basic rewards or it can get all kills, all bosses, all traps , all secrets and get double or triple reward! (20% to mobs, bosses, secret doors, chests traps etc)

they would also give a reward for not killing any mob! for example if you have party of thieves, and you slowly stealth thru the dungeon aggroing nothing, just going silently and disarming traps, and pick the treasure you would get a decent boost to the reward for killing nothing.

if a similar system would have introduced in GW2, then the dungeon runs would be more fun, the rewards are better, and it would help for new people to understand the dungeon instead of just running and skipping.

but for this, anet should reduce the amount of infinitely respawning mobs. this is bad and lazy mechanic that for some reason prominent in GW2…

Good points all around, i think i can agree with all of them. There’s hope that situation with Fractals will be resolved somehow, considering the latest CDI topic about FotM, but i think regular dungeons will stay in their current f’ed up state, probably, forever. It is an interesting idea to make regular dungeons part of the FotM experience and if implemented right it probably would do good for the game, but, unfortunately, i don’t see this happening.

Kaaboose.3897:

I was recently considering coming back to GW2 since I heard there was going to be no more living story. I’ve since learnt that we can expect more Living story in the upcoming updates and all the thing you outlined here are still an issue.
Your post all comes down to Risk vs. Reward, Something Anet seems to have no idea how to manage. Odd because they seemed to have it worked out to an extent in GW1.
If you are interested Dino I went into this 9 months ago here: https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/archive/suggestions/Risk-Vs-Reward-in-GW2-The-Underworld/first#post2170821
Or you could try https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TtvwXFLNCIQ&list=UUJTE1U_RsWh9Nl2hMZxMu5w if you prefer to listen over reading.

their problem is their “include all types of players”-approach. If they give reasonable rewards for harder content, they will exclude a big part of their playerbase. “Casual players” will play their “I have a job and a familiy” routine (because better players simply cannot have that too as everybody knows…) and demand the same rewards regardless of skill/dedication – massive uproar expected. When GW1 was released, there barely was a casual MMORPG playerbase, so it didn´t matter there.

Algreg.3629:

Kaaboose.3897:

I was recently considering coming back to GW2 since I heard there was going to be no more living story. I’ve since learnt that we can expect more Living story in the upcoming updates and all the thing you outlined here are still an issue.
Your post all comes down to Risk vs. Reward, Something Anet seems to have no idea how to manage. Odd because they seemed to have it worked out to an extent in GW1.
If you are interested Dino I went into this 9 months ago here: https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/archive/suggestions/Risk-Vs-Reward-in-GW2-The-Underworld/first#post2170821
Or you could try https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TtvwXFLNCIQ&list=UUJTE1U_RsWh9Nl2hMZxMu5w if you prefer to listen over reading.

their problem is their “include all types of players”-approach. If they give reasonable rewards for harder content, they will exclude a big part of their playerbase. “Casual players” will play their “I have a job and a familiy” routine (because better players simply cannot have that too as everybody knows…) and demand the same rewards regardless of skill/dedication – massive uproar expected. When GW1 was released, there barely was a casual MMORPG playerbase, so it didn´t matter there.

I went over this in the video and previous post but I really can’t expect people to off thread for that so I’ll say it again here.
Anet already succeded in this with GW1. The Underworld/Fissure of Woe/Domain of Anguish. Very difficult dungeons that only catered to players determined enough to beat them. So how did that not exclude everyone?
Because the rewards for these places, minus titles, were not Bound to the characters and could be sold. If a casual player really wanted something that was beyond their skill level they could buy it. Yes they’d have to farm to get an item from there but if they REALLY wanted to they could get it.
Look at the Arbraces of Truth from the Domain of anguish. They were literally worth more gold then you could carry. And yet the domain required such an investment from the parties doing it the market was never flooded with them. If you wanted one you etheir needed to save a tonn of plat or get a really well orginased and commited group to run the domain.
Also consider that in GW2 you can legitamtly buy gold through gems. A casual player could always fork out some real world currency for items they wanted. You can’t really call it pay to win either as you would be paying for looks.
Granted this means Anet would have to get their risk vs reward and combat tweaked for this to work but it seems worth the effort.
Honestly if you have time check out that video link, it goes into greater detail.

@Kaaboose

First off let me just say i spent longer than i had intended editing this post trying to get its content streamlined, i don’t know how well i did at this but one thing i did was cutout alot of references to the content on youtube/forums i had been reading up on. I’m glad the community isn’t dead and had watched several of your videos and liked the points.

Lalangamena.3694:

IMHO the problem with Anet is that they are always trying to invent the wheel, and refuse to adapt an already made solution. it is cool that they are innovative and everything, but sometimes it is good to stick to available solution.

there is a very good game named “DDO” it is very similar to GW2 in many aspects,
-the versatile character builds
-the soft trinity, you don’t have to have tank and healer, and tanks are not always tanks and healers are not always healers.
-the active combat and avoidance of damage through positioning.

all this lead to exactly the same problems like in your points 2 and 3.

what turbine did, is it rewarded the players in dungeons for “playing” and not for “skipping” all mobs in a dungeon are counted, all bosses in the dungeon are counted, all secret chests and doors are counted and all traps are counted.

you get bonus percentage reward for completing mob kills, boss kills, trap disarms, secrets found,
killed 50% of mobs? 10% bonus to all rewards gold and XP.
killed 75% of mobs? 15% bonus to reward.
killed 100% of mobs? 20% bonus to all rewards.

This is an interesting idea
Another thing to add is while recently working on my dungeon master achievement, I was (as I mentioned in my wall of text and some people may gloss over) very much tempted to “cheat” my way there buying a run. However in the end I managed to 3man arah P4 with 2 experienced players (After watching YouTube guides i usually join “experienced” runs and dont get noticed >.>). This basically eliminated the need/desire to work with noobs. In terms of the achievement, this is the a rare mmo that allows you to get achievements got just the end of the dungeon, making this “cheat method” possible. I felt little/no reward for doing the content myself and spending the time/effort to do so. Perhaps if they had the achievement require a kill on every boss it would feel more rewarding having done every dungeon myself, rather than farm all day and pay someone to do it for me.

Kaaboose.3897:

Algreg.3629:

Kaaboose.3897:

I was recently considering coming back to GW2 since I heard there was going to be no more living story. I’ve since learnt that we can expect more Living story in the upcoming updates and all the thing you outlined here are still an issue.
Your post all comes down to Risk vs. Reward, Something Anet seems to have no idea how to manage. Odd because they seemed to have it worked out to an extent in GW1.
If you are interested Dino I went into this 9 months ago here: https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/archive/suggestions/Risk-Vs-Reward-in-GW2-The-Underworld/first#post2170821
Or you could try https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TtvwXFLNCIQ&list=UUJTE1U_RsWh9Nl2hMZxMu5w if you prefer to listen over reading.

their problem is their “include all types of players”-approach. If they give reasonable rewards for harder content, they will exclude a big part of their playerbase. “Casual players” will play their “I have a job and a familiy” routine (because better players simply cannot have that too as everybody knows…) and demand the same rewards regardless of skill/dedication – massive uproar expected. When GW1 was released, there barely was a casual MMORPG playerbase, so it didn´t matter there.

I went over this in the video and previous post but I really can’t expect people to off thread for that so I’ll say it again here.
Anet already succeded in this with GW1. The Underworld/Fissure of Woe/Domain of Anguish. Very difficult dungeons that only catered to players determined enough to beat them. So how did that not exclude everyone?
Because the rewards for these places, minus titles, were not Bound to the characters and could be sold. If a casual player really wanted something that was beyond their skill level they could buy it. Yes they’d have to farm to get an item from there but if they REALLY wanted to they could get it.

Also consider that in GW2 you can legitamtly buy gold through gems. A casual player could always fork out some real world currency for items they wanted. You can’t really call it pay to win either as you would be paying for looks.

Just to touch on Algreg’s point really quick before I respond to the main body of this. I agree that their include all types of players approach is causing some issues for PvE hardcore players. But the concept to include all types of players is necessary otherwise it is only hardcore players and it loses the prestige of playing the game “hardcore”. Also remember that at one point we are all noobs, this is reality and the mechanisms to take a player from noob -> hardcore needs to be there. The “risk vs reward” point kaaboose mentions is right down this alley. The incentive to do high “risk” or high “time-sink” type encounters just isn’t there.

Again bringing in GW1 (I did play a lot myself tho stopped at times therefore left out factions/nightfall content) The concept of a gold based PvE-gear economy was there. However as you mentioned, they did a great job in rewarding players for doing difficult things. doing a full FoW or UW run rewarded the player with a wealth of loot, and therefore is what players did with their time. Instead of players time being best spent farming mats from easy mobs/dungeons/activities because it is the fastest way to do so.

I’m glad you brought up gems because I dont know how to address this issue. I understand the fact that having a F2P game running with this kind of overhead must require some income. Especially considering the massive amount of development that has still gone into the game since its release and yet people get this content for free (think of DLC/ pay to play based business models. Arenanet is a value king). Yet it is important to keep the game content fun. I dont mean i dont enjoy GW2, i just find myself at that point where I have dont the content all once and am looking for that “next step”. To work on my legendary I find myself faced with a long road of grinding relatively repetitive and simple things. Here is where I relate back to gems, If the content was the things that felt less like a chore, I would enjoy my road to the legendary. Almost no players enjoy the road if it requires mindless farming for endless hours, it makes the reward sweeter, but nonetheless is an un-enjoyable road. So if the “fun” has been lost, and with the item I receive being purchasable with gold(gems), I feel cheated having spent my time and effort doing so to get there. If say I instead never touched guild wars, farmed a real life minimum wage job, and purchased gems, I could get the item with a much smaller time sink. this to me makes me sad because it seems like a waste of all their great content and all their innovative recent boss improvements. If the rewards to do them are not there, there’s no point in ever repenting them.

DinoToss.4810:

I’m glad you brought up gems because I dont know how to address this issue. I understand the fact that having a F2P game running with this kind of overhead must require some income. Especially considering the massive amount of development that has still gone into the game since its release and yet people get this content for free (think of DLC/ pay to play based business models. Arenanet is a value king). Yet it is important to keep the game content fun. I dont mean i dont enjoy GW2, i just find myself at that point where I have dont the content all once and am looking for that “next step”. To work on my legendary I find myself faced with a long road of grinding relatively repetitive and simple things. Here is where I relate back to gems, If the content was the things that felt less like a chore, I would enjoy my road to the legendary. Almost no players enjoy the road if it requires mindless farming for endless hours, it makes the reward sweeter, but nonetheless is an un-enjoyable road. So if the “fun” has been lost, and with the item I receive being purchasable with gold(gems), I feel cheated having spent my time and effort doing so to get there. If say I instead never touched guild wars, farmed a real life minimum wage job, and purchased gems, I could get the item with a much smaller time sink. this to me makes me sad because it seems like a waste of all their great content and all their innovative recent boss improvements. If the rewards to do them are not there, there’s no point in ever repenting them.

Try the video. It goes into how the gems should work in a good Risk vs. Reward enviroment. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TtvwXFLNCIQ&list=UUJTE1U_RsWh9Nl2hMZxMu5w

1. Trains: I’d say dungeons have better gold reward for the time spent. At least that’s what I’ve noticed the few times I actually did zerg events. Since they’re horribly boring I prefer not doing them.

2. You’re just as likely to drop a precursor in the queensdale champtrain then you are in Arah. IMO that’s ridiculous, but I guess that’s how it is.

As for gold, as long as you’re not interested in skins, I wouldn’t bother with it too much. If you are… well there’s no way around it atm. I wish they’d make difficult content with unique acount bound skins for bragging rights, but Anet caters to casuals and they’d all be crying.

3. Much of your problems here are solved by joining a helpful guild. You can’t expect random ppl from LFG to teach you the dungeon paths. Also, as for one shot mechanics, do you have an idea as to how to do it better WITHOUT introducing the trinity?

As for trash mobs, when they drop better loot people would just restart the instance over and over, killing the first few easy trash mobs. This is why they’re all skippable. In some cases skipping actually requires a lot more skill than killing and is very enjoyable imo (arah p2 for example).

4. Actually all trinkets can be bought without gold. The backpiece and rings even with fractal relics. I do agree that the more recently added ascended crafting has made it all about gold. Biggest problem here is I think wanting to make it as accessible for WvW players as for fractal/dungeon players. Not that it takes that much gold to fully gear one character if you don’t mind the time gates.

cranos.5913:

3. Much of your problems here are solved by joining a helpful guild. You can’t expect random ppl from LFG to teach you the dungeon paths. Also, as for one shot mechanics, do you have an idea as to how to do it better WITHOUT introducing the trinity?

Sure do, Anet themselves stated how they would do it: http://gw2101.gtm.guildwars2.com/en/the-game/combat/healing-death/
And if that’s not detailed enough for you here’s how I would do it: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BBxStGB6-UE

Kaaboose.3897:

cranos.5913:

3. Much of your problems here are solved by joining a helpful guild. You can’t expect random ppl from LFG to teach you the dungeon paths. Also, as for one shot mechanics, do you have an idea as to how to do it better WITHOUT introducing the trinity?

Sure do, Anet themselves stated how they would do it: http://gw2101.gtm.guildwars2.com/en/the-game/combat/healing-death/
And if that’s not detailed enough for you here’s how I would do it: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BBxStGB6-UE

I see all that. First of all, the GW2 trinity exists. Every class can do DPS, support and CC. Not sure why this is always up for debate. Again, what’s the alternative for one shot mechanics? I always see “fast undodgeable attacks” as the main idea here on the forums. That requires a healer, maybe even a tank => boring original trinity.

cranos.5913:

Kaaboose.3897:

cranos.5913:

3. Much of your problems here are solved by joining a helpful guild. You can’t expect random ppl from LFG to teach you the dungeon paths. Also, as for one shot mechanics, do you have an idea as to how to do it better WITHOUT introducing the trinity?

Sure do, Anet themselves stated how they would do it: http://gw2101.gtm.guildwars2.com/en/the-game/combat/healing-death/
And if that’s not detailed enough for you here’s how I would do it: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BBxStGB6-UE

I see all that. First of all, the GW2 trinity exists. Every class can do DPS, support and CC. Not sure why this is always up for debate. Again, what’s the alternative for one shot mechanics? I always see “fast undodgeable attacks” as the main idea here on the forums. That requires a healer, maybe even a tank => boring original trinity.

Mechanics that require control instead? Of course this would require AI in our foes to deal with these mechanics, but instead of going that way Anet gave boss mobs Unshable and Defiance, essentialy removing control from their own Trinity.

Kaaboose.3897:

cranos.5913:

Kaaboose.3897:

cranos.5913:

3. Much of your problems here are solved by joining a helpful guild. You can’t expect random ppl from LFG to teach you the dungeon paths. Also, as for one shot mechanics, do you have an idea as to how to do it better WITHOUT introducing the trinity?

Sure do, Anet themselves stated how they would do it: http://gw2101.gtm.guildwars2.com/en/the-game/combat/healing-death/
And if that’s not detailed enough for you here’s how I would do it: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BBxStGB6-UE

I see all that. First of all, the GW2 trinity exists. Every class can do DPS, support and CC. Not sure why this is always up for debate. Again, what’s the alternative for one shot mechanics? I always see “fast undodgeable attacks” as the main idea here on the forums. That requires a healer, maybe even a tank => boring original trinity.

Mechanics that require control instead? Of course this would require AI in our foes to deal with these mechanics, but instead of going that way Anet gave boss mobs Unshable and Defiance, essentialy removing control from their own Trinity.

Dunno, adding unavoidable attacks just to make CC viable seems boring design IMO. We do need smarter, faster and more unpredictable bosses that take long to master on zerk gear but the attacks should still one shot.

cranos.5913:

1. Trains: I’d say dungeons have better gold reward for the time spent. At least that’s what I’ve noticed the few times I actually did zerg events. Since they’re horribly boring I prefer not doing them.

2. You’re just as likely to drop a precursor in the queensdale champtrain then you are in Arah. IMO that’s ridiculous, but I guess that’s how it is.

As for gold, as long as you’re not interested in skins, I wouldn’t bother with it too much. If you are… well there’s no way around it atm. I wish they’d make difficult content with unique acount bound skins for bragging rights, but Anet caters to casuals and they’d all be crying.

3. Much of your problems here are solved by joining a helpful guild. You can’t expect random ppl from LFG to teach you the dungeon paths. Also, as for one shot mechanics, do you have an idea as to how to do it better WITHOUT introducing the trinity?

As for trash mobs, when they drop better loot people would just restart the instance over and over, killing the first few easy trash mobs. This is why they’re all skippable. In some cases skipping actually requires a lot more skill than killing and is very enjoyable imo (arah p2 for example).

4. Actually all trinkets can be bought without gold. The backpiece and rings even with fractal relics. I do agree that the more recently added ascended crafting has made it all about gold. Biggest problem here is I think wanting to make it as accessible for WvW players as for fractal/dungeon players. Not that it takes that much gold to fully gear one character if you don’t mind the time gates.

1/2
Gold doesn’t just buy aesthetics, you mention this but keep in mind for those starting square 1, 1000’s of gold is needed to get to the ascended/legendary gear. I was focusing on hardcore players with this post and in 1-3 weeks I got almost everything I will ever need that is account bound. I italicize almost everything because I will also need laurels(see pt4).

As for world boss trains, I mentioned this with more in mind the recent knights/scarlett bosses. They are fun and engaging but rely on me guesting to get them. It was hard enough leading 25 man raids with voice chat, it is downright impossible to organize a server over /map chat. Therefore when it is done, the player is left with virtually no feeling like they were needed.

3
Your are right, as a wow raider I get that a guild is almost a necessity for that last 10% of PvE content. This is the perfect system in MMOs and I have no problems with it. My point (which probably got derailed in my wall of text) was that in order to maintain a player base, GW2 needs to be able to have players stop playing for times, or have new players start, and still feel welcome/able to do content. For dungeons this means an unfamiliar player has to learn specific spots to LOS, running paths that avoid aggro, and subtle boss animations that mean “dodge or die”. After they learn this, the gameplay becomes farm farm farm and is easy enough to solo most dungeons. In terms of running requiring skill, I mentioned doing droks runs from GW1 and loving it. However running has its place and I’m not sure if it is in a dungeon. Most MMOs offer dungeons with >2hour full clear times without involving run-byes. Interms of the trinity? GW2 spent a long time focusing on putting the trinity into each players hands, I avoid heals/tank by dodging and timing cute skill combos such as block/retaliation. This, for me at least, provides challenging and engaging game play. It would therefore need some sort of soft rework of trash mobs/lowering the amount of them in dungeons.

4
As for the trinkets, I mentioned achievement points, I personally have almost 80% from fixed achievements yet the leader board tends to make me feel that players that were more active have a different ratio. As for laurels, time as a resources is very frustrating. GW2 rewards the “1hour/day” people much much more than someone who walked away for 6-8 months. After the 20g to gear at exotic level, I now need 100s of laurels, pristine fractal relics, and of course gold. The next step is MASSIVE and there is no middle ground between these. This means when I think about how to spend time in game getting this, it comes down to farming easy things for gold and doing dailies. Endgame PvE should focus on doing the hard/fun content that they spend so long developing. As I am very late to the party I see no way to fix this. I am mindful of those that didn’t take beaks and the rewards they deserve, however there needs to be an easier way into the game for new purchasers or people that took breaks. I loved GW2 upon release but put it down due to lack of endgame pleasure (the gameplay was farming). I’m having a bad case of deja-vu where I have nothing to do with playtime in game that can improve my character aside from the 1/day things.

DinoToss.4810:

1/2
Gold doesn’t just buy aesthetics, you mention this but keep in mind for those starting square 1, 1000’s of gold is needed to get to the ascended/legendary gear. I was focusing on hardcore players with this post and in 1-3 weeks I got almost everything I will ever need that is account bound. I italicize almost everything because I will also need laurels(see pt4).

As for world boss trains, I mentioned this with more in mind the recent knights/scarlett bosses. They are fun and engaging but rely on me guesting to get them. It was hard enough leading 25 man raids with voice chat, it is downright impossible to organize a server over /map chat. Therefore when it is done, the player is left with virtually no feeling like they were needed.

3
Your are right, as a wow raider I get that a guild is almost a necessity for that last 10% of PvE content. This is the perfect system in MMOs and I have no problems with it. My point (which probably got derailed in my wall of text) was that in order to maintain a player base, GW2 needs to be able to have players stop playing for times, or have new players start, and still feel welcome/able to do content. For dungeons this means an unfamiliar player has to learn specific spots to LOS, running paths that avoid aggro, and subtle boss animations that mean “dodge or die”. After they learn this, the gameplay becomes farm farm farm and is easy enough to solo most dungeons. In terms of running requiring skill, I mentioned doing droks runs from GW1 and loving it. However running has its place and I’m not sure if it is in a dungeon. Most MMOs offer dungeons with >2hour full clear times without involving run-byes. Interms of the trinity? GW2 spent a long time focusing on putting the trinity into each players hands, I avoid heals/tank by dodging and timing cute skill combos such as block/retaliation. This, for me at least, provides challenging and engaging game play. It would therefore need some sort of soft rework of trash mobs/lowering the amount of them in dungeons.

4
As for the trinkets, I mentioned achievement points, I personally have almost 80% from fixed achievements yet the leader board tends to make me feel that players that were more active have a different ratio. As for laurels, time as a resources is very frustrating. GW2 rewards the “1hour/day” people much much more than someone who walked away for 6-8 months. After the 20g to gear at exotic level, I now need 100s of laurels, pristine fractal relics, and of course gold. The next step is MASSIVE and there is no middle ground between these. This means when I think about how to spend time in game getting this, it comes down to farming easy things for gold and doing dailies. Endgame PvE should focus on doing the hard/fun content that they spend so long developing. As I am very late to the party I see no way to fix this. I am mindful of those that didn’t take beaks and the rewards they deserve, however there needs to be an easier way into the game for new purchasers or people that took breaks. I loved GW2 upon release but put it down due to lack of endgame pleasure (the gameplay was farming). I’m having a bad case of deja-vu where I have nothing to do with playtime in game that can improve my character aside from the 1/day things.

You only need 1000s of gold for legendaries, which are basically skins. Getting the pure ascended gear is not that much for one character. Something between 300-500g. Trinkets as I said, backpiece and rings in fractals. Accessories with guild missions. That leaves only the amulet for laurels, which you can buy for less in WvW in exchange for some easy to get badges of honor. So yes, it will take you a few weeks to get completely end game gear, I’m sure that’s no different from other MMOs. Also for anything other than fractals you don’t need ascended gear whatsoever.

As for the events, they’re all mindless and boring IMO. So you need to dodge some extremely telegraphed attacks now, it’s still faceroll compared to most dungeons.

As for dungeons, try arah explorable skips, you’ll find that more to your liking. Although still nothing compared to the fantastic Droknar runs I used to do in GW1 :P. And yes, new players need to learn dungeons, the only way to do that enjoyably is joining a guild. I’m sure people request experienced ppl for raiding in WoW as well.

GW2 is a complete disaster reward wise.

The achievement system is a weird mixture of a classic achievements and daily quests (something that work perfectly fine separatedly) and I can’t figure any logical reasoning behind.
I would say that this is lost forever. A cap on dailies/monthlies was a possibility for a long time, but the scores are extremely high atm and the whole LS thing has not helped at all.
Almost any major change here is likely, no matter the compensation, to make many people rightfully rage.

Different reward sources, on the other hand, can be perfectly overhauled for good.
I will post my general idea for those who might want read it (wall of text incoming)

The current Watchwork Knight encounter show that ANet already has the tools to grant event rewards trough a chest. There’s probably the option to allow players to chose between a few different rewards too, just like it happens on many Personal Story missions.
This means that it’s possible to eliminate all the loot from event spawned foes and reward event participants with a chest on every single DE around the world.

With this change, the general idea behind the loot system would work more in the line of what IMHO was intended. Having other players around would be welcomed and rarely a nuissance, but neither a clear benefit that encourage players to zerg for massive enemy spawns.
Every player would be equally rewarded no matter if wandering alone, with a group of friends or in a giant zerg. Scaling should take care of the event providing the right challenge for different amounts of people.

The change would also allow players to work directly towards specific objectives.
Inventory bags would not end filled with a bunch of quite random items (blues, greens, vendor trash, crafting materials, …) that should be traded in order to get gold and buy whatever is wanted, but with the exact reward players were looking for.
This would be positive for market regulation.
Players would flood the events that reward those high demanded and quite expensive materials, increasing the supply and making prices go down, while the low demanded material that’s not supplied by RNG anymore will become much more valuable. We would not have, for example, those quite unfair differences between ascended light armor and heavy/medium ones.
Players can also be potentially redirected from tedious but profitable tasks to DEs.
Tired of wandering the map looking for Iron nodes (which are worth more gold than what you would get for completing DEs)? Many of those dredge events could reward you with a choice on different ore types while probably providing a much more interesting game experience.

Finally, what is probably the most important thing, developers could be encouraged to introduce new DEs and polish existing ones. Even new maps could be more likely to happen.
Some developer posted once that they had introduced a few new DEs and didn’t received any feedback, neither good or bad, about them. Players tend to ignore most DEs because rewards are horrible, which leads to developers perceiving the work on them as wasted effort.
I guess something similar could be applied to maps. I don’t really think Southsun Cove is appealing for anything else than the Karka Queen, a really easy JP, some T6 material nodes and maybe some lonely barracuda farmer.

As a downside, medal assignment should be made more exigent in order to avoid players running into a DE, killing a couple of mobs and moving on.

Even if those conclusions seem enough to support the change, I would go one step further and introduce a new reward source: Monthly Hearts.
As readers might have guessed, a good balance between rewards, repop and completion times, proximity with other DEs, etc. is hard to achieve and might drive people to event trains on a similar fashion to the current champtrains.
Even if not true at all since (since those events have a fixed reward that would become oversupplied), there are still ways of discouraging static routines and prevent some zones from being abandoned.
Monthly Hearts could appear on map completion and require the player to complete a series of tasks on a specific zone (bigger than the are of influence of current hearts, there should be about 4-5 Monthly Hearts for each map) for an interesting bonus reward. As their name indicates, they would be reset on a monthly basis.
Nonmoa Lake one, for example, could ask players to kill 100 kraits, complete 10 DEs, slay the Witch and complete the Coddler’s Cove JP. The reward could consist on a nice amount of thematically related materials (scales, venom sacs and/or maybe wood), and a Nonmoa Lake reward bag containing a rare underwater weapon (with chances on a exotic one) and a small but not ridicously low chance on something special, like a rabid rare water breather.
This addition could encourage players to revisit most of the map instead of sticking to well known zones for a fairly profitable farm and/or a fast daily achievement completion.

On top of the DE overhaul proposal, which I think is overall good, there’s the option of a general loot overhaul, which is far more controversial (since it’s much more based on my persoanl tastes). Another wall of text incoming :P

With the previous changes on DEs and since it’s not common at all for players to group up to kill regular enemies, the current shared loot system won’t be needed anymore.
As long as quest items (for regular heart or DE completion) are granted to everyone, it would not be terrible to adopt a much more classic loot mechanism where every mob has a given number of rolls on his own loot table that are randomly assigned between the players that took part on the fight.

The only exception to this are champtrains involving world spawned champions. Even if I think that releasing more events specifically designed for large groups (like Tequatl and the Three Headed Wurm, just a lot less number and coordination requiring) and polishing the existing ones would provide a much better game experience, and that the previously described DE reward overhaul already offers enough room for zergtrains, it’s not my job to decide if the current champtrains are healthy or not for the game. If developers would want to mantain them, it would be as easy as converting them to DEs.

A change like this has, of course, some downcomes, but I honestly think that benefits outweight them.

Firstly, it would solve an “issue” with WvW where zergplay is absolutely superior to anything else in terms of loot and WXP gain, often being more rewarding than succesful solo or small group roaming even when the battles are lost.
A classic loot system would normalize the rewards for different gameplays and a loot bag improvement, quantity increase and/or complete modification would be enough to keep zerging as rewarding (or even better) as it currently is.

Secondly, it could allow the challenge vs reward idea to exist.
Since ANet tries to develop most content for an audience as broader as possible, many players tend to find it unchallenging and not interesting to play.
With the change, soloing a non DE related world spawned champion (which would have several loot table rolls) would grant the whole reward to a single player, suddenly making potentially profitable an arguably challenging task.
(something that the current loot system and the risk of zerging renders impossible)
As I pointed for DE participation acknowledgement, a reasonable tag threshold should be stablished for preventing those always annoying kill steals (the way the loot would work, it’s not like a mass of players would be interested on zerging it anyways).
Areas like the old Tower of Nightmares or the current destroyed Lions Arch, filled with veterans and some elites, could attract this kind of players while the most casual ones stick to DEs.

Eventually (once most glitches are fixed), the idea could be carried over dungeons.
Making bosses to have both an ensured reward (granted to every party member) and a randomly assigned one (divided between participants) could allow developers to balance dungeons around average players while enabling a reasonable option of trioing, duoing or even soloing them for higher rewards.

Something in the line could be done also for the final reward, but that would require some modifications on the party system to disallow last second kicks.
Aan additional party format where kicking is impossible could be enough, but would open the door to AFK leechers, something that, in turn, could be prevented to some extent by spreading part of the final reward over different bosses along the whole path (something I think is a good move on its own) .
I admit I have not been able to figure a decent solution for this.

Anyways, the final rewards should be completely changed from the current high amount of gold to a more material related one (which could include ectoplasms, lodestones, ascended materials, etc.).
This could both hold back the rampant inflation we’re suffering and solve part of the popular/unpopular dungeon/path issue.

Developers should also decide which enemy groups are meant to be skipped and which ones are meant to be fought against.
Some massive and not really challenging enemy packs can actually be more interesting to skip gameplay wise and could grant no loot at all, while some others can offer an interesting combat and might appreciate some nice loot.
For example, there should be a reason for killing all those almost decorative champions in Arah.
Since the loot would be divided between players, we could eventually see something like Giant Eye solo/duo farms, in the line of what ecto/obsidian farms were on GW1. It would be a totally niche activity (the Giant Eye one at least :P), but still an addition to the game.

cranos.5913:

You only need 1000s of gold for legendaries, which are basically skins. Getting the pure ascended gear is not that much for one character. Something between 300-500g. Trinkets as I said, backpiece and rings in fractals. Accessories with guild missions. That leaves only the amulet for laurels, which you can buy for less in WvW in exchange for some easy to get badges of honor. So yes, it will take you a few weeks to get completely end game gear, I’m sure that’s no different from other MMOs. Also for anything other than fractals you don’t need ascended gear whatsoever.

As for the events, they’re all mindless and boring IMO. So you need to dodge some extremely telegraphed attacks now, it’s still faceroll compared to most dungeons.

As for dungeons, try arah explorable skips, you’ll find that more to your liking. Although still nothing compared to the fantastic Droknar runs I used to do in GW1 :P. And yes, new players need to learn dungeons, the only way to do that enjoyably is joining a guild. I’m sure people request experienced ppl for raiding in WoW as well.

you say weeks but it is more like 2-3 months (I realize this does technically counts as “weeks” but we could also call 2-3months “hours”) and there is no way to speed this up. In WOTLK i went from fresh 80->endgame by doing every, raid every week in less than a month. Time consuming but the ability to do so was there. As for arah, I dislike the concept of skipping the majority of the content the devs make. Also Lupi is recycled in all 4 parts, I dont quite feel like farming the same boss over and over.

Exotic weapons being easily attainable, legendary is the next step and do provide a stat bonus. I am more so disappointed in the fact that there isn’t much to do at max level apart from jumping puzzles/activities (and again this is aside from 1-2hours to knock out dailies).

I see a lot of your points but let me try and voice mine here, it takes 1 day to gear to 95% of max stats and about 5 months to get that last 5%, This seems very bad for keeping players interested. Especially considering the farming for those 5 months doesn’t involve doing challenging and engaging things in game.

Fist off let me say I’m pleased my wall of text didn’t scare people away from reading/engaging in this discussion as I was sure it would.

@Vargamonth- There are a lot of points here so let me try not to miss any

Capping daily/monthly achieves is a good concept but I agree it would frustrate those who were mindful of this and didn’t miss any. Games like WoW regularly lose players at the start of expantions due to the reset on gear and this would cause similar issues.

A choice in rewards is a tough thing to balance, some choice would help even out pricing on TP with zerk gear becoming more common and therefore cheaper, this might not be a good thing in the end, making gear even easier to attain. Without any real difference from 1 exotic to the next, the aesthetic value of a weapon skin is all you really get (idk about you but i have enough transmute stones). Open world PvE is always tricky and in my opinion should have a lower reward level. The grouping centered content like dungeons or fractals should provide best rewards due to the easier and more reliable game play experience. In open world content, someone figues out “the best way” and the sheep mentality takes over causing a zerg almost always. this is fairly unavoidable. One alternative I see is groups organized through (as you mentioned) DEs that link in with each other, for example you could have 4 attack paths to siege a city that all require groups of people (such as the 3 knights). Once they meet up a zerg would be more welcomed and a slight change of pace. With the reward system of the knights hopefully they can avoid cheesy way pointing to get all the rewards.

As for mats, keep in mind the Mystic forge, there is a correlation with a lot of the prices, for example 50T5 can make a T6, therefore the prices cannot exceed these bounds.

The monthly hearts are usually enforced through dailies, shiverpeaks killer, veteran killer…. However people usually focus on a lot of the easier attainable ones. But the idea is perfect for allowing the full expanse of GW2 being engaging. I was looking for ideas on how to move players out of 10-15 farming spots and use the whole world. This does the trick.

The solo champion idea again brings forth the “stealing mobs” mentality where it will be hard to find champions to solo when this loot is picked up on by the masses.

For dungeons GW1 had easy mode/hardmode, I am confused why this is yet to be added because it is perfect for those hardcore players yet lets all players see the content. As for trash mobs, Players can swap skills on the fly and even trait runes quickly, If they had a balance of AOE based fights and champion+elite miniboss battles, instead of a legion of vets/elites to runby, this would give players a more engaging dungeon experience and would utilize the development of this gameplay.

Question: What do people feel about gear in GW2?
I was pleased to hear that from GW1->GW2 they added different levels of gear for max level (not just “max weapons” being the meta for GW1) However once I saw the system in the game i found it basically the same as GW1’s method. Call me a wow fanboy if you must, I really am not. But different stats in gear makes getting gear worthwhile. With limited bank space i find myself in a “Why cant i hold all these skins” type of state and feel little incentive to get gear.

cranos.5913:

Also, as for one shot mechanics, do you have an idea as to how to do it better WITHOUT introducing the trinity?

If you want to remove the trinity, then you have to actually remove it. People have said that Anet didn’t really remove it, they just kind of tried to remove a focus and dependency on it.

But here is a thought. Remove healing outright, and as a bonus you take out the idea of tanking. When you do that, every single attack become deadly even if it doesn’t kill in one shot, every hit received is one hit closer to death. Therefore every hit received is deadly. In that case, you don’t need one shots to make things hard.

I think if healing was removed, it would even mean the end of zerg damage sponges. But that is just a fun thought. The game is currently designed with healing abilities in mind. The game would be something very different without healing.

Well it is just a silly thought, but reading your question just really made me want to put it out there.

DinoToss.4810:

you say weeks but it is more like 2-3 months (I realize this does technically counts as “weeks” but we could also call 2-3months “hours”) and there is no way to speed this up. In WOTLK i went from fresh 80->endgame by doing every, raid every week in less than a month. Time consuming but the ability to do so was there. As for arah, I dislike the concept of skipping the majority of the content the devs make. Also Lupi is recycled in all 4 parts, I dont quite feel like farming the same boss over and over.

Exotic weapons being easily attainable, legendary is the next step and do provide a stat bonus. I am more so disappointed in the fact that there isn’t much to do at max level apart from jumping puzzles/activities (and again this is aside from 1-2hours to knock out dailies).

I see a lot of your points but let me try and voice mine here, it takes 1 day to gear to 95% of max stats and about 5 months to get that last 5%, This seems very bad for keeping players interested. Especially considering the farming for those 5 months doesn’t involve doing challenging and engaging things in game.

Accessories if bought with guild commendations is 4 weeks. Amulet is 20 laurels + some badges of honor. Fractals can be farmed endlessly. 500g is an easy goal in 1 month.

Legendaries have the same stat increase that ascended does. Difference is an ascended weapon is maybe 60g if you buy everything. So yeah, leggy’s are just skins, nothing more.

I’d be very much surprised if you couldn’t get full ascended in a month. Not that you need it, what’s your fractal level anyway?

As for skipping, killing trash mobs isn’t difficult whatsoever, it is however annoying and you have to repeat and repeat the same tactic over and over for hours. Skipping has its own more difficult tactics that require knowlegde of the encounter, route to run and most of all knowledge of your class.

PseudoNewb.5468:

cranos.5913:

Also, as for one shot mechanics, do you have an idea as to how to do it better WITHOUT introducing the trinity?

If you want to remove the trinity, then you have to actually remove it. People have said that Anet didn’t really remove it, they just kind of tried to remove a focus and dependency on it.

But here is a thought. Remove healing outright, and as a bonus you take out the idea of tanking. When you do that, every single attack become deadly even if it doesn’t kill in one shot, every hit received is one hit closer to death. Therefore every hit received is deadly. In that case, you don’t need one shots to make things hard.

I think if healing was removed, it would even mean the end of zerg damage sponges. But that is just a fun thought. The game is currently designed with healing abilities in mind. The game would be something very different without healing.

Well it is just a silly thought, but reading your question just really made me want to put it out there.

They did remove the trinity. Tanking is useless since there’s no reliable way to gain aggro. A healer also doesn’t exist since you can heal yourself perfectly well. If by no healing you mean no own healing skill, leaving no room for mistakes whatsoever, it’d drive an even bigger wedge between casuals and zerkers, who would still be playing on their zerk gear. Unless this damage is fast and basically undodgeable, then it’d force everyone to go PVT, making dungeons last hours.

cranos.5913:

Accessories if bought with guild commendations is 4 weeks. Amulet is 20 laurels + some badges of honor. Fractals can be farmed endlessly. 500g is an easy goal in 1 month.

Legendaries have the same stat increase that ascended does. Difference is an ascended weapon is maybe 60g if you buy everything. So yeah, leggy’s are just skins, nothing more.

I’d be very much surprised if you couldn’t get full ascended in a month. Not that you need it, what’s your fractal level anyway?

As for skipping, killing trash mobs isn’t difficult whatsoever, it is however annoying and you have to repeat and repeat the same tactic over and over for hours. Skipping has its own more difficult tactics that require knowlegde of the encounter, route to run and most of all knowledge of your class.

I had forgotten guild commendations, but It still seems a rather easy way to receive endgame loot. I wont feel any satasfaction in doing harder endgame bosses if the tiptop of the line gear is attainable through running puzzles.

You are leaving out the ~150 of gold to get crafting from 0-500, so a ascended weapon is more than 60g. The 500g/month is attainable but my discussion revolves around what people need to do to get that. In every game I have enjoyed it has been the challenges that reward you. Not farming the boring bits.

As for dungeons, its not the difficulty or the knowledge, Its the fact that why does arenanet make the mobs if you runby them. Keep in mind I played a lot of Guild Wards and Did my fair share of COF runs (gw1) and droks runs. I guess I am trying to get a sense of how the community feels about this. Thanks for your opinion, but does anyone else feel as though having all of these running encounters as rather a waste of development. Making 1/2 as much content that players actually complete would seem a much more efficient use of resources. Not to mention the fact that myself and a lot of people i have come across in game do not enjoy running as much as we enjoy fighting.

The fact that you mention “not needing it” in terms of gear means I think you missed my point. Frankly that kind of is my point, I find myself in another situation where there is this vast game with gorgeous scenery, engaging gamplay, yet with the ease of gearing my toon and finishing the dungeons I have nothing keeping me inclined to play it. Just to me seems like a bit of a waste of such a gorgeous game with all this depth.

DinoToss.4810:

cranos.5913:

Accessories if bought with guild commendations is 4 weeks. Amulet is 20 laurels + some badges of honor. Fractals can be farmed endlessly. 500g is an easy goal in 1 month.

Legendaries have the same stat increase that ascended does. Difference is an ascended weapon is maybe 60g if you buy everything. So yeah, leggy’s are just skins, nothing more.

I’d be very much surprised if you couldn’t get full ascended in a month. Not that you need it, what’s your fractal level anyway?

As for skipping, killing trash mobs isn’t difficult whatsoever, it is however annoying and you have to repeat and repeat the same tactic over and over for hours. Skipping has its own more difficult tactics that require knowlegde of the encounter, route to run and most of all knowledge of your class.

I had forgotten guild commendations, but It still seems a rather easy way to receive endgame loot. I wont feel any satasfaction in doing harder endgame bosses if the tiptop of the line gear is attainable through running puzzles.

You are leaving out the ~150 of gold to get crafting from 0-500, so a ascended weapon is more than 60g. The 500g/month is attainable but my discussion revolves around what people need to do to get that. In every game I have enjoyed it has been the challenges that reward you. Not farming the boring bits.

As for dungeons, its not the difficulty or the knowledge, Its the fact that why does arenanet make the mobs if you runby them. Keep in mind I played a lot of Guild Wards and Did my fair share of COF runs (gw1) and droks runs. I guess I am trying to get a sense of how the community feels about this. Thanks for your opinion, but does anyone else feel as though having all of these running encounters as rather a waste of development. Making 1/2 as much content that players actually complete would seem a much more efficient use of resources. Not to mention the fact that myself and a lot of people i have come across in game do not enjoy running as much as we enjoy fighting.

The fact that you mention “not needing it” in terms of gear means I think you missed my point. Frankly that kind of is my point, I find myself in another situation where there is this vast game with gorgeous scenery, engaging gamplay, yet with the ease of gearing my toon and finishing the dungeons I have nothing keeping me inclined to play it. Just to me seems like a bit of a waste of such a gorgeous game with all this depth.

Well, I personally enjoy high level fractals and speedrunning. Dungeons are not the difficult endgame, they’re designed with moderate difficulty so everyone can complete them. Fractals are supposed to be the true difficult endgame to satisfy the hardcore gamer. As for speedrunning, it’s fun to learn to do arah p4 in 30min instead of in 2 hours.

Rewards aren’t perfect, personally I’d much rather have difficult encounters with original loot (even if it’s just skins) much like you describe there. So yes, in many ways I agree with you. But that’s not going to happen any time soon.

As for gearing, if you like vertical progression this is just not the game for you. I’m sorry to say it, but people already whine it’s too hard to gain ascended gear. After this, there will be no new tier, so why keep playing the game? Either you just like the gameplay or you go for fashion. Of course, people who buy gems will be able to get skins easier than you would. It’s what you get without monthly fee.

cranos.5913:

DinoToss.4810:

cranos.5913:

Accessories if bought with guild commendations is 4 weeks. Amulet is 20 laurels + some badges of honor. Fractals can be farmed endlessly. 500g is an easy goal in 1 month.

Legendaries have the same stat increase that ascended does. Difference is an ascended weapon is maybe 60g if you buy everything. So yeah, leggy’s are just skins, nothing more.

I’d be very much surprised if you couldn’t get full ascended in a month. Not that you need it, what’s your fractal level anyway?

As for skipping, killing trash mobs isn’t difficult whatsoever, it is however annoying and you have to repeat and repeat the same tactic over and over for hours. Skipping has its own more difficult tactics that require knowlegde of the encounter, route to run and most of all knowledge of your class.

I had forgotten guild commendations, but It still seems a rather easy way to receive endgame loot. I wont feel any satasfaction in doing harder endgame bosses if the tiptop of the line gear is attainable through running puzzles.

You are leaving out the ~150 of gold to get crafting from 0-500, so a ascended weapon is more than 60g. The 500g/month is attainable but my discussion revolves around what people need to do to get that. In every game I have enjoyed it has been the challenges that reward you. Not farming the boring bits.

As for dungeons, its not the difficulty or the knowledge, Its the fact that why does arenanet make the mobs if you runby them. Keep in mind I played a lot of Guild Wards and Did my fair share of COF runs (gw1) and droks runs. I guess I am trying to get a sense of how the community feels about this. Thanks for your opinion, but does anyone else feel as though having all of these running encounters as rather a waste of development. Making 1/2 as much content that players actually complete would seem a much more efficient use of resources. Not to mention the fact that myself and a lot of people i have come across in game do not enjoy running as much as we enjoy fighting.

The fact that you mention “not needing it” in terms of gear means I think you missed my point. Frankly that kind of is my point, I find myself in another situation where there is this vast game with gorgeous scenery, engaging gamplay, yet with the ease of gearing my toon and finishing the dungeons I have nothing keeping me inclined to play it. Just to me seems like a bit of a waste of such a gorgeous game with all this depth.

Well, I personally enjoy high level fractals and speedrunning. Dungeons are not the difficult endgame, they’re designed with moderate difficulty so everyone can complete them. Fractals are supposed to be the true difficult endgame to satisfy the hardcore gamer. As for speedrunning, it’s fun to learn to do arah p4 in 30min instead of in 2 hours.

Rewards aren’t perfect, personally I’d much rather have difficult encounters with original loot (even if it’s just skins) much like you describe there. So yes, in many ways I agree with you. But that’s not going to happen any time soon.

As for gearing, if you like vertical progression this is just not the game for you. I’m sorry to say it, but people already whine it’s too hard to gain ascended gear. After this, there will be no new tier, so why keep playing the game? Either you just like the gameplay or you go for fashion. Of course, people who buy gems will be able to get skins easier than you would. It’s what you get without monthly fee.

Dungeons are designed for moderate difficulty, but as in GW1 they had hardmode as i have mentioned a few times here. Why cant they add this? It allows everyone to see the content and makes the endgame fun. I doubt fractals will be endgame forever and again it seems like a waste of 95% of the content they developed.

I personally have just got back into the game so I am not quite at endgame fractrals. But looking into the community I am scared away with things like this (http://www.reddit.com/r/Guildwars2/comments/2009h1/fractal_lvl_50_so_very_rewarding/)

“The greatest trick the Devil ever pulled was convincing the world he didn’t exist”

People keep referring to GW2 as being a free-to-play game.
Yet it’s not; there is a substantial initial outlay.

ArenaNet don’t jump in to correct people when they call it free-to-play, as this mistaken public perception suits them. If people believe the game is free-to-play, they’re more willing to accept the dubious monetisation tactics utilised by such products.

And ArenaNet use a lot of the most unsavoury free-to-play economic models, ones designed to cloud player judgement and warp their perceptions of value.
One of the most effective ways of doing this is to hide the real-world-value of in-game items by using the transitional “currency” of gems.

So remember, this game isn’t free-to-play, and you shouldn’t allow ArenaNet to use the same exploitative economic models on you.

With that out of the way, a comment on dungeons:
I’ve often thought that the best way to design a dungeon would be to take a leaf from the game Painkiller’s book.
In Painkiller, each area is an arena that is locked off until you’ve killed every last enemy.
You simply cannot skip content.
I’m sure ArenaNet didn’t have skipping in mind when designing dungeons, but it has become the only way to play.

If they did adopt the Painkiller model, I think it would become swiftly apparent to them as designers exactly how much of a slog and timesink most dungeons in GW2 are.
They should be aiming to have a dungeon path take 20 minutes to half an hour. Yet currently, if you were to play many of the dungeons “properly” and kill every last mob, certain paths would take hours.

Of course, there is an interesting way to keep skipping in, and it would mean utilising another form of non-combat gameplay that is currently in the game that still requires skill: Jumping Puzzles.
Make alternate non-combat paths that are jumping puzzles that result in players reaching the same destination as combative teams, but make the jumping puzzles reliant on teamwork. Gates that require team-members to stand on switches to let others through, that kind of thing.

Also, as a GW1 player that has also played other MMOs, when I first played a GW2 dungeon, I was dismayed to see that ArenaNet had adopted the lazy mechanic from other MMOs of making trash mobs in dungeons significantly tougher than their open world counterparts. Over time, I’ve come to realise that it has to be this way as the mob synergy that was so successful in GW1 simply isn’t present at all in GW2.

GW1 didn’t need elite trash mobs in dungeons as the abilities and synergies of groups could be measured to offer players a challenge rather than simply increasing the health and damage of mobs.

ArenaNet need to be brave and prepared to take a deep look at mob AI and synergies so that combat can be satisfying rather than a DPS race.

Sorry I haven’t touched on rewards in this post, but I’m of the opinion that rewards and achievements are the core poisons dragging GW2 down.
I often wonder how the game would play without them. I suspect that without the allure of digital fluff to keep them coming back, players would leave in droves.
I think this speaks volumes as to the core quality of the actual gameplay in GW2 and MMOs in general.

Mungrul.9358:

“The greatest trick the Devil ever pulled was convincing the world he didn’t exist”

People keep referring to GW2 as being a free-to-play game.
Yet it’s not; there is a substantial initial outlay.

ArenaNet don’t jump in to correct people when they call it free-to-play, as this mistaken public perception suits them. If people believe the game is free-to-play, they’re more willing to accept the dubious monetisation tactics utilised by such products.

And ArenaNet use a lot of the most unsavoury free-to-play economic models, ones designed to cloud player judgement and warp their perceptions of value.
One of the most effective ways of doing this is to hide the real-world-value of in-game items by using the transitional “currency” of gems.

So remember, this game isn’t free-to-play, and you shouldn’t allow ArenaNet to use the same exploitative economic models on you.

I regret this misnomer Instantly -_-. 60$ price tag without dlc or subscription fees is not F2P. But it still is good value. Look ad D3 which got pasted on reviews and has an expo out before GW2. I personally have not and will not ever buy a gem. But I do feel gems are not as ghastly s you make them out to be. I dislike the constant game design pressuring me to buy them but keep in mind the server/development fees that have got into this game for over a year that for the majority of players, have only given them the initial 60$. The amount of 60$ games at launch with countless DLCs and inferior support/updates to that of GW2 justifies some sort of ingame currency like gems. I dislike the implementation of their currency tho.

The rest of your post I agree with almost entirely, i dont know how well jumping puzzles in dungeons would go over (think of the rage people have over the harpy knock back in the fractals). It might cause a split in the party, some wanting to do combat other do jumping. But the idea is interesting. I dislike purely scaling damage and HP on mobs to add difficulty, your thoughts on synergies on regular movs is interesting and i like it, tho it would require a rework of AI stopping LOS pulls being too easy with AOEing non elite mobs down.

“Sorry I haven’t touched on rewards in this post, but I’m of the opinion that rewards and achievements are the core poisons dragging GW2 down.”

Just curious, Achievements are there for those who want to get them, and I dont see how they “poison” the game. Yet with rewards, what is your opnion on gear in GW2? did you like the model of gear in GW1 or do you prefer having endgame gear scale similar to the say it does in other MMOs? (I.E. not all exotic/Masterwork/Rare gear is the same template with mere skin changes)

As someone coming back into the game after a long hiatus leveling is a lot rougher without other people around.

One thing that angers me is that XP rewards from clearing mobs isn’t great at all yet they reward me with 1 hour XP boosters for tackling mobs. I am leveling far faster just pushing the limits of the main questline until I hit the brick wall where aggro is too high for being a low level player and I simply can’t reach the next waypoint until I grind me way back to tolerable aggro levels.

The XP booster should be 100% and not 50%.

Once you move beyond the starting zones the way you can progress to new karma objectives isn’t as smooth of an experience and it makes it kind of more boring than when there used to be so many people around.

That’s not a big deal but it’s something to consider if they are concerned about new player retention. Other players being around helps and if there was more incentives for older players to be reusing old content it would be a big plus.

I personally just want more zones to explore and personal stories to do. Though I am completely opposed to raising the level cap. That’s what I would like to see in PVE along with New Dungeon’s.

DinoToss.4810:

Just curious, Achievements are there for those who want to get them, and I dont see how they “poison” the game. Yet with rewards, what is your opnion on gear in GW2? did you like the model of gear in GW1 or do you prefer having endgame gear scale similar to the say it does in other MMOs? (I.E. not all exotic/Masterwork/Rare gear is the same template with mere skin changes)

The reason I think that about achievements is that every last bit of content ArenaNet releases now is designed around the concept. Instead of prompting the team to design interesting gameplay that stands on its own and genuinely introduces new ideas and radical mechanics, they pump out content that consists of repeating the same thing over and over and “rewarding” players at the end with an achievement and a cosmetic item.
Often with the content they have released, if you were to play it once, it would take all of a couple of hours for every single new activity per living story release. Yet through adding the soft progression of achievements, they artificially extend the amount of time people have to spend logging in and playing.
While yes, technically you don’t have to play new content that relies on achievements, if you weren’t, you wouldn’t be playing the game.

As to your question regarding gear, yes, I much preferred the gear system in GW1. Although even that had its flaws, with certain runes and inscriptions commanding obscenely high prices.
Cosmetics-wise, I’ve found that the best system I’ve ever used in MMOs is that of DCUO, where once you unlock a style, you can use it whenever you want. You end up with hundreds of cosmetic choices per equipment slot, and these can be re-used ad infinitum.

My dream for GW2 would be a gear system where you were able to easily obtain your maximum stat gear upon reaching level 80. You could then unlock different stat combinations and runes / sigils through play which would permanently be added to a drop-down menu on each item, with the end result being an item that possesses all possible stat combinations as Legendary weapons do at the moment.
To unlock them, you could adapt the elite capturing concept from GW1 and require that the player use a Signet of Capture analogue on a boss they’ve defeated that utilised that stat combination in its design.

Additionally, there would be a separate drop down for the cosmetic style of the item that could also be changed whenever the player liked as long as they were out of combat. Whenever you bought a new style, it would permanently unlock a new choice in the menu.

But this is far too player-friendly and harder to monetise, so I suspect we’ll never see it adopted by ArenaNet.

Just an info….world bosses etc gives risible reward compared to TP speculation.

That is pushing any nice stuff out of players reach.

Thus players wanting any nice skin or stuff is forced to play for efficience (read GRIND) and that caused the spread of speedruns, farm trains etc…..

If every player had the same chance with the same effort to get the nice stuff this issue would be reduced at least by much.

Yet the “gw2 economist” thinks a system where tp speculatins rewards are 10-100X compared to any other activity (and comes from the pockets of other players promoting a sort of forced PvP) is fair and is helping the game…

Consider that there are really plenty of nice skins…expecially for weapons, even without looking at the TP.

But to get them you have to feed the economy parasites…..and they cost really a lot.

Mungrul.9358:

DinoToss.4810:

Just curious, Achievements are there for those who want to get them, and I dont see how they “poison” the game. Yet with rewards, what is your opnion on gear in GW2? did you like the model of gear in GW1 or do you prefer having endgame gear scale similar to the say it does in other MMOs? (I.E. not all exotic/Masterwork/Rare gear is the same template with mere skin changes)

The reason I think that about achievements is that every last bit of content ArenaNet releases now is designed around the concept. Instead of prompting the team to design interesting gameplay that stands on its own and genuinely introduces new ideas and radical mechanics, they pump out content that consists of repeating the same thing over and over and “rewarding” players at the end with an achievement and a cosmetic item.
Often with the content they have released, if you were to play it once, it would take all of a couple of hours for every single new activity per living story release. Yet through adding the soft progression of achievements, they artificially extend the amount of time people have to spend logging in and playing.
While yes, technically you don’t have to play new content that relies on achievements, if you weren’t, you wouldn’t be playing the game.

As to your question regarding gear, yes, I much preferred the gear system in GW1. Although even that had its flaws, with certain runes and inscriptions commanding obscenely high prices.
Cosmetics-wise, I’ve found that the best system I’ve ever used in MMOs is that of DCUO, where once you unlock a style, you can use it whenever you want. You end up with hundreds of cosmetic choices per equipment slot, and these can be re-used ad infinitum.

My dream for GW2 would be a gear system where you were able to easily obtain your maximum stat gear upon reaching level 80. You could then unlock different stat combinations and runes / sigils through play which would permanently be added to a drop-down menu on each item, with the end result being an item that possesses all possible stat combinations as Legendary weapons do at the moment.
To unlock them, you could adapt the elite capturing concept from GW1 and require that the player use a Signet of Capture analogue on a boss they’ve defeated that utilised that stat combination in its design.

Additionally, there would be a separate drop down for the cosmetic style of the item that could also be changed whenever the player liked as long as they were out of combat. Whenever you bought a new style, it would permanently unlock a new choice in the menu.

But this is far too player-friendly and harder to monetise, so I suspect we’ll never see it adopted by ArenaNet.

I like your thoughts on achievements. Most games have a lot of achievements like GW2 but don’t add them at the rate that GW2 seems too. Causing like you said, the players time being spent on achievements.

If this is Anet’s plan for gear I would probably put the game down forever. I like the Diablo2 loot frenzy, don’t get me wrong GW2 provides you with lots of loot. Its just 1000’s of salvageable identical staffs/swords/gloves etc. This is not what I wanted. The PvE gear would turn into the arena gear system where everyone has the same, and they just copy cookie cutters. Loses all point of getting gear.