Guild Wars 2

Is it just me or does Guild Wars 2 do everything that it possibly can to keep you from playing with your friends?

I have a few IRL friends that also play GW2. We made a guild together at launch, but 4-5 people isn’t really enough to sustain a guild full time, so I had to join another more active guild to actually glean benefits like guild perks and a pool of people to recruit for dungeons. Since then, I’ve found that it’s basically impossible to play with my friends without setting up pre-arranged playtime through out-of-game means, because the game itself does absolutely everything in its power to get in my way.

1. I seldom have any idea if my friends are even online. As a rule, I don’t spend all my time compulsively bringing up the friends list, so there’s no way to reliably find out. In theory, the game notifies you when your friends log in/out. In practice, this notification is buried in the Game Messages section of chat, which also contains loot, and no sane person keeps it as a part of their main chat window.

2. Even if I somehow discover they’re online, there are some serious limitations on what we can do together. None of us are very into PVP, so that leaves PVE content. We only manage a full party of 5 once a month or so, so it’s mostly world PVE. For any given group of characters that we might want to play at the moment, it can be very hard to find content both that’s within the acceptable level range for the lower levels in the party and not something the higher levels have already done.

World PVE (pre-80) centers around map completion, and I’m sure I don’t have to tell you how skull crushingly boring it is to tag along with someone else while they work on a map you’ve already finished. Aside from the occasional event it boils down to babysitting them, or sometimes simply sitting around twiddling your thumbs while they do some of the less combat-intensive hearts. Especially since many hearts actively bar you from participating after you finish them. This is not exactly engaging or rewarding stuff, so we often end up going our separate ways.

3. When we’re doing separate things, I can’t easily talk to them. Since guild chat requires you to represent the guild you want to chat with, even if I swapped to representing my friends/family guild there’s no guarantee they would be representing it (in fact, it’s fantastically unlikely). It would be annoying to have to individually contact each one of them and beg them to represent just to have a casual conversation, not to mention that they might not want to be pulled out of whatever conversation they’re having with the guild they are representing. This makes it basically impossible to have the sort of friendly background banter we’re accustomed to in other MMORPGs.

This whole mess gives the game a very solitary feel, and really turns me off from playing as much as I otherwise would. It’s hard to find motivation to log on randomly when I know my odds of meaningful social interaction are so low. Does anyone else feel this way?

1. Whenever you or one of them logs in check the friends list and then get in touch with who’s on line. Really though, get a Vent server or something – these things are pretty much standard issue for any member of the MMO community these days I thought.

2. If the fact that you are seperated by levels and so you don’t all get the same amount of progression sought by gaming together then, plain and simple, your priority is not gaming together. In any MMO known to man if you and your friends are of different level you will have to go to there zone and help them to play together. This isn’t a condition unique to GW2 and I’m not sure what A-Net or any other company could do to change this fact. It basically comes down to the fact that you are choosing progressing your personal character over playing with your friends. All through out my MMO career me and my friends are many times at diff levels, the higher simply goes to the zone of the lower and we play together – that one is sacrificing time they could spend for progression isn’t even a consideration. We’re playing to gether, that was the whole point.

3. Again. Vent, TS, Mumble. Something. Free server and a $10 headset w/ mic from Wally World and you’re in there like the 4th stripe on Adidas.

None of this is really problems caused by A-Net’s design nor can they really do anything about them. You simply require 5 minutes to sign up for a server. A trip to Wal-Mart with $10 and an examination of your priorities – either playing with your friends is more important or your personal character’s progression is more important. That is all.

tl;dr but as for your issue finding what friends were online, once my friends list started getting fairly large I had invited my rl friends into a defunked guild that none of us represent for the sake of seeing who was online through the guild tabs.

You should do fractals with them, its where the fun is at.

Funny, i have a similar setup but none of the issues.

4 core friends, we setup our own guild and do weekly dungeon runs. We all chat in vent/skype depending on whats going on and have a blast.

Even got to the point where during the free weekend i was able to recruit a few more friends from other games to join in. Now our 5 man guild is about 12 strong. We have plenty of guild perks and influence available. The game never felt like a solitary game, every zone i go into i meet new people to adventure with and not compete against even on my 3rd /4th play through.

What’s the difference between my story and yours, probably the amount of time / effort / dedication we all have. Well and not being so lazy as to not pull up guild/friendslist.

I don’t get it…

1. They put in the option, it just isn;t…good enough for you? Oh, and people who care to see when smb logs in do have that visible. In the main chat window.

2. And that’s a GW2 problem…how exactly? You can’t be asked to do stuff with your friends, the game hasn’t locked you out of those maps. And they actually improved drops lately, I’m getting lvl 70+ whites for CF. Seriously, you have nobody to blame but yourself. Or is the game supposed to adjust all your schedules so you can always be online at the same time? That’s some serious AI you ask for there….

3. Meet party chat. This groundbreaking invention even works between servers. Half my guild is spread between different servers and we still manage to play together, yet you can’t even find ways to communicate with your real life friends. My mother lives over 2000km away and I can still talk to her whenever I want to. Welcome to the perks of the 21st century, start using them!

My group of 4 has no problem doing everything in the game ( unless it requires 5, like CoF path 1 or the more difficult temples) and we have had zero problems keeping guild buffs up.

The creature comforts and quality of life features – industry standard in other games – are woefully lacking or completely missing here. Terrible.

Mayam.8976:

Really though, get a Vent server or something – these things are pretty much standard issue for any member of the MMO community these days I thought.

Voice comm doesn’t lend itself well to background chatter in my experience. A chat channel is a far superior tool for that purpose. It’s a basic feature provided by pretty much every other MMORPG.

If the fact that you are seperated by levels and so you don’t all get the same amount of progression sought by gaming together then, plain and simple, your priority is not gaming together.

The question isn’t about “the amount of progression sought”. It’s about having to literally sit on your hands while the other person grinds something you’re not allowed to participate in anymore.

This isn’t a condition unique to GW2 and I’m not sure what A-Net or any other company could do to change this fact.

Easy! Step 1, allow players to participate in hearts they’ve already completed. Step 2, provide some minor incentive to do so (like getting a small karma bonus for helping a party member finish their heart). Step 3? Haha, hahahaha. There is no Step 3.

3. Again. Vent, TS, Mumble. Something. Free server and a $10 headset w/ mic from Wally World and you’re in there like the 4th stripe on Adidas.

Again, voice comm isn’t what I would call fit for purpose, and it’s an embarrassment that the game requires you to use an external program just to keep in touch. Custom chat channels

TWMagimay.9057:

1. They put in the option, it just isn;t…good enough for you? Oh, and people who care to see when smb logs in do have that visible. In the main chat window.

How do you actually see people chatting through all the loot spam?

2. And that’s a GW2 problem…how exactly?

Because it could easily be so much better.

3. Meet party chat.

So when I join a dungeon group I just stop talking to my friends until it’s over? That’s a bad solution if I’ve ever heard one.

Worst decision ever that I noticed you’re missing: no party join for activities (toypocalypse, keg brawl, etc.).

Latorn.4209:

Worst decision ever that I noticed you’re missing: no party join for activities (toypocalypse, keg brawl, etc.).

That too. The frustrating part is that ArenaNet seems to be making all these bad decisions (limited chat & chat customization, no group activity join, etc.) purely out of a desire to not be like WoW.

in a game that does so much to let you play with your friends. i can’t believe someone has found a way to nitpick through all this.

i mean, you even nitpick about you and your friends being picky about which content you run lol. should anet contact you constantly so they know what level you are so they can instantly release some uber fun content that just you and your friends can run once a month?

lol classic thread

Honestly, that is simply ridiculous. I managed to read most of it though.

1) I would personally like to add online/offline notices to my chat without the other stuff, but it is just as easy to press Y or G. Actually, once a decent number of contacts are added, the notices would become useless, and somewhat annoying. If you have twenty notices, you won’t likely remember each one, so pressing Y to get an overview of who is on will still be necessary.

2) If 4 are online, or even 3, pug the remaining spots for a dungeon. You’re imposing these “limitations” on yourself. If you have completed the zones that your friends are in, or they refuse to move to a different zone, then the problem is not with the game, but with you and your friends. My friends and I never have a problem finding a map to do.

You cannot play each of your characters the way you want and expect to stay in sync with your friends. If you play far more than they do, or them you, then a level gap will appear. The easy solution is to not do every zone from 1 to your level. Leave holes here and there that you can do with your friends. Once you’re 35, there is always a dungeon available. Take into consideration your friends’ current status and progress.

3) If your guild of friends is Guild A, you’re also in Guild B, and your friends are in Guild C and D, then I have this crazy idea. Why don’t, they join Guild B, or you join Guild C or D. You can have 5 guilds. Then again, you can always use mumble, skype, vent, or some other program to chat. Unless taking a little initiative to chat with them is too much of a hassle? If so, then all of this is moot.

I think a lot of what you said is a design flaw in the content delivery. Anyways, welcome to GW2. The only MMO that lacks meaningful social interaction because they decided to do away with things like balance around a trinity, inter-class dependence, well-designed, engaging instances that require real strategy, etc. Not even a face to face trade function. I really don’t know where this game is headed, but from what ive observed, i’d be kitten if i wasnt pretty sure the devs need to start looking at making fundamental changes to the game systems and mechanics present herein.

Thoom.9653:

How do you actually see people chatting through all the loot spam?

I have my chat window bigger so it displays more stuff. Also, I can actually, ya know, see stuff due to not being blind.

Because it could easily be so much better.

How exactly would that happen?

So when I join a dungeon group I just stop talking to my friends until it’s over? That’s a bad solution if I’ve ever heard one.

Yes. Or you use whatever braincells you have left and come up with a different plan. Your problems are much deeper than game design.
1. You can’t be bothered to play with your real life friends because they are holding you back.
2. You and your real life friends are in different guilds.
3. You and your real life friends have absolutely no way to communicate outside a game.
I’m starting to think, your real life friends are neither real life nor friends.

Zeldain.5710:

The creature comforts and quality of life features – industry standard in other games – are woefully lacking or completely missing here. Terrible.

Out of interest what features are common across most other games that would solve the OP’s problems? I’m genuinely asking, I haven’t seriously played another MMO since UO and that had pretty much no grouping features.

Other than a custom chat-channel, which doesn’t seem much different to guilds, parties or a 3rd party program like Skype or Vent I can’t remember hearing of anything that would help.

I’m particularly curious about what they do to solve the problem of friends with mis-matched levels since my understanding was the complete opposite – that in most games you’re locked out of other races/groups starting areas completely and locked out of your own once you out-level them and at higher levels there is no option to repeat quests (except certain daily ones in some games) and once you out-level content by more than a few levels it becomes so easy that it’s impossible for anyone else to get a hit in when playing with you and you get no rewards of any kind except drops that are next to useless at your level.

1. You have 2 friends lists – one custom and one for your guild(s). You can check either at any time to find out when your friends are online. If you find yourself missing the notifications you might want to look into the options for the chat window to see if there are any channels/notifications you don’t often use and can turn off to simplify it. Remember you can create different tabs with different options so it doesn’t have to be an all or nothing choice.

2. This I guess depends largely on how you want to play. If you’re a few people short for a dungeon you could pick up some PUGs or recruit people from one of your guilds. Personally I don’t mind repeating PVE content. True you can’t repeat hearts but hearts are a very small part of PVE. I often find at least one DE I haven’t seen before when repeating areas I thought I knew well. Since they fixed the drops it shouldn’t even be an issue of not getting decent loot for your time.

3. You’re talking about a relatively small number of people and you apparently like much the same things – why don’t you all join the same guild instead of each being in seperate ones and having an additional one to talk to each other? I also don’t understand why using a 3rd party program is such an issue. Most guilds, even ones that require people to be representing 100% of the time also have Skype, Vent, Mumble etc. channel so they have multiple options for how to talk to each other. With real life friends I would have thought you’d have even more options.

Alternatively it might be worth planning your meet-ups the same way you (presumably) do in real life. What you’re doing at the moment is the online equivelent of going into town and wandering around hoping your friends have had the same idea at the same time. You’d never really do that – you’d arrange a time and place to meet in advance, so why not do the same in-game? Plan a time to meet and an activity to do and then do it. Or call/text them when you know you’re going to be in-game for a while and ask if they want to meet up.

TWMagimay.9057:

1. You can’t be bothered to play with your real life friends because they are holding you back.

It’s not an issue of “holding me back”. It’s an issue of the higher level in a mismatched pair having literally nothing to do but stick their thumb up their kitten and wait around for about half the play time. But I’m willing to concede that’s how it’s supposed to be if it makes you happy.

2. You and your real life friends are in different guilds.

Yes, and? I find it hard to believe this is a particularly uncommon situation.

3. You and your real life friends have absolutely no way to communicate outside a game.

We have plenty of ways to communicate outside the game. What I’m complaining about is that we have no good way to communicate inside the game.

Danikat.8537:

If you find yourself missing the notifications you might want to look into the options for the chat window to see if there are any channels/notifications you don’t often use and can turn off to simplify it.

What I’d like to turn off is loot. That’s the thing that gets in the way. There’s no way to have the friend notifications without loot spam.

True you can’t repeat hearts but hearts are a very small part of PVE. I often find at least one DE I haven’t seen before when repeating areas I thought I knew well.

This hasn’t been my experience at all. When I’m roaming the world I generally spend 10-15 minutes between DEs now that most zones are empty of players. If I don’t have hearts to work on in a zone (pre-Orr, anyway — Orr is obviously designed around not having hearts), things get really boring really quick.

Edit: I just spent 90 minutes in Lornar’s Pass, and found a grand total of 2 events that entire time. Events are simply not frequent enough to be the bread and butter of gameplay.

3. You’re talking about a relatively small number of people and you apparently like much the same things – why don’t you all join the same guild instead of each being in seperate ones and having an additional one to talk to each other?

Because most guilds probably wouldn’t appreciate having their chat channel flooded with our private banter and in-jokes.

Alternatively it might be worth planning your meet-ups the same way you (presumably) do in real life. What you’re doing at the moment is the online equivelent of going into town and wandering around hoping your friends have had the same idea at the same time. You’d never really do that

Except we always used to do that. It worked fine for six years in WoW, because WoW gave us the tools to be casually social while playing the game.

Danikat.8537:

Other than a custom chat-channel, which doesn’t seem much different to guilds, parties or a 3rd party program like Skype or Vent I can’t remember hearing of anything that would help.

Custom chat channels are very different from guilds and parties because you can have as many of them as you like, simultaneously. If I could chat with all of my guilds without switching representation, I would be completely happy.

I’m particularly curious about what they do to solve the problem of friends with mis-matched levels since my understanding was the complete opposite

They don’t solve it at all. Guild Wars 2 is better than other games in this respect, I’m just disappointed they don’t go as far as they could have.

You’re blaming Anet for not being able to play with friends because you guys play the same content at separate times, a lvl gap forms and you, or they, cant go back and redo the content thats already been done? Why dont you do what I did in WoW for the past 5 years, since you like bringing that game up alot. Make toons that you only play when each other are online and your own guild for them. They may not level up quickly but at least you’ll be able to play the exact same content at the same time as your friends and communicate the way you want.

Why go back to doing things like worse games, when Guild Wars 2 has the potential to be so much better?

I do that in this game. One of my friends only gets to play about an hour a night. The times he is on I lvl an alt with him. I was just giving WoW as an example because you’ve brought it up alot. The communication issues you have, I cant comment on those because we know what Skype is for.

So the general consensus in the thread is that people should have to resort to out of game communication tools, because the in-game social experience in this Massively Multiplayer Online RPG will never be adequate, and nobody should ever dare to think that it could be.

Cool.

I’ve always used Skype, for personal friends, or Vent, for guilds, in every MMO that I’ve played and will continue to do so. Hell, the first time my guild cleared Naxx in WotLK we were all in an xbox live party because someone couldnt load their vent lol. Is it really that hard to load a program up and connect with a friend before you load your game? It takes, maybe, 30 seconds. I also have no problem with the in game text chat system. Seems fine to me.

I guess I’m just an old fogey that doesn’t like VoIP very much. I use it grudgingly for stuff like dungeons and raids because it’s the fastest way, but for general chat it’s just not very good. Headsets are uncomfortable for long term wear, it’s vulnerable to noisy environments, mandatory quiet environments (sleeping wife/husband in the next room), and gets very chaotic with more than 2 people.

Skype is the word .. and if you are not into VoIP .. let me think .. Email …? wait wait that takes too long. I know. use " Phone" Im talking about RL friends. Or make GW2 weekend or something and get drunk and play gw2. But I am pretty sure you all probably not going to play gw2 on weekend guys hangout.. I know I aint waste my weekend with gw2.

Not really. With vent you can change the incoming sensitivity on your mic so that only you are heard, I have an extremely loud 3 year old so trust me on that one. Also you can buy a mic that isnt uncomfortable for long periods of use. In my case I just use the set that I use for my 360, Turtle Beach X12. By far not the best mic but I can wear it for hours and never feel a thing.

Just going to warn you now Thoom. I don’t know what else you’ve been playing, but every single kitten game I’ve tried that is online has ALWAYS now needed skype, vent, or mumble to communicate these days. No one wishes to type anymore.

When ever I’ve joined any guild, it’s best to get on skype to talk to others and communicate through voice instead of text.