Guild Wars 2

Godzzila.3752:

Vayne.8563:

Godzzila.3752:

Vayne.8563:

Godzzila.3752:

Vayne.8563:

Because some of us want to play a multiplayer game with that kind of sensibility and that was lacking in MMO space. That’s why. That’s exactly why.

Are you saying someone who enjoys that KIND of experience can’t also be social and want to play with other people? I bet there are a lot more of us out here than you think their are.

I’m a social guy. I like being in my guild. I like playing with friends. And I like not having to sit there and plan a raid for an hour before I jump in and attempt to run it so I might or might not get gear I need to go to the next raid. I don’t want an instanced game. I want to play in the open world.

I’m happy to trade Skyrim’s solitude for a social MMO that centers around stuff I enjoy.

There are dozens of MMOs for people who like other stuff. Can’t we just have one?

Nope, that makes no sense. This game as no “Social Features”. You have chat and that’s it. You can Play with your friends and like your guild in a game that’s well made

You’ve got to be joking. You don’t need social features to play with people. Want to hear a social feature? Mumble. That’s a social feature.

We do our guild missions together, run dungeons together, clear zones together. I can’t do that in Skyrim.

I’m not sure why you don’t understand this.

So… when exactly does “Start Having End-Game Features” start overidding “Being Able to Play With Friends and/or Guild”?

It’s changing the game, that’s what it has to do with it. You asked the question, I answered. This is how the conversation went.

I play this game and like it, without a traditional end game. Traditional end games tend to make the community more competive rather than cooperative. I wanted a cooperative non-competitive PvE experience to enjoy with friends. This game offers that.

Traditional end games creates haves and have nots. That’s not what the devs are trying to do here. You suggest that many of the things I like would be better in single player games and you’re right about that. But you’re leaving out the social aspect.

People have come on these forums asking for things like dueling, dps meters, gear check, all the things that come with the end game you want. And every time someone posts for stuff like this, there’s a bunch of people who shout it down. Not one or two. A bunch of people. Why?

Because those things ruin the type of game we want to play. Adding the types of things you’re asking for will inevitably lead to the kind of game I don’t want to play.

And because there are dozens of games made for you and only one game (so far) made for us, it would be nice if it remained a game for us.

If by a bunch of people you mean something 5. And as far as Im noticing there are equally the amount of people supporting this idea. And by the way: At no point in time does having end-game features change at all the game, other than expand its longetivity and giving something to do when waiting for content.

This is what I don’t get, why is adding real content and more stuff to do at end game such a bad thing. All those that want to wander around doing nothing or just doing LS can still do that. Adding more stuff like dungeons and maybe some kind of raid would be nice. I didn’t have time for fractals and so I never got in to them and I think my highest level fractal is at level 2 or 3. Its not my bag so I didn’t do it but I would never say it should be removed or hate on those that do enjoy it.

Godzzila.3752:

And that’s why that discussion even started: Guild Wars 2 was “dumbed down” and since when is Guild Wars 2 a good example anyway? The game was the quickest sold game of all time in pre-release sales, and quickly a lot of players started running away from it.

Godzzila.3752:

Number two:
xFire makes statistics for games of the people that use their application. As of the release date the game used to have peaks of 16ks players (people that use xFire), as of right now it tends to peak with 2ks of players when a new patch is released while most of the time it sits at 500~1k.
http://social.xfire.com/games/gw2
Also, as of the release date of the game:
http://1.bp.blogspot.com/-L42n7YnkFwY/UG0QkxAOmuI/AAAAAAAAAYo/d9hpl81D9xA/s1600/google_trends_combined_wow_and_pandaria.png

And before claiming: “BUT NOT EVERY PEOPLE USES XFIRE!” it’s called sample statistics, its what used on politics based statistics and so on…"

OK sample statistics.

WoW has 1280 of players on Xfire. It has a population of 7.6 million players as of Mar 2014. Therefore ratio of WoW players who use Xfire to total WoW population:

1280/7,600,000 * 100 = 0.0168

GW2 has 571 of players on Xfire. If the same ratio of players on GW2 also use Xfire:

571/P * 100 = 0.0168

Therefore, P = 3,398,809

What an awesome 97% player retention!

Unless you want to argue that a different ratio of GW2 players use Xfire, but you won’t, because “SAMPLE STATISTICS!”

MrIllusion.5304:

Godzzila.3752:

And that’s why that discussion even started: Guild Wars 2 was “dumbed down” and since when is Guild Wars 2 a good example anyway? The game was the quickest sold game of all time in pre-release sales, and quickly a lot of players started running away from it.

Godzzila.3752:

Number two:
xFire makes statistics for games of the people that use their application. As of the release date the game used to have peaks of 16ks players (people that use xFire), as of right now it tends to peak with 2ks of players when a new patch is released while most of the time it sits at 500~1k.
http://social.xfire.com/games/gw2
Also, as of the release date of the game:
http://1.bp.blogspot.com/-L42n7YnkFwY/UG0QkxAOmuI/AAAAAAAAAYo/d9hpl81D9xA/s1600/google_trends_combined_wow_and_pandaria.png

And before claiming: “BUT NOT EVERY PEOPLE USES XFIRE!” it’s called sample statistics, its what used on politics based statistics and so on…"

OK sample statistics.

WoW has 1280 of players on Xfire. It has a population of 7.6 million players as of Mar 2014. Therefore ratio of WoW players who use Xfire to total WoW population:

1280/7,600,000 * 100 = 0.0168

GW2 has 571 of players on Xfire. If the same ratio of players on GW2 also use Xfire:

571/P * 100 = 0.0168

Therefore, P = 3,398,809

What an awesome 97% player retention!

Unless you want to argue that a different ratio of GW2 players use Xfire, but you won’t, because “SAMPLE STATISTICS!”

It is Sample Statistics.
You know, the same that are used for every political discussion IRL?
It works.

Plus I don’t even have to pretend that people think there is a huge playerbase. Megaservers where created to start with for some reason.
And lemme give you a tip:
IT’S NOT BECAUSE A LOT OF PEOPLE ARE PLAYING THIS GAME.

Godzzila.3752:

MrIllusion.5304:

Godzzila.3752:

And that’s why that discussion even started: Guild Wars 2 was “dumbed down” and since when is Guild Wars 2 a good example anyway? The game was the quickest sold game of all time in pre-release sales, and quickly a lot of players started running away from it.

Godzzila.3752:

Number two:
xFire makes statistics for games of the people that use their application. As of the release date the game used to have peaks of 16ks players (people that use xFire), as of right now it tends to peak with 2ks of players when a new patch is released while most of the time it sits at 500~1k.
http://social.xfire.com/games/gw2
Also, as of the release date of the game:
http://1.bp.blogspot.com/-L42n7YnkFwY/UG0QkxAOmuI/AAAAAAAAAYo/d9hpl81D9xA/s1600/google_trends_combined_wow_and_pandaria.png

And before claiming: “BUT NOT EVERY PEOPLE USES XFIRE!” it’s called sample statistics, its what used on politics based statistics and so on…"

OK sample statistics.

WoW has 1280 of players on Xfire. It has a population of 7.6 million players as of Mar 2014. Therefore ratio of WoW players who use Xfire to total WoW population:

1280/7,600,000 * 100 = 0.0168

GW2 has 571 of players on Xfire. If the same ratio of players on GW2 also use Xfire:

571/P * 100 = 0.0168

Therefore, P = 3,398,809

What an awesome 97% player retention!

Unless you want to argue that a different ratio of GW2 players use Xfire, but you won’t, because “SAMPLE STATISTICS!”

It is Sample Statistics.
You know, the same that are used for every political discussion IRL?
It works.

Plus I don’t even have to pretend that people think there is a huge playerbase. Megaservers where created to start with for some reason.
And lemme give you a tip:
IT’S NOT BECAUSE A LOT OF PEOPLE ARE PLAYING THIS GAME.

You don’t have to pretend.

I just added the numbers you gave me.

With math.

MrIllusion.5304:

Godzzila.3752:

And that’s why that discussion even started: Guild Wars 2 was “dumbed down” and since when is Guild Wars 2 a good example anyway? The game was the quickest sold game of all time in pre-release sales, and quickly a lot of players started running away from it.

Godzzila.3752:

Number two:
xFire makes statistics for games of the people that use their application. As of the release date the game used to have peaks of 16ks players (people that use xFire), as of right now it tends to peak with 2ks of players when a new patch is released while most of the time it sits at 500~1k.
http://social.xfire.com/games/gw2
Also, as of the release date of the game:
http://1.bp.blogspot.com/-L42n7YnkFwY/UG0QkxAOmuI/AAAAAAAAAYo/d9hpl81D9xA/s1600/google_trends_combined_wow_and_pandaria.png

And before claiming: “BUT NOT EVERY PEOPLE USES XFIRE!” it’s called sample statistics, its what used on politics based statistics and so on…"

OK sample statistics.

WoW has 1280 of players on Xfire. It has a population of 7.6 million players as of Mar 2014. Therefore ratio of WoW players who use Xfire to total WoW population:

1280/7,600,000 * 100 = 0.0168

GW2 has 571 of players on Xfire. If the same ratio of players on GW2 also use Xfire:

571/P * 100 = 0.0168

Therefore, P = 3,398,809

What an awesome 97% player retention!

Unless you want to argue that a different ratio of GW2 players use Xfire, but you won’t, because “SAMPLE STATISTICS!”

i think its important to note that the statistics dont have all data, but you have to look at the extrapolations in a accurate matter.

In your case, we know nothing about what % of users use xfire, however we do know that out of our total sample, there was a reduction in players from peaks to now.

So unless you are saying you have reason to believe that the xfire type players are a biased sample, in general one would assume it is roughly accurate in terms of giving a broad idea how many are playing versus playing before.

Now, however, you can say the xfire only shows how many peak players, not players overall, if people play different times, or are intensely satisfied playing for a short amount of time, it could not really give you a good idea how many are satisfied.

MrIllusion.5304:

Godzzila.3752:

MrIllusion.5304:

Godzzila.3752:

And that’s why that discussion even started: Guild Wars 2 was “dumbed down” and since when is Guild Wars 2 a good example anyway? The game was the quickest sold game of all time in pre-release sales, and quickly a lot of players started running away from it.

Godzzila.3752:

Number two:
xFire makes statistics for games of the people that use their application. As of the release date the game used to have peaks of 16ks players (people that use xFire), as of right now it tends to peak with 2ks of players when a new patch is released while most of the time it sits at 500~1k.
http://social.xfire.com/games/gw2
Also, as of the release date of the game:
http://1.bp.blogspot.com/-L42n7YnkFwY/UG0QkxAOmuI/AAAAAAAAAYo/d9hpl81D9xA/s1600/google_trends_combined_wow_and_pandaria.png

And before claiming: “BUT NOT EVERY PEOPLE USES XFIRE!” it’s called sample statistics, its what used on politics based statistics and so on…"

OK sample statistics.

WoW has 1280 of players on Xfire. It has a population of 7.6 million players as of Mar 2014. Therefore ratio of WoW players who use Xfire to total WoW population:

1280/7,600,000 * 100 = 0.0168

GW2 has 571 of players on Xfire. If the same ratio of players on GW2 also use Xfire:

571/P * 100 = 0.0168

Therefore, P = 3,398,809

What an awesome 97% player retention!

Unless you want to argue that a different ratio of GW2 players use Xfire, but you won’t, because “SAMPLE STATISTICS!”

It is Sample Statistics.
You know, the same that are used for every political discussion IRL?
It works.

Plus I don’t even have to pretend that people think there is a huge playerbase. Megaservers where created to start with for some reason.
And lemme give you a tip:
IT’S NOT BECAUSE A LOT OF PEOPLE ARE PLAYING THIS GAME.

You don’t have to pretend.

I just added the numbers you gave me.

With math.

Not at all. By using Sample Statistics you take a group of a population and follow it’s trends.
The release of the game had 16ks of people playing on xFire (OUR GROUP IN STUDY) from this group of 16k you ended up with 500 to 1k in a few years. So the trend of this group is to stop playing it. With WoW you don’t have the original group that started playing the game therefore you can’t study it from that point on.
You can now take the 1ks that are playing now with xFire and study it from now on. Sample Statistics doesn’t take into consideration the total population but rather a small group.

Go ahead: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sample_

Number’s dont lie, but anet is not going to release the average daily concurrent player numbers… probably because its a very low number. A lot of MMOs let everyone know the server statistics, like WoW, even though their subs are sharpily declining, everyone knows its still up there in 2-3 mill subs (speaking for NA..china prolly has double that)
Heck even runescape has stats on their home page letting ppl know what the concurrent amount of players are…

What we are left with is speculation. It’s pretty easy to speculate this game isn’t retaining a lot of its player. Why? it got boring reaaalllly quick for a lot of folks. Similar to D3…huge sales initially but a lot of ppl have dropped it pretty quick.

I’d love to see the average daily concurrent players in gw2 for NA/EU..that tells everyone about how well gw2 really is doing..

Gemstore junk/LS isn’t going to keep their pockets growing, actually xpac like content just might though and I guarantee you the higher ups in NCsoft/Anet know this and have some plans up their sleeve.

So if they added a raid in the game, how many of you that want that kind of stuff would do it for no rewards or basically same rewards that are in the game now?

WvW is an endgame. Come try that.

Statistics lie all the time. But regardless, it’s quite obvious that there are way less people playing now than at launch.

Johje Holan.4607:

WvW is an endgame. Come try that.

Statistics lie all the time. But regardless, it’s quite obvious that there are way less people playing now than at launch.

Sadly xFire tends to get right most of the times. And it was a HUGE playerbase fall. About the WvW I already explained why i don’t consider it endgame.
There are so much serious issues with WvW and PvP in general that keeps me out of it. When I first bought the game was to get into WvW more than anything else. Kinda lost interest after a few days of trying that… Unbalanced classes, massive confusion due to every big battle turning into a light show with so many light effects that I have no idea where I am at (not to talk the lag that this generates), and the zerg-mentality are some of those reasons.

Johje Holan.4607:

WvW is an endgame. Come try that.

Statistics lie all the time. But regardless, it’s quite obvious that there are way less people playing now than at launch.

I do but the ACTUAL WVW has barely been touched/updated….its gotten completely dull and boring even when I’m roaming…
I do more tPvP than wvw though because its usually more competitive and kinda more balanced than WvW..in wvw you got all kinds of ppl with full ascended, foods/various buffs/uplevels, etc… I absolutely HATE zerging with a passion, that shows no skill what so ever, who ever is has more numbers in the hammer train wins..just run around spamming 1 and dropping aoes..
Roaming is the only decent thing but its hard to find small scale skirmishes since most ppl just run around in the zerg.

GW2 WvW could be amazing, but anet has completely shoved it aside(similar to sPvP). EoTM is completely unrelated to WvW, so don’t bother saying well we got EoTM…it has literally 0 impact on WvW lol.

endgame is more or less running dungeons for pretties or doing fractals for pretties, or doing the living story, or doing PvP.

i don’t mind it really, i have fun with what there is and play other games for other needs (kinda dropped raids/dungeons since XIV as the people there were just insufferable)

Godzzila.3752:

@Vayne honestly if they want to move the story forward they will have to do a better job… not hating or anything but they are taking 2 weaks to make a small pack of around 5 quests that can easily be done in less than 50 minutes… :\

It takes a LOT longer to develop content than it does to play it.

Chances are, their Living Story team members are working their kitten s off to give you that “50 minutes” every 2 weeks.

Now, the teams in charge of balance, bug fixing, dungeon reworks, and new skills really need to get a move on.

Duke Blackrose.4981:

Godzzila.3752:

@Vayne honestly if they want to move the story forward they will have to do a better job… not hating or anything but they are taking 2 weaks to make a small pack of around 5 quests that can easily be done in less than 50 minutes… :\

It takes a LOT longer to develop content than it does to play it.

Chances are, their Living Story team members are working their kitten s off to give you that “50 minutes” every 2 weeks.

Now, the teams in charge of balance, bug fixing, dungeon reworks, and new skills really need to get a move on.

Are you implying that they have a team working on something outside of gemstore + LS?

SkiTz.4590:

Duke Blackrose.4981:

Godzzila.3752:

@Vayne honestly if they want to move the story forward they will have to do a better job… not hating or anything but they are taking 2 weaks to make a small pack of around 5 quests that can easily be done in less than 50 minutes… :\

It takes a LOT longer to develop content than it does to play it.

Chances are, their Living Story team members are working their kitten s off to give you that “50 minutes” every 2 weeks.

Now, the teams in charge of balance, bug fixing, dungeon reworks, and new skills really need to get a move on.

Are you implying that they have a team working on something outside of gemstore + LS?

They certainly do have a balance team, but it’s a small one – and it’s one that doesn’t seem to be doing anything.

Ye they develop end game for 2 years now its gonna be epic when it comes

Godzzila.3752:

So I have been playing since day 1 beta, I come to the game for a while, and then go and then come back, and everytime I come back I am reminded of why I left in the first place… There is absolutly no endgame… You either farm for a legendary or play the same fractals over, and over, and over, and over, and over again…

How is that different from games like WoW where you’re farming the same raid week in and week out for the best gear? The difference I can see is that ArenaNet isn’t constantly performing arbitrary gear inflation so that you have to do yet another extensive grind simply to feel as powerful as you did the first time you optimized your gear. If you burn through Dry Top in a couple of days then I guess you’ll just have to wait for the next update. It’s not like you’re paying a subscription fee. There are plenty of other pay-to-play games that are incentivized to arbitrarily keep you on the gearing treadmill. That may be your idea of a compelling end game, but I’m not inclined to agree.

Beldin.5498:

What about this :
http://www.reddit.com/r/wow/comments/207s81/023_of_players_defeated_heroic_garrosh_after_four/

http://www.mmo-champion.com/threads/1185107-How-many-WoW-players-actually-raid
or simply look a little here :
https://www.google.com/?gws_rd=ssl#q=wow+percentage+of+raiders

And that’s hardly new, either. Less than 1% of players even TRIED Sunwell Plateau at it’s intended difficulty. The % that actually completed it was so low that Blizzard vowed to never do that again.

http://www.mmo-champion.com/content/2688-Other-Press-Tour-Interviews-A-Night-in-Mists-of-Pandaria-Blue-Posts-MoP-Screenshot

Within two expansions, they had faceroll “Looking for Raid” difficulty because they STILL couldn’t get the percentage of players they wanted to attempt their endgame content.

Raiders (and other “hardcore” players) have generally been overrepresented in terms of content provided. Studios, developers, and publishers are starting to realize this. And where do these “hardcore” players go to voice their discontent?

Official forums.

Godzzila.3752:

Plus I don’t even have to pretend that people think there is a huge playerbase. Megaservers where created to start with for some reason.
And lemme give you a tip:
IT’S NOT BECAUSE A LOT OF PEOPLE ARE PLAYING THIS GAME.

Ohhh….that explains why WoW was doing the server crossovers first before anet did megaservers….

Fact is, developing content is not cheap. It used to be that hardcore raiding content was worth it because that was how word of mouth was spread, from that very enthusiastic and hardcore player base.

Nowadays, it doesn’t seem that developers and publishers value that word of mouth much anymore; they now value accessibility of content (even Blizzard; you’d think if ANYONE could afford to cater to small percentages of their players, it would be them).

In one sense, Blizzard has an ace in the hole, where they can encourage people to attempt harder content with the carrot of “phatter lewt”, because let’s be perfectly honest; challenge is a TERRIBLE motivator for the bulk of MMO players. If it’s “too hard”, they just don’t play it.

It’s a carrot Arena.net doesn’t really have with GW2, and holy hell would there be a riot if they tried anything like Ascended gear again. The endgame a lot of people want for GW2 would most likely KILL the game rather than “save it” (presuming it even needs to be saved to begin with).

chemiclord.3978:

Fact is, developing content is not cheap. It used to be that hardcore raiding content was worth it because that was how word of mouth was spread, from that very enthusiastic and hardcore player base.

Nowadays, it doesn’t seem that developers and publishers value that word of mouth much anymore; they now value accessibility of content (even Blizzard; you’d think if ANYONE could afford to cater to small percentages of their players, it would be them).

In one sense, Blizzard has an ace in the hole, where they can encourage people to attempt harder content with the carrot of “phatter lewt”, because let’s be perfectly honest; challenge is a TERRIBLE motivator for the bulk of MMO players. If it’s “too hard”, they just don’t play it.

It’s a carrot Arena.net doesn’t really have with GW2, and holy hell would there be a riot if they tried anything like Ascended gear again. The endgame a lot of people want for GW2 would most likely KILL the game rather than “save it” (presuming it even needs to be saved to begin with).

What Guild Wars 2 actually needs is a horizontal endgame. And that implies more than just aesthetics. It implies expanding your options with sidegrades, but not upgrades.

For an MMO, that means skills. Lots of them. Specialized skills. Skills that let you change the way you play.

And, when you think about it, that’s the issue this game has held since day one. The way you play never really changes all that significantly. There are maybe 3-4 builds per class, and that’s if you ignore viability entirely.

It’s also the reason why the no-trinity system isn’t working. This kind of system cannot work with generalized skills, because that only leads to redundancy and a lack of team inter-dependence.

Fixing the game is going to entail a complete rework of the skills system. Much more specific, situational skill design. A need to hunt down skills all over the map by experiencing everything the game has to offer, much like Guild Wars 1’s Signet of Capture elite skill hunts.

Duke Blackrose.4981:

chemiclord.3978:

Fact is, developing content is not cheap. It used to be that hardcore raiding content was worth it because that was how word of mouth was spread, from that very enthusiastic and hardcore player base.

Nowadays, it doesn’t seem that developers and publishers value that word of mouth much anymore; they now value accessibility of content (even Blizzard; you’d think if ANYONE could afford to cater to small percentages of their players, it would be them).

In one sense, Blizzard has an ace in the hole, where they can encourage people to attempt harder content with the carrot of “phatter lewt”, because let’s be perfectly honest; challenge is a TERRIBLE motivator for the bulk of MMO players. If it’s “too hard”, they just don’t play it.

It’s a carrot Arena.net doesn’t really have with GW2, and holy hell would there be a riot if they tried anything like Ascended gear again. The endgame a lot of people want for GW2 would most likely KILL the game rather than “save it” (presuming it even needs to be saved to begin with).

What Guild Wars 2 actually needs is a horizontal endgame. And that implies more than just aesthetics. It implies expanding your options with sidegrades, but not upgrades.

For an MMO, that means skills. Lots of them. Specialized skills. Skills that let you change the way you play.

And, when you think about it, that’s the issue this game has held since day one. The way you play never really changes all that significantly. There are maybe 3-4 builds per class, and that’s if you ignore viability entirely.

It’s also the reason why the no-trinity system isn’t working. This kind of system cannot work with generalized skills, because that only leads to redundancy and a lack of team inter-dependence.

Fixing the game is going to entail a complete rework of the skills system. Much more specific, situational skill design. A need to hunt down skills all over the map by experiencing everything the game has to offer, much like Guild Wars 1’s Signet of Capture elite skill hunts.

But even then that doesn’t always work. Cookie cutter builds will still exist despite more skills. The new stuff would have to be equally good so its a hard choice. But as more are added, that job gets harder and harder, as adding more will require more testing between different combinations of skills (and thus needs and buffs). Guild wars did have a lot of skills, but many were tossed to the side, rarely used.

Serophous.9085:

Duke Blackrose.4981:

chemiclord.3978:

Fact is, developing content is not cheap. It used to be that hardcore raiding content was worth it because that was how word of mouth was spread, from that very enthusiastic and hardcore player base.

Nowadays, it doesn’t seem that developers and publishers value that word of mouth much anymore; they now value accessibility of content (even Blizzard; you’d think if ANYONE could afford to cater to small percentages of their players, it would be them).

In one sense, Blizzard has an ace in the hole, where they can encourage people to attempt harder content with the carrot of “phatter lewt”, because let’s be perfectly honest; challenge is a TERRIBLE motivator for the bulk of MMO players. If it’s “too hard”, they just don’t play it.

It’s a carrot Arena.net doesn’t really have with GW2, and holy hell would there be a riot if they tried anything like Ascended gear again. The endgame a lot of people want for GW2 would most likely KILL the game rather than “save it” (presuming it even needs to be saved to begin with).

What Guild Wars 2 actually needs is a horizontal endgame. And that implies more than just aesthetics. It implies expanding your options with sidegrades, but not upgrades.

For an MMO, that means skills. Lots of them. Specialized skills. Skills that let you change the way you play.

And, when you think about it, that’s the issue this game has held since day one. The way you play never really changes all that significantly. There are maybe 3-4 builds per class, and that’s if you ignore viability entirely.

It’s also the reason why the no-trinity system isn’t working. This kind of system cannot work with generalized skills, because that only leads to redundancy and a lack of team inter-dependence.

Fixing the game is going to entail a complete rework of the skills system. Much more specific, situational skill design. A need to hunt down skills all over the map by experiencing everything the game has to offer, much like Guild Wars 1’s Signet of Capture elite skill hunts.

But even then that doesn’t always work. Cookie cutter builds will still exist despite more skills. The new stuff would have to be equally good so its a hard choice. But as more are added, that job gets harder and harder, as adding more will require more testing between different combinations of skills (and thus needs and buffs). Guild wars did have a lot of skills, but many were tossed to the side, rarely used.

It’s still less problematic then not having much potential build variety at all.

It’s much more important that options to change up one’s playstyle exist than that they all be competitive with one another.

The existence of cookie cutters doesn’t undermine a system or make it less valuable. It’s simply an inevitability that cannot be avoided – only worked with. Of course, working with it is going to involve getting a better skill balancer than Isaiah.

Duke Blackrose.4981:

It’s still less problematic then not having much potential build variety at all.

It’s much more important that options to change up one’s playstyle exist than that they all be competitive with one another.

The existence of cookie cutters doesn’t undermine a system or make it less valuable. It’s simply an inevitability that cannot be avoided – only worked with. Of course, working with it is going to involve getting a better skill balancer than Isaiah.

It really depends on who your target audience is.

GW1 had a very strong niche. That is absolutely true. But I’m not particularly convinced that the wider audience GW2 needs to stay afloat would be interested in it. Hell, from what I understand, there was a depressing percentage of players who never even LOOKED at their traits in this game (and probably still don’t really), much less experimented with them. Seeing pages of skills would at best be received with indifference, at worst with “I quit.”

I just think a lot of people on this forum don’t understand the “average” MMO player, and that is the group (and perhaps sadly the majority), more and more developers are targeting, simply because that’s where the money is. If you’re a subscription model, you love those players because they’ll drop $15 a month and not particularly complain too much (for whatever reason). If you’re a free to play model, you REALLY love them, because they will be much more inclined to drop X amount of cash dollars rather than jump through hoops (if you even provide those hoops at all).

These players really don’t care about gear. They really don’t care about difficulty (in fact, they often ABHOR difficulty). They’re not interested in “work”, learning rotations, optimal gear sets, strategies, etc. They aren’t particularly inclined towards dungeons, PvP, raids, endgame, whatever.

They don’t accept the axiom of “the game starts now” at max level. They just want to kill stuff with the way they’ve become used to in the process of leveling up, maybe an hour a day, maybe two if they have the time. If they see something they want, and it’s available for cold hard cash, they’ll just buy it.

Welcome to the new world of MMOs. Whether you think that’s good or bad doesn’t really matter, because I don’t think it’ll be changing any time soon.

chemiclord.3978:

Duke Blackrose.4981:

It’s still less problematic then not having much potential build variety at all.

It’s much more important that options to change up one’s playstyle exist than that they all be competitive with one another.

The existence of cookie cutters doesn’t undermine a system or make it less valuable. It’s simply an inevitability that cannot be avoided – only worked with. Of course, working with it is going to involve getting a better skill balancer than Isaiah.

It really depends on who your target audience is.

GW1 had a very strong niche. That is absolutely true. But I’m not particularly convinced that the wider audience GW2 needs to stay afloat would be interested in it. Hell, from what I understand, there was a depressing percentage of players who never even LOOKED at their traits in this game (and probably still don’t really), much less experimented with them. Seeing pages of skills would at best be received with indifference, at worst with “I quit.”

I just think a lot of people on this forum don’t understand the “average” MMO player, and that is the group (and perhaps sadly the majority), more and more developers are targeting, simply because that’s where the money is. If you’re a subscription model, you love those players because they’ll drop $15 a month and not particularly complain too much (for whatever reason). If you’re a free to play model, you REALLY love them, because they will be much more inclined to drop X amount of cash dollars rather than jump through hoops (if you even provide those hoops at all).

These players really don’t care about gear. They really don’t care about difficulty (in fact, they often ABHOR difficulty). They’re not interested in “work”, learning rotations, optimal gear sets, strategies, etc. They aren’t particularly inclined towards dungeons, PvP, raids, endgame, whatever.

They don’t accept the axiom of “the game starts now” at max level. They just want to kill stuff with the way they’ve become used to in the process of leveling up, maybe an hour a day, maybe two if they have the time. If they see something they want, and it’s available for cold hard cash, they’ll just buy it.

Welcome to the new world of MMOs. Whether you think that’s good or bad doesn’t really matter, because I don’t think it’ll be changing any time soon.

The funny thing is that the system I’m suggesting is entirely compatible with the ideals of the game and the type of market you described.

These gamers are interesting in killing stuff. They want to get right to the action. But they also want to kill stuff in ways that are exciting to them.

Traits are dull to these gamers. They don’t care about passives. Why should they? Very few of them actually change the way you play. Much easier to just do your own thing and look up a cookie-cutter way of setting up these dull passives.

With active skills, on the other hand, players are fully aware that they have received a new animation, a new effect, and a new way to “kill stuff.” That’s considerably different. It means that there is a visceral effect that the player can test and decide to utilize or to not utilize.

“Killing stuff” and getting right to the action with no “the game starts now” at the end of the game bullkitten brings these gamers in. It does not, however, hold their attentions in the same way that a system that says, in simple terms, “here’s a new way to kill stuff” does.

Duke Blackrose.4981:

The funny thing is that the system I’m suggesting is entirely compatible with the ideals of the game and the type of market you described.

These gamers are interesting in killing stuff. They want to get right to the action. But they also want to kill stuff in ways that are exciting to them.

Traits are dull to these gamers. They don’t care about passives. Why should they? Very few of them actually change the way you play. Much easier to just do your own thing and look up a cookie-cutter way of setting up these dull passives.

With active skills, on the other hand, players are fully aware that they have received a new animation, a new effect, and a new way to “kill stuff.” That’s considerably different. It means that there is a visceral effect that the player can test and decide to utilize or to not utilize.

“Killing stuff” and getting right to the action with no “the game starts now” at the end of the game bullkitten brings these gamers in. It does not, however, hold their attentions in the same way that a system that says, in simple terms, “here’s a new way to kill stuff” does.

And I’m sorry, but I think you’re wrong. They won’t be particularly interested in new skills either, if anything, they’ll find it irritating. I know a lot of people I talked to about GW1 found the massive number of skills and “deck building” to be a failing rather than a benefit. They just want a set of 8 skills that they could use in any and all situations and be done with it. They’d be playing Call of Duty if it didn’t have such a high skill floor in order to be any good at it.

What they like to do you find horribly boring (and I’d actually agree). But it’s the way they like to play, and they are currently the pie that every MMO is fighting for a piece of.

Vayne.8563:

Traditional end games tend to make the community more competive rather than cooperative. I wanted a cooperative non-competitive PvE experience to enjoy with friends. This game offers that.

At least in the open world content I play GW2 is far more competitive than cooperative. Helping another player means potentially not getting credit, or at least not full credit, for the events I play. The game punishes me for stopping my DPS to rezz another player. Conversely the game will reward me for ignoring players who need my assistance in order to maintain maximum possible damage output.

It didn’t used to be like this…or at least not to this degree. I think that the Megaserver is a net gain for the game, but it needs tweaks to prevent some of the current situations where it makes the PvE game more competitive and less cooperative.

Duke Blackrose.4981:

chemiclord.3978:

Duke Blackrose.4981:

It’s still less problematic then not having much potential build variety at all.

It’s much more important that options to change up one’s playstyle exist than that they all be competitive with one another.

The existence of cookie cutters doesn’t undermine a system or make it less valuable. It’s simply an inevitability that cannot be avoided – only worked with. Of course, working with it is going to involve getting a better skill balancer than Isaiah.

It really depends on who your target audience is.

GW1 had a very strong niche. That is absolutely true. But I’m not particularly convinced that the wider audience GW2 needs to stay afloat would be interested in it. Hell, from what I understand, there was a depressing percentage of players who never even LOOKED at their traits in this game (and probably still don’t really), much less experimented with them. Seeing pages of skills would at best be received with indifference, at worst with “I quit.”

I just think a lot of people on this forum don’t understand the “average” MMO player, and that is the group (and perhaps sadly the majority), more and more developers are targeting, simply because that’s where the money is. If you’re a subscription model, you love those players because they’ll drop $15 a month and not particularly complain too much (for whatever reason). If you’re a free to play model, you REALLY love them, because they will be much more inclined to drop X amount of cash dollars rather than jump through hoops (if you even provide those hoops at all).

These players really don’t care about gear. They really don’t care about difficulty (in fact, they often ABHOR difficulty). They’re not interested in “work”, learning rotations, optimal gear sets, strategies, etc. They aren’t particularly inclined towards dungeons, PvP, raids, endgame, whatever.

They don’t accept the axiom of “the game starts now” at max level. They just want to kill stuff with the way they’ve become used to in the process of leveling up, maybe an hour a day, maybe two if they have the time. If they see something they want, and it’s available for cold hard cash, they’ll just buy it.

Welcome to the new world of MMOs. Whether you think that’s good or bad doesn’t really matter, because I don’t think it’ll be changing any time soon.

The funny thing is that the system I’m suggesting is entirely compatible with the ideals of the game and the type of market you described.

These gamers are interesting in killing stuff. They want to get right to the action. But they also want to kill stuff in ways that are exciting to them.

Traits are dull to these gamers. They don’t care about passives. Why should they? Very few of them actually change the way you play. Much easier to just do your own thing and look up a cookie-cutter way of setting up these dull passives.

With active skills, on the other hand, players are fully aware that they have received a new animation, a new effect, and a new way to “kill stuff.” That’s considerably different. It means that there is a visceral effect that the player can test and decide to utilize or to not utilize.

“Killing stuff” and getting right to the action with no “the game starts now” at the end of the game bullkitten brings these gamers in. It does not, however, hold their attentions in the same way that a system that says, in simple terms, “here’s a new way to kill stuff” does.

I agree with this. Even in the most of the “casualest” enviroments experimenting with skills and diffrent combinations of those skills is always fun. I like the idea of new skills and possibly even a Skill Tree system.

Ashen.2907:

Vayne.8563:

Traditional end games tend to make the community more competive rather than cooperative. I wanted a cooperative non-competitive PvE experience to enjoy with friends. This game offers that.

At least in the open world content I play GW2 is far more competitive than cooperative. Helping another player means potentially not getting credit, or at least not full credit, for the events I play. The game punishes me for stopping my DPS to rezz another player. Conversely the game will reward me for ignoring players who need my assistance in order to maintain maximum possible damage output.

It didn’t used to be like this…or at least not to this degree. I think that the Megaserver is a net gain for the game, but it needs tweaks to prevent some of the current situations where it makes the PvE game more competitive and less cooperative.

The only tweak it needs is for developers to finally label “amount of health restored/allies revived while within the event’s circle” as assistance provided towards completion. Which up to now makes no sense as to why hasn’t it been applied.
What, “too abusable” was the explanation? Gee I am sure AOE zerging everything is much more balanced and not at all flawed.

I have the same feeling as the OP. However I think the discussion here is heading in wrong direction. What we should be discussing is not if there is or is not an “end-game”. (whatever that is).

If you log into the game and you are having fun, you will want to log in again the next day.

The question is: since the majority of time in GW2, when you actually play the game (not chat with friends) everybody spends on fighting, what makes that activity fun, even after many hours of playtime?

For me: nothing. I expect that for the OP it is the same. So what is left for us?

No matter what kind of “end-game” is developed if it will still require me to turn on my auto attack and watch for incoming one-shots with big telegraph that should be dodged → playing will not be fun. It will feel repetetive and boring. Adding content where in addition I need to listen to the team-speak of my world and stand in “correct” place will not change that.

Combat needs to be fun because it is most basic thing we do in this game. If something is repeated thousands of times in exactly the same way it will stop being fun no matter how much fun it was at first.

The only solution I see for that is providing encounter and build varieties. So that each fight is as different from previous one as possible. And if it will not be enough, players should instantly at no cost (or at a cost they are able to pay before they get bored with previous build) be able to change their build so that they can now play through the same set of encounters and have a different game.

So it is not a content we are lacking. It is the broken mechanics of the game. In theory there is a build variety, but in practice the variety is gated and costs a lot of in-game gold. The AI and skills of enemies are so broken that each build conquers the encounter in exactly same way. So even with existing build variety it doesn’t matter. You end up doing the same no matter what build you play and against what kind of monster you fight. The only thing you care about is dealing max DPS and for some professions there is one correct rotation or maybe even just auto attack or one skill.

I think there is a certain percentage of players that don’t really care about builds. Traits, runes, sigils…all that stuff. If it seems better (higher rarity) than what they had before, it’s all good. Some people don’t care about min/maxing.

The question is, and only ArenaNet has the metrics, are these type of players a sizable percentage. I know the people I play with don’t really bother with those kinds of things. /shrug

So, although ArenaNet’s goal may be to try to provide some content for everyone, there may be priorities skewed toward the larger percentages of players. Or….it could be something else entirely. We may never truly know.

Inculpatus cedo.9234:

I think there is a certain percentage of players that don’t really care about builds. Traits, runes, sigils…all that stuff. If it seems better (higher rarity) than what they had before, it’s all good. Some people don’t care about min/maxing.

The question is, and only ArenaNet has the metrics, are these type of players a sizable percentage. I know the people I play with don’t really bother with those kinds of things. /shrug

So, although ArenaNet’s goal may be to try to provide some content for everyone, there may be priorities skewed toward the larger percentages of players. Or….it could be something else entirely. We may never truly know.

Maybe they don’t care because in this game every build works… If there was more specific skills that would change the playstyle of your charecter they would be more inclined towards exploring more of those skills.
Traits in this, and now speaking for myself, have the worse and most boring layout In the entire game… It looks like something out of alpha! No icons or anything on your traits really makes it boring to look at… Also numbers to identify something is sooooo 1980…
But getting back to my original topic on this post, skills would have to have more influence on the game in order for people to even star caring about them, and this is something that would require a lot of work, I think…

Godzzila.3752:

Taygus.4571:

Godzzila.3752:

Taygus.4571:

SkiTz.4590:

Taygus.4571:

SkiTz.4590:

Vayne.8563:

Nick.6972:

Compare the open world content to high level Fractals.
Which gets more frequent updates and new content.
Now. Which gets played more often? Which one doesn’t because of the lack of updates and repetitiveness?

FOTM alone is makes less than 1% of the whole the available PvE content hence gets played far less.

And I’ve never heard of Lord Of The Rings online.
Provide the same info with Wildstar.

snip

You think GW2 has a massive player base? (not including china) I would be shocked if theres even close to 50k concurrent players at peak times in EU+NA

snip

Right..
how often id lv50 fractals completed?
Do you play lv50 fracs? in zerk ascended gear?

How often does arah get completed? (can you solo arah? )
or TA aetherblade path?

The majority of the community don’t want to even aim to be able to complete them.

And most importantly, for the hardcore players, how long do these dungeons stay challenging?

High lvl fracs is about the only thing I do with my group of guildies… its pretty kitten easy when you are with a group who knows what they are doing.done plenty of em, the only reason we continue to do them is because of fractal skins.. they aren’t hard at all, and yes, all of us run em in ascended zerk gear… why bother with any other type of gear in PvE?

Soloing a dung? why on earth do I want to waste time doing that? This is an MMO, if I want to solo, I play single player games lol. People play MMOs to do fun and challenging content with their group of friends…I would be bored to death if I’m soloing a freaking dung. Dungs also have pathetic rewards lol.

Then pug them, for the extra challenge. Those questions were for Godzella anyway.

If you solo arah, you can sell the spots for pretty decent “reward”.

However you’ve totally ignored the point of my questions.
How MANY people actually do it?
How many people actually want challenging content?
and How long does it stay challenging for the hardcore player?

No company can produce content quick enough for hardcore players, and tbh, it’s not worth it to them, to try. As you’re a minority.

This game as about 15~20% of its original playerbase. Yeah, I guess we are a minority :P

Numbers off the top of your head? links for proof please.

snip

btw, I noticed you compared an mmo to games like Dark Souls, a single player game.

If you want to look at things that end. There are more casual games, with a total of FAR higher sold numbers, than your hardcore games

Point number one: I Didn’t Compare This Game to Dark Souls – I said that games being more and more casual is NOT TRUE and used Dark Souls as an example.

Number two:
xFire makes statistics for games of the people that use their application. As of the release date the game used to have peaks of 16ks players (people that use xFire), as of right now it tends to peak with 2ks of players when a new patch is released while most of the time it sits at 500~1k.
http://social.xfire.com/games/gw2
Also, as of the release date of the game:
http://1.bp.blogspot.com/-L42n7YnkFwY/UG0QkxAOmuI/AAAAAAAAAYo/d9hpl81D9xA/s1600/google_trends_combined_wow_and_pandaria.png

Dark Souls is a niche game. Compare its sales to a game like Skyrim and you’ll find it suffers severely. And yes lots of people bought it, but how many have finished it? How many bought it due to advertising and hype, tried for it for a bit and never touched it again because it was too hard. You have no idea.

And why is Dark Souls one of the tiny percentage of games that appeals to that audience. How many games are actually advertsied for being mega hard? Darksouls and…Dark Souls 2. Oh look. I can’t think of many more.

I’m talking about a trend. You’re sayign there’s no global warming because we had a cold day. The argument doesn’t really wash. Look I can think of an example it must be true.

All trends have contrary examples. Those examples prove the rule. I mean why would Dark Souls be advertised in this dark niche if it was a prevalent thing. Games have gotten much much easier.

Because if you tried to come out today with a game like Ultima 4, no one would play it. Or people would just run to the internet, look at a website on how to cheat through it, and that’s how they’d win.

Vayne.8563:

Dark Souls is a niche game. Compare its sales to a game like Skyrim and you’ll find it suffers severely. And yes lots of people bought it, but how many have finished it? How many bought it due to advertising and hype, tried for it for a bit and never touched it again because it was too hard. You have no idea.

And why is Dark Souls one of the tiny percentage of games that appeals to that audience. How many games are actually advertsied for being mega hard? Darksouls and…Dark Souls 2. Oh look. I can’t think of many more.

I’m talking about a trend. You’re sayign there’s no global warming because we had a cold day. The argument doesn’t really wash. Look I can think of an example it must be true.

All trends have contrary examples. Those examples prove the rule. I mean why would Dark Souls be advertised in this dark niche if it was a prevalent thing. Games have gotten much much easier.

Because if you tried to come out today with a game like Ultima 4, no one would play it. Or people would just run to the internet, look at a website on how to cheat through it, and that’s how they’d win.

So im not even going to bother going through this again, I will just for the last time in this topic say:
I NEVER SAID IT HAD TO BE kitten-HARD CONTENT, I SAID: CHALLENGING AND REWARDFULL CONTENT, WHICH BY ANY MEANS MEAN IT HAS TO BE HARDCORE MATERIAL, IN FACT, THE HARDCORE JUST CAME INTO TOPIC WHEN SOMEONE RANDOMLY SAID THAT PEOPLE WEREN’T PLAYING THE HARDEST PARTS IN A GAME. TRIALS EVOLUTION IS CHALLENGING AND REWARDFUL, HOWEVER IT IS NOT EVEN CLOSE TO BEING HARDCORE.

Sorry for caps…

Vayne.8563:

Dark Souls is a niche game. Compare its sales to a game like Skyrim and you’ll find it suffers severely. And yes lots of people bought it, but how many have finished it? How many bought it due to advertising and hype, tried for it for a bit and never touched it again because it was too hard. You have no idea.

And why is Dark Souls one of the tiny percentage of games that appeals to that audience. How many games are actually advertsied for being mega hard? Darksouls and…Dark Souls 2. Oh look. I can’t think of many more.

I’m talking about a trend. You’re sayign there’s no global warming because we had a cold day. The argument doesn’t really wash. Look I can think of an example it must be true.

All trends have contrary examples. Those examples prove the rule. I mean why would Dark Souls be advertised in this dark niche if it was a prevalent thing. Games have gotten much much easier.

Because if you tried to come out today with a game like Ultima 4, no one would play it. Or people would just run to the internet, look at a website on how to cheat through it, and that’s how they’d win.

With something like Dark Souls, you also have to consider its other factors.

Dark Souls is a straight up ugly game. It has an art style that combines the worst aspects of realism (ugly, gritty characters ala Skyrim) with the worst aspects of more cartoonish games (lower detail and texture quality). The result, when you combine it with the game’s frequent tendency to give you mix-matched armor parts that don’t mesh well together, is an experience that tests your eyes every bit as much as your skill.

Dark Souls is touted for its difficulty. Nothing more. It isn’t acclaimed for an exceptional story. It isn’t an enormously deep experience – it’s just a difficult one. It doesn’t have the massive open world of a game like Skyrim or the sheer adrenaline and fluidity of other action combat games like Kingdoms of Amalur. It’s just difficult.

So, to really drive that point home, it’s a more niche title than something like Mass Effect 2 or Dragon Age Inquisition because these other titles are just all-around more interesting. They are more aesthetically pleasing. They are deeper. They are better from a narrative perspective. They can challenge or compell the player in ways that aren’t just “WOW, THAT’S DIFFICULT.”

So much of the emphasis of “what is a hardcore game” is put on difficulty, but what of other aspects of gameplay that are more universal and more important. Immersion. Depth. Customization. Roleplaying. None of these are typically traits of a game that one would call casual.

Godzzila.3752:

Inculpatus cedo.9234:

I think there is a certain percentage of players that don’t really care about builds. Traits, runes, sigils…all that stuff. If it seems better (higher rarity) than what they had before, it’s all good. Some people don’t care about min/maxing.

The question is, and only ArenaNet has the metrics, are these type of players a sizable percentage. I know the people I play with don’t really bother with those kinds of things. /shrug

So, although ArenaNet’s goal may be to try to provide some content for everyone, there may be priorities skewed toward the larger percentages of players. Or….it could be something else entirely. We may never truly know.

Maybe they don’t care because in this game every build works… If there was more specific skills that would change the playstyle of your charecter they would be more inclined towards exploring more of those skills.
Traits in this, and now speaking for myself, have the worse and most boring layout In the entire game… It looks like something out of alpha! No icons or anything on your traits really makes it boring to look at… Also numbers to identify something is sooooo 1980…
But getting back to my original topic on this post, skills would have to have more influence on the game in order for people to even star caring about them, and this is something that would require a lot of work, I think…

I’m pretty sure that’s not the case. But, it likely doesn’t matter, as it doesn’t support your views. I post more so that the Devs can see there are other opinions, likes, dislikes, whatever that pertain to a subject.

Good luck on getting whatever it is you want in-game. As long as it is not at the expense of what is enjoyable to others. =)

Inculpatus cedo.9234:

Godzzila.3752:

Inculpatus cedo.9234:

I think there is a certain percentage of players that don’t really care about builds. Traits, runes, sigils…all that stuff. If it seems better (higher rarity) than what they had before, it’s all good. Some people don’t care about min/maxing.

The question is, and only ArenaNet has the metrics, are these type of players a sizable percentage. I know the people I play with don’t really bother with those kinds of things. /shrug

So, although ArenaNet’s goal may be to try to provide some content for everyone, there may be priorities skewed toward the larger percentages of players. Or….it could be something else entirely. We may never truly know.

Maybe they don’t care because in this game every build works… If there was more specific skills that would change the playstyle of your charecter they would be more inclined towards exploring more of those skills.
Traits in this, and now speaking for myself, have the worse and most boring layout In the entire game… It looks like something out of alpha! No icons or anything on your traits really makes it boring to look at… Also numbers to identify something is sooooo 1980…
But getting back to my original topic on this post, skills would have to have more influence on the game in order for people to even star caring about them, and this is something that would require a lot of work, I think…

I’m pretty sure that’s not the case. But, it likely doesn’t matter, as it doesn’t support your views. I post more so that the Devs can see there are other opinions, likes, dislikes, whatever that pertain to a subject.

Good luck on getting whatever it is you want in-game. As long as it is not at the expense of what is enjoyable to others. =)

Heh, well tbh I don’t expect this to actually have any impact what so ever in the game’s path. In fact I’m just waiting for the next Feature Patch, and after they flop that up I will probably be migrating to Wild Star once and for all… sadly…

Godzzila.3752:

So I have been playing since day 1 beta, I come to the game for a while, and then go and then come back, and everytime I come back I am reminded of why I left in the first place… There is absolutly no endgame… You either farm for a legendary or play the same fractals over, and over, and over, and over, and over again… The new LS season added Dry Top as a new map, which is an amazing map, I really like it, but it took me about 1 hour to see everything new in the map, and then about 1 day to get through all the 3 new “quests” and after that… Back to the “just sitting around” content, where there is no point in doing anything other than farm for a slightly better looking charecter…
Is there any new endgame planed? Like better dungeon mechanics and stuff?
I feel like right now this game as no way to keep anyone interested in it for more than a few months…

The solution is simple. Take a few months off from the game and come back to it when there is more story to unlock.

Last week I started playing again for the first time again since October. The game feels somewhat fresh again.

I’m sure that feeling will wear off within another week or two but for now I’m enjoying the game again and when I do eventually get bored of it I will take another break. Since there is no sub there is no need to feel like you have to log in and play every day to get the most out of it.

Godzzila.3752:

Inculpatus cedo.9234:

Godzzila.3752:

Inculpatus cedo.9234:

I think there is a certain percentage of players that don’t really care about builds. Traits, runes, sigils…all that stuff. If it seems better (higher rarity) than what they had before, it’s all good. Some people don’t care about min/maxing.

The question is, and only ArenaNet has the metrics, are these type of players a sizable percentage. I know the people I play with don’t really bother with those kinds of things. /shrug

So, although ArenaNet’s goal may be to try to provide some content for everyone, there may be priorities skewed toward the larger percentages of players. Or….it could be something else entirely. We may never truly know.

Maybe they don’t care because in this game every build works… If there was more specific skills that would change the playstyle of your charecter they would be more inclined towards exploring more of those skills.
Traits in this, and now speaking for myself, have the worse and most boring layout In the entire game… It looks like something out of alpha! No icons or anything on your traits really makes it boring to look at… Also numbers to identify something is sooooo 1980…
But getting back to my original topic on this post, skills would have to have more influence on the game in order for people to even star caring about them, and this is something that would require a lot of work, I think…

I’m pretty sure that’s not the case. But, it likely doesn’t matter, as it doesn’t support your views. I post more so that the Devs can see there are other opinions, likes, dislikes, whatever that pertain to a subject.

Good luck on getting whatever it is you want in-game. As long as it is not at the expense of what is enjoyable to others. =)

Heh, well tbh I don’t expect this to actually have any impact what so ever in the game’s path. In fact I’m just waiting for the next Feature Patch, and after they flop that up I will probably be migrating to Wild Star once and for all… sadly…

Honestly from what I’ve seen Wildstar is probably a better game for you (and therefore a much worse game for me).

Duke Blackrose.4981:

Vayne.8563:

Dark Souls is a niche game. Compare its sales to a game like Skyrim and you’ll find it suffers severely. And yes lots of people bought it, but how many have finished it? How many bought it due to advertising and hype, tried for it for a bit and never touched it again because it was too hard. You have no idea.

And why is Dark Souls one of the tiny percentage of games that appeals to that audience. How many games are actually advertsied for being mega hard? Darksouls and…Dark Souls 2. Oh look. I can’t think of many more.

I’m talking about a trend. You’re sayign there’s no global warming because we had a cold day. The argument doesn’t really wash. Look I can think of an example it must be true.

All trends have contrary examples. Those examples prove the rule. I mean why would Dark Souls be advertised in this dark niche if it was a prevalent thing. Games have gotten much much easier.

Because if you tried to come out today with a game like Ultima 4, no one would play it. Or people would just run to the internet, look at a website on how to cheat through it, and that’s how they’d win.

With something like Dark Souls, you also have to consider its other factors.

Dark Souls is a straight up ugly game. It has an art style that combines the worst aspects of realism (ugly, gritty characters ala Skyrim) with the worst aspects of more cartoonish games (lower detail and texture quality). The result, when you combine it with the game’s frequent tendency to give you mix-matched armor parts that don’t mesh well together, is an experience that tests your eyes every bit as much as your skill.

Dark Souls is touted for its difficulty. Nothing more. It isn’t acclaimed for an exceptional story. It isn’t an enormously deep experience – it’s just a difficult one. It doesn’t have the massive open world of a game like Skyrim or the sheer adrenaline and fluidity of other action combat games like Kingdoms of Amalur. It’s just difficult.

So, to really drive that point home, it’s a more niche title than something like Mass Effect 2 or Dragon Age Inquisition because these other titles are just all-around more interesting. They are more aesthetically pleasing. They are deeper. They are better from a narrative perspective. They can challenge or compell the player in ways that aren’t just “WOW, THAT’S DIFFICULT.”

So much of the emphasis of “what is a hardcore game” is put on difficulty, but what of other aspects of gameplay that are more universal and more important. Immersion. Depth. Customization. Roleplaying. None of these are typically traits of a game that one would call casual.

This is perhaps the most inaccurate description I’ve read of what is actually a phenomenal game.

The art style is gritty, sure. Ugly? Absolutely not. The visual aesthetic nailed the exact tone it was going for; dark and disturbing. You may not like that tone, but you can’t argue that it intentionally did it quite well. And I simply have to laugh at the armor comment. The players nickname it Fashion Souls due to the sheer number of good-looking combinations that can be created with the myriad of armor pieces (and you literally trip over matching sets in the game to boot).

The story, if you bothered to pay attention, is actually quite awesome. However, it requires you to read item descriptions. I know, reading is hard. However, if you did it you’d find that Dark Souls has a deeply developed story with some very interesting and tragic characters. It also forces the player to make a moral choice about the outcome of the game that is still ambiguous enough to claim either ending is “good”.

And to say the combat system isn’t “fluid” is hilarious. Did you spam attacks, run out of stamina and get back-stabbed your first few minutes into the game? For a game that uses a very small amount of inputs, I find the combat system far deeper, more fluid, and more visually pleasing than Guild Wars 2. Let’s not fail to mention the ridiculous amount of VIABLE weapons as well.

Anyone who says that all Dark Souls has going for it is difficulty is a person who never truly played the game. I stand by that assertion.

Also, calling 2.3 million sales a “niche” game is hilarious. Especially when another game mentioned, Kingdoms of Amalur, only sold 330,000 copies and actually led to the bankruptcy of its creators.

I’m not sure at what point did this topic turned into Dark Souls vs Guild Wars 2… But I don’t think it is on-topic

Godzzila.3752:

I’m not sure at what point did this topic turned into Dark Souls vs Guild Wars 2… But I don’t think it is on-topic

You’re absolutely correct. I just couldn’t allow such a ridiculously false post to stand uncorrected.

ON-topic: That being said, I find myself playing Dark Souls 2 FAR more than Guild Wars 2 (which at this juncture is roughly 0 hours a week) despite it being a single player game with no “endgame” save the arenas. Why? Because it’s actually fun and there’s tons of builds to experiment with.

NewTrain.7549:

Godzzila.3752:

I’m not sure at what point did this topic turned into Dark Souls vs Guild Wars 2… But I don’t think it is on-topic

You’re absolutely correct. I just couldn’t allow such a ridiculously false post to stand uncorrected.

ON-topic: That being said, I find myself playing Dark Souls 2 FAR more than Guild Wars 2 (which at this juncture is roughly 0 hours a week) despite it being a single player game with no “endgame” save the arenas. Why? Because it’s actually fun and there’s tons of builds to experiment with.

Sans (maybe) the PvP, the Souls series has zero “endgame”. What it does have is loads of replayability. New Game+, the huge amount of variable and viable builds, the open-ended character and story progression, and the rewarding combat are just some of the major facets that give the game inherent longevity.

Honestly, I’m not too big a fan on the idea of “endgame”. I just want a really solid and replayable game – and unless you find the rewards enticing, I find GW2 to lack a lot of it. To be fair, I felt the same for GW1, but it had loads more due to the amount of customization.

PS and off-topic: The new Dark Souls 2 DLC is well worth it, if you’ve yet to grab it.

I dont think alot of ppl lf more difficulty, but something different repetable for some kind of reward as should be fractals, but fotm is not too different, you have to stack, max dps and go, your party is ever 5 ppl… maybe some kind of fractal raid with bosses as drytop (more mechanics less stacking and one shotting) and some roles allow player to play classes differently, we have a tons of sets but everyone wanna go zerk just cause is better.. in other games u have roles, party should also split up with some npc for some kind of purposes..
Someone should say it will be hard to find some teammates.. i thing some guild mission is harder too w/o ppl
In this game is pretty easy have some classes and buy new kind of armor wi dungeon token or gold or badge of honor, so why dont make a special raid with a large party with different roles?

Smith.1826:

NewTrain.7549:

Godzzila.3752:

I’m not sure at what point did this topic turned into Dark Souls vs Guild Wars 2… But I don’t think it is on-topic

You’re absolutely correct. I just couldn’t allow such a ridiculously false post to stand uncorrected.

ON-topic: That being said, I find myself playing Dark Souls 2 FAR more than Guild Wars 2 (which at this juncture is roughly 0 hours a week) despite it being a single player game with no “endgame” save the arenas. Why? Because it’s actually fun and there’s tons of builds to experiment with.

Sans (maybe) the PvP, the Souls series has zero “endgame”. What it does have is loads of replayability. New Game+, the huge amount of variable and viable builds, the open-ended character and story progression, and the rewarding combat are just some of the major facets that give the game inherent longevity.

Honestly, I’m not too big a fan on the idea of “endgame”. I just want a really solid and replayable game – and unless you find the rewards enticing, I find GW2 to lack a lot of it. To be fair, I felt the same for GW1, but it had loads more due to the amount of customization.

PS and off-topic: The new Dark Souls 2 DLC is well worth it, if you’ve yet to grab it.

endgame is in dark souls II, its really well designed, it basically is the fact that the game scales in difficulty the higher you get, and that enemies eventually get killed off till the new difficulty. You also have an extremely high leveling potential.

So essentially you have non stop leveling
difficulty increase the more you play(better drops, more exp)
rare(that actually change playstyle) items to hunt, that you can specifically target
many different builds.
And more fun designed fights that dont take forever

essentially GW2 is missing the variable difficulty, rare item hunting, and much smaller growth curve.
so i think if gw2 added hard modes with new monsters/layouts
special items with special abilities that dont suck
more growth (probably via skills/traits) that are easier to get with scaling difficulty content
people probably wouldnt complain about endgame, however there might be other complaints.

To me, endgame is meaningful repeatable activity.

phys.7689:

endgame is in dark souls II, its really well designed, it basically is the fact that the game scales in difficulty the higher you get, and that enemies eventually get killed off till the new difficulty. You also have an extremely high leveling potential.

So essentially you have non stop leveling
difficulty increase the more you play(better drops, more exp)
rare(that actually change playstyle) items to hunt, that you can specifically target
many different builds.
And more fun designed fights that dont take forever

I guess I don’t really consider this “endgame”. I’ve usually associated it with the point where you rush to reach max level and say “alright, so where’s the good content?” In the Souls’ games it really boils down to just beating the game over and over – which, obviously, is very strong in the Souls series.

Perhaps my idea of the term ‘endgame’ is colored do to the association with typical MMOs, and I don’t think it does the Souls games much justice. Maybe my perception of MMOs has grown poorly due to so many unpleasant gaming experiences that I just don’t like the terminology :P

i look at endgame as what you can do when you beat the game, in GW2 things dont evolve much past level 80, and map complete/story complete.
they do have items to hunt, but they dont change your playstyle (would probably be better if gear and sigils were unlocks) and the game doesnt have much in the way of variability, or difficulty, or even much benefit/loss for how well or not well you play.

So essentially it gets boring during “endgame” time frame.

yeah its a very stale game at level 80.

there is no depth to this game. i play it everyday just to do the daily, so when the times comes that there is actual DEPTH to the game i got alot of laurels and gold to spend for it.

but until then its just a chore.

id like to see the following:
-City Raids
-racial Fights ( char vs Human )
-Combat mini ( pokemon type of mini game)
- more achieveable Factions ( Priory, Whisperers, Vigal are not enough)
- world pvp
-Unpredictable Dynamic events ( we can predict boss spawns make it boring)
- more Non racial citys. ( lions arch is the only one we have…again boring.)
-more level 80 content in low level areas.( we are stuck to a handful of 80 content)

Zardul.3952:

id like to see the following:
-City Raids
-racial Fights ( char vs Human )
- world pvp

-more level 80 content in low level areas.( we are stuck to a handful of 80 content)

All things i never ever want to see in this game. If you want Gankwars .. there are
enough other games out there ..

And level 80 content in starter areas ????