Guild Wars 2

TLDR: Yup, this is another “Man I wish Open World PvE gave me a slight challenge” topics.

-

Was out taking a walk, and was thinking about GW1 a bit, and realized that the one thing above everything else that I really miss from that game is: Charr Warbands.

Everyone that has played GW1 knows exactly what I mean. For everyone else: Charr’s was the big bad evil in much of GW1, and you spent a lot of time fighting against them, especially wandering around in the open maps dodging or fighting their roaming warbands. Each warband was 4-5 Charr’s of different types, and each type used one of the professions and skills and weapons from that profession. They could be quite nasty to take down alone, and you often had to change builds, bring heroes and henchmen to survive though a map.

The part that I really miss, is that you had 4-5 enemies, that each are weaker than your character (on equal level), but they had a simple but efficient “build” based on one of the professions, so they had some skills on par with players. They worked in a group, and if you attacked one, the entire group responded together. And their builds had a variety of different styles, and some of them even helped the rest of the party (like the monk/healer ones).

They became something you didn’t want to take on solo, unless you had the right build, or felt very confident in your own skills.

-

This is something I just don’t feel in GW2 at all. Closest feeling I’ve gotten is small group encountering small group in WvW.

The I remembered the training dummy NPC’s in Heart of the Mists, they got one for each of the professions (minus ranger), that actually makes use of profession skills, stats, and even have a basic build. They’re still to dumb to properly dodge or move away from danger etc, but they would be perfect for my conceptual “charr warbands”.

Now imagine we take a map like Iron Marches and add a few roaming Flame Legion Warbands, randomized 4-5 different charr’s based on the 7 test dummy npc AI/Builds, that are programmed to walk around in areas on “patrol”. Suddenly we got something most players doesn’t want to take on solo, but wait for others, or team up with someone to fight against. You don’t even have to put them in the way of anything, plenty of “quiet” areas that would benefit from having a fight.

Or in Harathi Hinterlands, make a few similar “Centaur Patrols”. Dedgehaunt Cliffs could easily have a few Dredge patrols like this. Adding some of these to the existing maps would create some interesting fights, without making the entire map “unplayable” for those that like the game as is (easy).

-

On another note, I’d like to see this actually done to the friendly NPC’s as well. I want to actually see Charr Warbands patrol and fight together, and supplement each others. Unfortunately, they have nerfed the poor allied NPC’s so much that they just go and die the moment a scale looks hungry at them, so probably wouldn’t work.

/rant

I’m playing GW1 pretty much every day again working on more titles/HOM points and I am seeing the group action that you describe here.

It truly was/is a good system and can really be a challenge. The way I could see them doing it here is have small groups roam or guard areas together. I would say ideally 3-4 at most would be suitable. ATM you can fight groups with these numbers and even more simply by pulling them to you or running around and hitting a few and then grouping them together for the slaughter. However where it fails here is the group dynamic with various skills. That is what they need to do here, have groups of 3-4 roam/work together with skills that compliment each other. Who knows maybe this is what we will see in HOT.

Edit: heck they could go one step further and even scale up the groups depending on how many people are in the area. We know they have the technology to do so for events so why not mob groups?

Good ’ol Charrs, and good ’ol 55HP Monks, how I miss them.

To be fairly honests, I feel they had more personality before than now in GW2, to make them a playable race (And allied with humans on top of that.) kinda turned them bland.

To be fair, No part of GW1 aside from quests marked “solo” was designed for solo play.

Those warbands were cool, but GW2’s open world is designed to be largely soloable with the exception of group events. You’d have to make them group events, or purposely design “group zones” that clearly tell people that the zone they’re about to enter isn’t intended to be soloable.

I did a lot of solo farming in GW1 as well, but remember that GW1 had built in henchies and heroes specifically because the game’s difficulty and mobs were designed under the assumption that every time you left town you did so with a full party. GW2 just isn’t built that way outside of instances.

I was thinking that, as well: that GW1’s map zones were based on a full party, whereas GW2 and most MMOs are based on solo players leveling independently.

Heylel.2109:

Good ’ol Charrs, and good ’ol 55HP Monks, how I miss them.

To be fairly honests, I feel they had more personality before than now in GW2, to make them a playable race (And allied with humans on top of that.) kinda turned them bland.

Not to derail too much, but I find this an interesting opinion - in the sense that it does surprise me a little. Prior to Eye of the North, the charr were mostly the villains that blew up Ascalon. Thanks to Pyre and Gwen and the expansion’s content they begun to be fleshed out, and now we have multiple legions, political opinions, and history.

synk.6907:

I was thinking that, as well: that GW1’s map zones were based on a full party, whereas GW2 and most MMOs are based on solo players leveling independently.

And to be honest, that was one of the greatest point of Guild Wars 1, that as a multiplayer game forced you to play with other people. (Granted, Necro + 55hp Monk could go almost everywhere but still other players could form their parties and have fun together.) It allowed people to enjoy multiplayer PvP and PvE based upon their desire, leveling and finding the skills was enjoyable as much as battling other players.

GW2 fails at this…

The only thing that it seems to succeed is that, unlike other MMOs, there is no competition for the farming grounds. But that aside, is insanely easy to solo and it makes you wonder what’s the point of playing it online. The only challenging bits are the ‘puzzles’ or these Run sessions, which made me wonder if this is a MMO or a platform game anyway.

Not to derail too much, but I find this an interesting opinion – in the sense that it does surprise me a little. Prior to Eye of the North, the charr were mostly the villains that blew up Ascalon. Thanks to Pyre and Gwen and the expansion’s content they begun to be fleshed out, and now we have multiple legions, political opinions, and history.

Yeah, but there are two things that make them sound ‘off’ in my eyes.

The first is how humans ended up accepting them after the atrocities they commited in Ascalon, too easily considering they’re a completely different species.

The second part is that they feel literally like every other race in Tyria.

Sylvari, Asura, the Charrs, the Nor(th)n… All are messed up in a civil conflict with an internal faction which dabbles with self destructive powers. Long time has passed since last played, but in the end it wasn’t told that the ones who ravaged Ascalon was the ‘Accursed Legion of Charr Badguy’ which every other Charr despise?

I rolled a Sylvari, then moved to all the other starting zones for the Vistas and the Hearts, everywhere was the same story. Our race is honorable, but there are those outcasts messing with our society, that’s not politics that’s a stereotype.

We don’t see people fighting for their ideals, we see the good guys and the corrupted ones. Hell, in the Sylvari campaign you can't even save that chick that goes blackthorn or how the hell they're called, she becomes a puppet you have to put down.

Considering how much NCSoft has invested and stressed about creating the visual for the new non standard races, these races looks pretty standard-ish. Had they left the Charrs as antagonists, had them used a cold-war type of plot device, maybe the Charr could had managed to retain some depth.

And, to be utterly honest, the way Legions are organized feels more like hives than packs\prides as their looks would suggest.

I think they had to make the Charr allies with the other races, simply because they were such a threat. They could not let their threat take away just how dangerous of a threat the dragons are. It also adds a great strength to the allied side which makes you think “we may just have a chance”.

Not only that but put it this way, if our world was suddenly attacked by aliens or whatever, something from outside. To the point where we could all be wiped out do you think that all those currently warring with each other would suddenly work together just to be able to survive and have a fighting chance?

Of course they would, unless extreme fanatics which I should imagine would be taken out quickly first by everybody else.

Now that’s not to say that once the big bad threat is gone that the old fighting would not begin again. So who knows, maybe GW3 or 4 may do a complete turn about and have Charr as the enemy again. Perhaps even Sylvari or some other new race.

Paulytnz.7619:

I think they had to make the Charr allies with the other races, simply because they were such a threat. They could not let their threat take away just how dangerous of a threat the dragons are. It also adds a great strength to the allied side which makes you think “we may just have a chance”.

Not only that but put it this way, if our world was suddenly attacked by aliens or whatever, something from outside. To the point where we could all be wiped out do you think that all those currently warring with each other would suddenly work together just to be able to survive and have a fighting chance?

Of course they would, unless extreme fanatics which I should imagine would be taken out quickly first by everybody else.

Now that’s not to say that once the big bad threat is gone that the old fighting would not begin again. So who knows, maybe GW3 or 4 may do a complete turn about and have Charr as the enemy again. Perhaps even Sylvari or some other new race.

I’m sorry, but my trust in mankind is so low that I’m pretty sure people would continue to fight between themselves even if Aliens would show up. Probably with some countries\political forces even betraying mankind’s side to get better conditions or even just to crush ther oppositions.

But that’s not even the point of what I said…

My point is that they blamed everything on the Flame Legion, making them responsible for the Cataclysm and misleading the other Charrs into something that was quite legit for them anyway. Then you look at the Sylvari and notice that the Nightmare Court is somewhat similar, they try to corrupt the Pale Tree like the Flame Legion corrupted (And still tries to corrupt.) the Charr Culture with Titans’ influences. Then, similarly again, Norn gets to deal with their Wurm dissidents.

The only race who has an internal opposing faction that feels ‘realistic’ are the Asura, since the Inquest just don’t care about ethics and want to experiment. They’re the only race where conflict is born from a clash of ideologies rather than “we’re good, they’re evil” dualism. Too bad is on the race that visually appeals me the least.

@ Regarding fluff

Regarding how they "had" to make charr the good guys. This is a game "world/setting", they don’t have to do anything, they could have just said humans invented a macguffin and wiped them out and blew up the macguffin as well. And then no Charrs in GW2 etc.

They had planned more races already back in/before EotN, so they already had a plan with that and wanted it to turn around to what we have now. Pyre (if that was his name) was the fore runner for this, starting to mend the connection between humans and charr.

I do feel something is missing from the Charr compared to the first game but I suspect that is more the emphasis away from "dangerous enemy" to "funny kittens on youtube".

---

@ Regarding game

I do realize and agree that there is a big difference in the design of GW1 and 2, and how this affects soloable vs group play etc. This is why I didn’t suggest to replace ALL enemies with this (I would have loved it!).

instead I suggested this as something that could be added to a few of the middle/higher maps and in specific areas a bit out of the way so it didn’t make existing content harder. And it would be classified as group content, and probably considered similar to champion fights in general.

I just want some challenges even in the normal maps, and I want a reason to actually want to play together with other players. Because right now, if I want to play PvE, I mostly play some other game (Pillars of Eternity or Valdis Story for example).

And there should always be some harder content available to have something of a goal, a challenge, something to overcome just for the feeling of satisfaction that you accomplished something you thought was hard.

@ PopeUrban + synk

Do you think it is bad to want to have some more group content ? Even in the Open World ? I do understand the lack of heroes/henchmen etc. But you also have a lot of other tools to work with in GW2, friendly npc’s, often you can use neutral creatures or set enemies up against each others etc. And using the terrain much better. I do miss the imp though, hated leveling to 20 in GW1 because I lost the imp :p

@jone

I don’t think it’s bad to want more group content. heck, I’d love it if every zone from here on had a big fat “5 man group zone” slapped on it and nothing was soloable any more.

However, I think Anet’s design for GW2 is pretty clear. Open world is meant to be soloable with little pockets of clearly labeled group play (which you can walk around to get wherever you need to go) Instances are built for groups, or built for soloing with optional (pointless) group scaling.

They tried to make orr more group-centric at release, and it was such a massive departure from the rest of the game that people complained and they nerfed it in to the ground, and now you can cruise around Orr solo without breaking a sweat.

There’s not really a way to recreate the henchmen dynamic in GW2 because of the persistant maps. It’d be impossible to keep groups of five players from just following commander tags and everyone always running in huge henchie zergs.

I’d love to see a more group oriented open world, but I seriously doubt it’s something Anet wants to do with their game, as it would alienate a large portion of the solo players that they want that portion of the game to cater to.

What I miss is the ARMOR the Guild Wars 1 Charr had going down the back of the neck, specifically the Axe and Blade guys.

Heylel.2109:

Paulytnz.7619:

I think they had to make the Charr allies with the other races, simply because they were such a threat. They could not let their threat take away just how dangerous of a threat the dragons are. It also adds a great strength to the allied side which makes you think “we may just have a chance”.

Not only that but put it this way, if our world was suddenly attacked by aliens or whatever, something from outside. To the point where we could all be wiped out do you think that all those currently warring with each other would suddenly work together just to be able to survive and have a fighting chance?

Of course they would, unless extreme fanatics which I should imagine would be taken out quickly first by everybody else.

Now that’s not to say that once the big bad threat is gone that the old fighting would not begin again. So who knows, maybe GW3 or 4 may do a complete turn about and have Charr as the enemy again. Perhaps even Sylvari or some other new race.

I’m sorry, but my trust in mankind is so low that I’m pretty sure people would continue to fight between themselves even if Aliens would show up. Probably with some countries\political forces even betraying mankind’s side to get better conditions or even just to crush ther oppositions.

But that’s not even the point of what I said…

My point is that they blamed everything on the Flame Legion, making them responsible for the Cataclysm and misleading the other Charrs into something that was quite legit for them anyway. Then you look at the Sylvari and notice that the Nightmare Court is somewhat similar, they try to corrupt the Pale Tree like the Flame Legion corrupted (And still tries to corrupt.) the Charr Culture with Titans’ influences. Then, similarly again, Norn gets to deal with their Wurm dissidents.

The only race who has an internal opposing faction that feels ‘realistic’ are the Asura, since the Inquest just don’t care about ethics and want to experiment. They’re the only race where conflict is born from a clash of ideologies rather than “we’re good, they’re evil” dualism. Too bad is on the race that visually appeals me the least.

I am sorry if you thought my post was replying to yours – it was not. I only briefly skimmed your post tbh. It was more a reply in general to what everyone said (or more answering what I thought was a “why?” in the OP) as a whole with why I thought they did what they did with the Charr.

I ALWAYS quote people if my post is in reply to theirs. My opinion still stands and we will just have to accept our own theory crafting here.

We had that somewhat with the aetherblades and people on the forums whined about how difficult they were and we never saw challenging pve mobs again…

joneirikb.7506:

@ Regarding fluff

Regarding how they “had” to make charr the good guys. This is a game “world/setting”, they don’t have to do anything, they could have just said humans invented a macguffin and wiped them out and blew up the macguffin as well. And then no Charrs in GW2 etc.

They had planned more races already back in/before EotN, so they already had a plan with that and wanted it to turn around to what we have now. Pyre (if that was his name) was the fore runner for this, starting to mend the connection between humans and charr.

Yes they could have made up some silly storyline where the Charr just disappeared or were wiped out. But they didn’t, some how I don’t think genocide will ever be accepted by us in this day and age.

Of course they wanted to add more races and playable at that. You could see that easily with the introduction of the Norn and Asura to gw1. Add to that all the voice acting in eye of the North, you could see they wanted to give more character not only to the npcs but races as a whole. It was a sign of good things to come.

Again my opinion is they made them allies to make the dragon presence seem like such a deadly threat that they would have to have even an enemy that was such a bad one be required to be an ally. You see the same thing happen in movie sequels or tv shows some times. The “bad guy” or enemy from an earlier part of the story turns “good” or in the least becomes an ally just because the new threat is so dangerous it threatens all.

Not only that but it also makes it more convenient story wise as they don’t have to go in to too much detail what happened to the charr as a whole. “oh they turned good, ok that’s easy I can accept that”. “wait, what happened to the charr they just disappeared or were killed off? Why did they kill them off, we could have used their help? How did we manage to finally kill them off when we were fighting so long?” Of course many, many, many more questions and lore things would have been raised. It’s just simply easier from a story telling side to say “oh they turned good”. It explains away a lot of possible questions.

Well, again that’s my opinion, feel free to accept it or don’t that’s fine. I still agree however that more groups should exist in GW2 with complementing dynamics to add a more alive world for a sense of more challenge.

Yeah the roaming bands of mobs where great. When ever I was out in the world(especially in HM) I would be in a fight and checking that the group that was no where near when the fight started, and is slowly getting closer was going to stop and turn around be for it got fought up in the melee. It added tension to combat. Something I miss in GW2.

Solomon Darkfury.3729:

We had that somewhat with the aetherblades and people on the forums whined about how difficult they were and we never saw challenging pve mobs again…

That alliance was very dangerous. If it wasn’t Aetherblades it was Twisted Watchworks killing people. Sadly the only remnant of the Alliances are Toxic, and its in small areas during events people hardly touch.

Heylel.2109:

Good ’ol Charrs, and good ’ol 55HP Monks, how I miss them.

To be fairly honests, I feel they had more personality before than now in GW2, to make them a playable race (And allied with humans on top of that.) kinda turned them bland.

very well said and i agree with you fully on this . and i been working on my hom stuff so at lest there is still some fun to be had there. and you can not for get about RT/Necro,s too

Patrols in the Charr Homelands, particularly HM. You checked the professions, the area, did a mental target order, flagged off a hench or two if needed.

This game is designed for Leeroy Jenkins.

joneirikb.7506:

@ PopeUrban + synk

Do you think it is bad to want to have some more group content ? Even in the Open World ?

No
Not at all. I was only noting that the tendency of open world content is to balance it toward the single player character moving through as they level (or farm). GW1 was certainly more akin to an online, cooperative version of, say, Baulder’s Gate with respect to world exploration than your typical MMORPG, making it far more relevant to design towards group play.

This post was longer, but it kind of rambled without making a point.

GW was designed at a different time. It also allowed for solo play with henchmen (often painful) and later, heroes (much easier). GW2 cannot offer heroes/henchmen … well, it could, but they’d be about as useful as Logan or KasJory.

As to Charr warbands… yeah, one of the reasons I cannot bring myself to want a Charr character. They were the villains I loved to hate. Especially in EotN… interrupt the Meteor Shower or the Aegis?

synk.6907:

GW1 was certainly more akin to an online, cooperative version of, say, Baulder’s Gate with respect to world exploration.

Just got to say that is the reason I started playing it! I needed more Baldurs Gate >_<

@ IndigoSundown

Dude give me Trehearne npc, he is GW2’s "Oink", he doesn’t die! Best npc in game! (Not entirely trolling, but he is invulnerable in most of the story missions, thus he is the only useful NPC I’ve ever seen in this game. Just like the IMORTAL OINK from GW1, best npc in game).

joneirikb.7506:

synk.6907:

GW1 was certainly more akin to an online, cooperative version of, say, Baulder’s Gate with respect to world exploration.

Just got to say that is the reason I started playing it! I needed more Baldurs Gate >_<

@ IndigoSundown

Dude give me Trehearne npc, he is GW2’s “Oink”, he doesn’t die! Best npc in game! (Not entirely trolling, but he is invulnerable in most of the story missions, thus he is the only useful NPC I’ve ever seen in this game. Just like the IMORTAL OINK from GW1, best npc in game).

Yeah “Oink” was epic. That pig would take on anything and everything. I remember stressing the first time I did that mission, thinking I must not let him Die! The pig schooled me on taking care of business.

Oink was indeed Epic.

Still, I would take even Alesia over Trahearn, any day.