So what is this game about?
This game is about giving us something to talk about on the forums.
The table is a fable.
What is it about? Why, it’s about a talking pile of ragweed called Trahearne, who trolls everyone that thinks they’re the star of the show.
Okay, but seriously… It’s about having fun. They’ve put the game out, and they’re making updates and changes to it, but in the end it’s up to you to find the parts of it you find fun. And not everyone’s going to find that, for some people this game’s simply not going to have what they want.
This game may not be for you, and you should realize that. But you should also take a moment to step back and ask yourself if that feeling of achievement is the only thing you enjoy about video games. GW2 lends itself well to those willing to stop and emote smelling the digital roses, so to speak. Have you caught the reference to Soylent Green? Overheard the conversation about the dreaded Crush cubs outside of the Black Citadel? Found the Order of Whispers base in Ebonhawke? Watched the norn trying to catch is pet wolf, or the charr engineer talking to her pet rat?
There’s a ton of detail work in this game world, and there’s more to see than just the points on the map. And that’s only one of the other things people can enjoy about playing the game. Maybe you can find something about it you enjoy.
… you know, before we all rage quit over RNG abuse.
Sarcasm, delivered with a
delicate, brick-like subtlety.
delicate, brick-like subtlety.
What’s solitaire about? It’s one of the worlds most popular games..but what’s the point? I mean I play solitaire and I get no prizes, no drops, no real reward.
This game is about buying into the reality of Tyria. Either you buy into it, or you don’t. It’s the same with soap operas, comics, Star Trek, professional wrestling. It’s entertainment.
If you need to accomplish something other than fun in your down time, if you need to be spoonfed go here and do this, go here and do that to keep you going, if you need to constantly test yourself to try to prove something, then you might be well playing the wrong game.
On the other hand, if you just want to bang around and have fun without worrying about catching up to people if you take a month or two break…you’re probably playing the right game.
Well, GW1 was less about acquiring gear and more about acquiring skills.
GW2 is less about acquiring gear, less about acquiring skills, and more about farming gold to buy items from the cash shop.
Well, GW1 was less about acquiring gear and more about acquiring skills.
Acquiring skills wasn’t hard or time consuming in GW1, you could have the best build in a matter of hours, even with a clean account.
GW1, much like GW2, was all about getting the cosmetic items you wanted the most, for the looks, and those often required a lot of money that only precursors in GW2 can come close to.
Oh and after Nightfall (and mostly Eotn) “leveling” the pve-only skills, they were an excellent addition for people to grind for.
Its whatever you want it to be…
For me its conquering camps, towers, keeps and stone mist castle mainly…
GW2 is less about acquiring gear, less about acquiring skills, and more about farming gold to buy items from the cash shop.
At least you can use in-game currency to buy things from the cash shop.
“Your skill will be your Legend.”
Original Guild Wars Prophecy Box.
Nope, not skill, not in GW2.
“Your skill will be your Legend.”
Original Guild Wars Prophecy Box.Nope, not skill, not in GW2.
I think Guild Wars 2 requires MORE skill than Guild Wars 1. In Guild Wars 1, the skill was half or more in the build. In Guild Wars 2 you require more awareness, faster execution and more actual skill.
Of course this is just my opinion. Maybe what you’re actually complaining about is the two games take a different set of skills.
Nice one, nice joke. Thanks, I needed that, I’m literally laughing.
Nice one, nice joke. Thanks, I needed that, I’m literally laughing.
Glad I could entertain you. It doesn’t stop it from being true, however.
You know, sometimes I browse this forum with my phone using Opera Mini web browser, and since my phone’s screen isn’t big enough, I can’t see the names of the users who post on this forum, but somehow I always seem to recognize all your GW2 gratifying replys.
Nice one, nice joke. Thanks, I needed that, I’m literally laughing.
Glad I could entertain you. It doesn’t stop it from being true, however.
“It isn’t true unless it makes you laugh, but you don’t understand it until it makes you weep.” ~ Mavis
The table is a fable.
It’s a Hypercasual MMO, that requires zero effort and zero socialization.
Inb4delete….
You know, sometimes I browse this forum with my phone using Opera Mini web browser, and since my phone’s screen isn’t big enough, I can’t see the names of the users who post on this forum, but somehow I always seem to recognize all your GW2 gratifying replys.
It’s nice that I have a recognizable style…and it STILL doesn’t make what I said any less true.
You know, sometimes I browse this forum with my phone using Opera Mini web browser, and since my phone’s screen isn’t big enough, I can’t see the names of the users who post on this forum, but somehow I always seem to recognize all your GW2 gratifying replys.
It’s nice that I have a recognizable style…and it STILL doesn’t make what I said any less true.
GW1 was a pretty terrible MMO too.
Pick your battles.
I think Guild Wars 2 requires MORE skill than Guild Wars 1. .
Your opinion = truth? Sure, continue. I don’t suppose you know term “subjective”.
I think Guild Wars 2 requires MORE skill than Guild Wars 1. .
Your opinion = truth? Sure, continue. I don’t suppose you know term “subjective”.
My post was posted AS opinion. This is YOUR post:
“Your skill will be your Legend.”
Original Guild Wars Prophecy Box.
Nope, not skill, not in GW2.
Your last line isn’t expressed like an opinion at all, though it is just your opinion. I rebutted your opinion and you felt it necessary to try to belittle my opinion by saying you’re basically laughing at it, as if it were some kind of joke.
You know that thing about stones and glass houses? If not, you should look it up.
“Your skill will be your Legend.”
Original Guild Wars Prophecy Box.Nope, not skill, not in GW2.
https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/professions/elementalist/Elementalists-in-WvW-huge-flaw/first
That’s why some of us can deal with elementalists and some can’t?
You do require skill in GW2, it’s just that you require most of it in high level dungeons/ fractals and WvW/ Spvp.
GW2 is less about acquiring gear, less about acquiring skills, and more about farming gold to buy items from the cash shop.
At least you can use in-game currency to buy things from the cash shop.
Yea, because doing actual in game things to acquire items is far more boring than just farming X amount of gold to buy it.
For me Guild Wars 2 is about exploring Tyria and doing the different personal story quests and dungeons, and because it’s an MMO getting to do it with my friends and/or random strangers.
Obviously upgrading my gear helps with that, but I wouldn’t consider it a goal in its own right.
Danielle Aurorel, Dear Dragon We Got Your Cookies [Nom], Desolation (EU).
“Life’s a journey, not a destination.”
“Life’s a journey, not a destination.”
I mean… In most of other MMO’s it’s all about achievement. Developers gives you new ways to acquire more powerful items and then you can use those items to overcome certain challenges and receive even more powerful gear or other rewards like unique skins or mounts.
On other hand in guild wars 2… You just farm gold or look for better ways to farm gold (it’s the easiest way to earn all of the game rewards). Or participate in the new events with no particular objective. Just for doubtful fun? I mean… Are all those mini games worth playing? I have a lot more fun playing on my smartphone 1$ games.
There is not even a slight feeling of achievement here.
There is a serious reward deficiency. It would be nice if the PvE was well designed enough that it could be played for its own sake, but barring this, the dungeon and world boss design is so boring that it would require a lot more than tokens for an ugly armor set or some vendor trash blues and greens to get me to grind those events.
I played dailies for a while, but not because they were fun: I wanted the significant stat increase from ascended gear to fully compete in WvW. That was about as close as it got to end-game objectives.
The game ran out of fun around the 200 hour mark, although I still goof around in WvW with some friends. Maybe the expansion will be better in terms of goals, self-directed or otherwise (I cannot even get decent RP in with so few emotes). I will wait until others play it for a week or two before deciding. No sense in boarding the Guild Wars hype train again.
“A soft answer turns away wrath,
but a harsh word stirs up anger.” -Jewish Proverb
but a harsh word stirs up anger.” -Jewish Proverb
For me Guild Wars 2 is about exploring Tyria and doing the different personal story quests and dungeons, and because it’s an MMO getting to do it with my friends and/or random strangers.
Obviously upgrading my gear helps with that, but I wouldn’t consider it a goal in its own right.
Pretty much how I see it. Drops are completely incidental…nice to get, but not my focus. Obviously if the game were designed with drops as a focus, there’s be a lot more of them and they’d be better. lol
GW2 is less about acquiring gear, less about acquiring skills, and more about farming gold to buy items from the cash shop.
At least you can use in-game currency to buy things from the cash shop.
Yea, because doing actual in game things to acquire items is far more boring than just farming X amount of gold to buy it.
I agree that there should be more items that can only be acquired from playing the game, not from gold (or gems), but it’s not quite as one-sided as you make it out to be.
I do however like being able to purchase gem store goods and services without spending real money (especially as I’m between contracts atm).
GW2 is less about acquiring gear, less about acquiring skills, and more about farming gold to buy items from the cash shop.
At least you can use in-game currency to buy things from the cash shop.
Yea, because doing actual in game things to acquire items is far more boring than just farming X amount of gold to buy it.
Either get gold ANYWAY you want so that you can buy it off CS OOOOOOORRRRR….RNG…
“Your skill will be your Legend.”
Original Guild Wars Prophecy Box.Nope, not skill, not in GW2.
https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/professions/elementalist/Elementalists-in-WvW-huge-flaw/first
That’s why some of us can deal with elementalists and some can’t?
You do require skill in GW2, it’s just that you require most of it in high level dungeons/ fractals and WvW/ Spvp.
Dont post another opinion and use it as facts…It doesnt help your case…
Dont post another opinion and use it as facts…It doesnt help your case…
Look at my statement. All classes can use immobilize and it’s the most effective thing from stopping elementalists from vaporing into a keep. Now why some of us can counter them and some of us can’t? If the game requires zero skill whatsoever why do we see posts complaining about enemy abilities and other people listing ways to counter it?
Take the box I quoted and read bellow to see what I meant.
“You’ll prove your worth with every battle as skill, not hours played, decides your fate, Whether battling horrific monster or competing at highest levels of tournament play, it will always be your skill that earns your victory or defeat.”
Now please, enlighten me, which content in GW2 PvE actually tests your skill level?
Fractals? Who knows, I’m 38 LvL and still feel no difference fro level 1 whatsoever except for agony, maybe If I grind my way to level 80 things will change.
Dont post another opinion and use it as facts…It doesnt help your case…
Look at my statement. All classes can use immobilize and it’s the most effective thing from stopping elementalists from vaporing into a keep. Now why some of us can counter them and some of us can’t? If the game requires zero skill whatsoever why do we see posts complaining about enemy abilities and other people listing ways to counter it?
Would it be better to say that it requires a modicum of skill?
“A soft answer turns away wrath,
but a harsh word stirs up anger.” -Jewish Proverb
but a harsh word stirs up anger.” -Jewish Proverb
Now please, enlighten me, which content in GW2 PvE actually tests your skill level?
Fractals? Who knows, I’m 38 LvL and still feel no difference fro level 1 whatsoever except for agony, maybe If I grind my way to level 80 things will change.
You must be skilled then because I can feel a difference between 1, 10 and 28 easily.
True, Maybe I’m just too too kitten good in this game, 380 hour playtime with large breaks between – playing casually, but hating easy content – press F/E/1 For the win.
Climbing up a random mountain and enjoying the view is not my way of enjoying the game, neither do I personally care about the story, It could be about Zombie Pigs attacking the Tyria for all I care.
(edited by Nick.6972)
True, Maybe I’m just too too kitten good in this game, 380 hour playtime with large breaks between – playing casually, but hating easy content – press F/E/1 For the win.
Climbing up a random mountain and enjoying the view is not my way of enjoying the game, neither do I personally care about the story, It could be about Zombie Pigs attacking the Tyria for all I care.
I have never said this with more meaning.
I don’t believe this game was designed for players like you. I really really mean that.
I’m not saying that your way of playing is wrong. I’m sayign the devs weren’t targetting your demographic. Surely not in PvE at any rate.
Developers gives you new ways to acquire more powerful items and then you can use those items to overcome certain challenges and receive even more powerful gear or other rewards like unique skins or mounts.
In other words, other MMORPGs are about rewarding time spent in gear treadmills. As flawed as GW2 is, I’m happy it’s not about that (yet). Regardless, this game has been released more than six months ago, had you done a minimum of research about it you would have learned that no, gear treadmill isn’t the focus of GW2. Buying without research = “a fool and his money…”.
Your last line isn’t expressed like an opinion at all
Vayne, you need better arguments than “it’s just YOUR opinion!”. People don’t need to say “Disclaimer: what I’m going to say next is my opinion” all the time. It’s implicit in the context of what someone says (I thought editors knew all about this kind of thing). Likewise, saying something is irrelevant just because it’s an opinion is also a very weak argument. There are baseless opinions (“the sky isn’t blue, it’s yellow!”) and opinions with a strong reasoning behind them that are worth discussing.
There is a serious reward deficiency. It would be nice if the PvE was well designed enough that it could be played for its own sake
This is what I believe the game should be. Increasing the rewards would likely make people play more than they do today, sure, but to me it would be a sign of ArenaNet stating they cannot make a fun game, hence the need to fill that void with bigger rewards.
“I think that players are starting to mature past the point of wanting to be on that
treadmill, of being in that obvious pattern of every time I catch up you are going to
put another carrot in front of me” – Mike O’Brien right before Ascended weapons
treadmill, of being in that obvious pattern of every time I catch up you are going to
put another carrot in front of me” – Mike O’Brien right before Ascended weapons
Developers gives you new ways to acquire more powerful items and then you can use those items to overcome certain challenges and receive even more powerful gear or other rewards like unique skins or mounts.
In other words, other MMORPGs are about rewarding time spent in gear treadmills. As flawed as GW2 is, I’m happy it’s not about that (yet). Regardless, this game has been released more than six months ago, had you done a minimum of research about it you would have learned that no, gear treadmill isn’t the focus of GW2. Buying without research = “a fool and his money…”.
Your last line isn’t expressed like an opinion at all
Vayne, you need better arguments than “it’s just YOUR opinion!”. People don’t need to say “Disclaimer: what I’m going to say next is my opinion” all the time. It’s implicit in the context of what someone says (I thought editors knew all about this kind of thing). Likewise, saying something is irrelevant just because it’s an opinion is also a very weak argument. There are baseless opinions (“the sky isn’t blue, it’s yellow!”) and opinions with a strong reasoning behind them that are worth discussing.
There is a serious reward deficiency. It would be nice if the PvE was well designed enough that it could be played for its own sake
This is what I believe the game should be. Increasing the rewards would likely make people play more than they do today, sure, but to me it would be a sign of ArenaNet stating they cannot make a fun game, hence the need to fill that void with bigger rewards.
I’m replying to Nick who tried to call me on how my opinion was expressed. I was comparing it to how HIS opinion is expressed. It’s called responding to a direct comment, it wasn’t just a general observation.
What is GW2 about? This is one of the biggest problems with GW2: it doesn’t knows what it wants to be.
Is it a story-driven game? It sorta wants to be one, but for months, it has been lacking infrastructure, systems and cutscenes to present its story, and the story itself was rushed. It still sorta wants to be one, with new content being called Living Story, but we’re still at an experimental phase, and no one knows when it’ll kick off for real.
Is it a party-driven game? It sorta wants to be one. The damage/ control/ support trinity is broken, party synergy is lacking, events are completed with mindless zergs, and the only places that are designed around parties, are few and thrown to a few corners of the world.
Is it a skill-driven game? It sorta wants to be one, it surely was the devs’ original intention. The devs wanted this game to reward players for skill instead of farming, but it completely failed at that. GW2 is an extremely casual game that can be farmed, explored and completed mindlessly. There’s little to no adrenaline, tension or epic adventuring going on, challenging-wise.
Is it a pvp-driven game? It sorta wants to be one, but its pvp was completely bare-bones at launch, and only very slowing have they been expanding it, but at least it’s going there.
Is GW2 a casual-driven game? Yes, absolutely yes. Outside of the initial challenge of learning how to dodge and some other mechanics, GW2 is all about casuals doing braind-dead stuff for “fun”. Farming events where you are highly rewarded for watching your characters auto-attack, grinding mindless, repetitive, story-less hearts, grinding numbers for repetitive world exploration, not requiring any form of coordenation and near to no strategy, etc.
GW2 has some good foundations, but it greatly lacks polish. Many of the things that it tried to accomplish, it didn’t. It’s a game that wants to be a little bit of everything, and ends up having little to no identity.
In comparison, GW1, even though it was far from a perfect game at launch (and even for its lifetime), it accomplished a lot of its goals.
GW1 knew it wanted to be a story-driven game, and revolved around a mission structure to tell its story, with quests inbetween to keep the storytelling flow, and with cutscenes to boot. GW2 launched with neither of those features, and slowly has been bringing them back. We’ve seen cutscenes in F&F, we’re starting to see quests to tell small stories for the living world content, and we know the devs are working on infrastructure/ systems to improve the way the story is presented and guided.
GW1 knew it wanted to have a deep party-driven system, and so its content revolves around parties and its skill system around party synergy. For solo-players, it very elegantly features a henchmen/ hero system, which would allow players to play alone in instances, without sacrificing the party-driven content.
GW1 knew it wanted a very fun building system, and so it streamlined building, with no money sinks behind it, featured rules and restrictions to keep each build unique, and had a skill-collecting mini-game that also added an unique twist to the concept of exploring a world.
GW1 knew it wanted to have strong pvp, and had multiple game modes, matchmaking, etc. GW2 is slowing going the GW1’s way.
In the end, GW1 knew what it wanted to be, and attempted to be as good as possible at what it was; while GW2 wanted to be a little of everything, and failed at being great at any of those goals.
(edited by DiogoSilva.7089)
Im speaking for myself, next time I’ll be sure to put a disclaimer just for you so you know I’m voicing my opinion.
(Too long, had to double-post)
Not only that, but GW1’s features synergize with each other. The party-driven content, the building system, the story-driven content or the pvp content, they all support each other. The story is fluid because henchmen/ heroes allow you to never depend on players to progress; the henchmen/ heroes work because they allow the game to be fully party-driven even to solo players; the party-driven ideas were acchieved because the game was fully party-driven even to solo players; the skill system worked because, in addition to being fun, was designed to support party-driven content, which the whole game revolves around; and the pvp was deep because building and team synergy were deep.
In comparison, GW2’s ideas and mechanics clash with each other. The game wants to have a large diversity of builds, but it punishes players for them due to several mechanics (defiance, condition capping, easyness of dps builds to complete every content) or due to large amounts of grind (because attributes are linked to the equipment). GW2 wants to tell a story, but it punishes players who want a fluid story progression, by gating it behind levels. GW2 wants party-driven content in some instances (dungeons), but it punishes players who use party-driven builds when those players are NOT doing dungeons. GW2 wants skill over grinding, but punishes skillful content with bad rewards, and rewards mindless content to keep the casual players, the gamblers, the farmers and the online shop going on.
This is what happens when a game wants something as impossible as being everything at the same time. A game – or any product or piece of work, for that matter, must have a focus, and it must be unified towards the goals it wants to accomplish. Every single component should be designed to synergy with each other. In GW2, this does not happens. New mechanics and new content are many times designed independent of each other, and sometimes they clash with each other, and contradict with each other.
(edited by DiogoSilva.7089)
What is GW2 about? This is one of the biggest problems with GW2: it doesn’t knows what it wants to be.
Is it a story-driven game? It sorta wants to be one, but for months, it has been lacking infrastructure, systems and cutscenes to present its story, and the story itself was rushed. It still sorta wants to be one, with new content being called Living Story, but we’re still at an experimental phase, and no one knows when it’ll kick off for real.
Is it a party-driven game? It sorta wants to be one. The damage/ control/ support trinity is broken, party synergy is lacking, events are completed with mindless zergs, and the only places that are designed around parties, are few and thrown to a few corners of the world.
Is it a skill-driven game? It sorta wants to be one, it surely was the devs’ original intention. The devs wanted this game to reward players for skill instead of farming, but it completely failed at that. GW2 is an extremely casual game that can be farmed, explored and completed mindlessly. There’s little to no adrenaline, tension or epic adventuring going on, challenging-wise.
Is it a pvp-driven game? It sorta wants to be one, but its pvp was completely bare-bones at launch, and only very slowing have they been expanding it, but at least it’s going there.
Is GW2 a casual-driven game? Yes, absolutely yes. Outside of the initial challenge of learning how to dodge and some other mechanics, GW2 is all about casuals doing easy stuff for fun. Farming events where you are highly rewarded for watching your characters auto-attack, grinding mindless, repetitive, story-less hearts, grinding numbers for repetitive world exploration, not requiring any form of coordenation and near to no strategy, etc.
GW2 has some good foundations, but it greatly lacks polish. Many of the things that it tried to accomplish, it didn’t. It’s a game that wants to be a little bit of everything, and ends up having little to no identity.
In comparison, GW1, even though it was far from a perfect game at launch (and even for its lifetime), it accomplished a lot of its goals.
GW1 knew it wanted to be a story-driven game, and revolved around a mission structure to tell its story, with quests inbetween to keep the storytelling flow, and with cutscenes to boot. GW2 launched with neither of those features, and slowly has been bringing them back. We’ve seen cutscenes in F&F, we’re starting to see quests to tell small stories for the living world content, and we know the devs are working on infrastructure/ systems to improve the way the story is presented and guided.
GW1 knew it wanted to have a deep party-driven system, and so its content revolves around parties and its skill system around party synergy. For solo-players, it very elegantly features a henchmen/ hero system, which would allow players to play alone in instances, without sacrificing the party-driven content. In comparison, making party-driven builds in GW2 and grinding equipment to support them is a waste, unless you only log into this game to do dungeons, and even then…
GW1 knew it wanted a very fun building system, and so it streamlined building, features rules and restrictions to keep each build unique, and had a skill-collecting mini-game.
GW1 knew it wanted to have strong pvp, and had multiple game modes, matchmaking, etc. GW2 is slowing going the GW1’s way.
In the end, GW1 knew what it wanted to be, and attempted to be as good as possible at what it was; while GW2 wanted to be a little of everything, and failed at being great at any of those goals.
This is a really interesting critique. I almost agree with it.
I like the lack of focus. It allows me to concentrate on what I want to, instead of being “channeled by the game”. I agree it doesn’t so certain things well enough, but not necessarily the things you think.
I agree it doesn’t do story well enough. That’s one of it’s biggest problems in my opinion. The personal story had its shortcomings, and the living story, though it has its moments is just that…moments. It’s hard to feel connected to it.
And that may be the biggest issue for me for Guild Wars 2. In Guild Wars 1 I felt connected to my character, so it didn’t matter what I was doing. In Guild Wars 2, I feel less connected to my character, so what I’m doing matters more.
Good stuff.
By “lack of focus”, I mean from a design-view, not from the player’s view, which are different things.
GW1 was a focused game, but the player could still participate in different kind of content. Outside of pvp, they could follow the story, explore the world, or design builds espefically for farming, running, etc. Granted, this only got better with future expansions, when titles were added in, where world exploration became less tied to story progression, and where more casual pvp modes were added in.
I don’t have anything against the idea of GW2 offering different things to do for each player, as long as it doesn’t stretches the devs too thin (which, unfortunately, it did). What I do have against, is how those many different tasks, instead of complemeting each other, they are way too independent of each other – sometimes to the point of clashing with each other.
So a player can have a lack of focus, which is not a bad thing by itself, but they will get punished by many things they do, because the game design also lacks focus.
(edited by DiogoSilva.7089)
Well, GW1 was less about acquiring gear and more about acquiring skills.
GW2 is less about acquiring gear, less about acquiring skills, and more about farming gold to buy items from the cash shop.
Actually farming gold to buy from the cash shop is cheap.
It’s farming gold to buy things from the overinflated manipulated TP prices that are expensive.
OP is right btw, what is the point of this title? In other games every expansion had a major enemy we had to defeat. In GW2 we defeated him in our personal story. Nothing came next. We don’t have towns or main cities being threatened yet there are these humungous dragons floating around out there threating everything. Heck even with the dead world in Cataclysm I think there was more of a feeling of threat from the enemy then in GW2 right now imo.
Where are the DEs for the main story threat? Why can’t we be saving the people of tyria from the dragons minions in other ways in more permanent settings? Why aren’t the homesteads attacked by these minions? Heck even LOTRO had a pvp setup so that players could play monsters and attack the real regular towns in the shire and the elven woods.
Balance Team: Please Fix Mine Toolbelt Positioning!
By “lack of focus”, I mean from a design-view, not from the player’s view, which are different things.
GW1 was a focused game, but the player could still participate in different kind of content. Outside of pvp, they could follow the story, explore the world, or design builds espefically for farming, running, etc. Granted, this only got better with future expansions, when titles were added in, where world exploration became less tied to story progression, and where more casual pvp modes were added in.
I don’t have anything against the idea of GW2 offering many different things to do for each player. What I do have against, however, is how those many different tasks, instead of complemeting each other, they are way too independent of each other – sometimes to the point of clashing with each other.
So a player can have a lack of focus, which is not a bad thing by itself, but they will get punished by many things they do, because the game design also lacks focus.
No, I got your meaning. But there’s also the issue of this.
If a game has focus, in many cases, it forces players to play a certain way. When I played Rift, originally at launch, the focus of the devs was clearly on dungeons and raids. I’m not a raider, but I felt forced by the game’s focus to channel me into those areas. As an example: the currency used for open world rifts and events was called planarite. I had already hit the planarite cap, had nothing left to buy with it, and I wasn’t alone. Because of this, many people at that time stopped doing Rifts and zone wide events. They just completely ignored them. Not helped by the fact that you didn’t have to do them. It’s not like an outpost being taken over in Guild Wars 2. Invasions would simply disappear after a time if people did nothing about them.
I wanted to play an open world game, and I felt Rift had been advertised that way. They talked up their open world content, but focused on dungeons and raids. It may have changed now, but it left a pretty bad taste in my mouth.
By not focusing, Guild Wars 2 is giving me a freedom. It doesn’t really push you into anything. You have to do 1 dungeon to finish your personal story…and that’s really the extent of the push. You don’t really have to PvE to PvP. You can sit and do events all day and get rewarded for it. You can do dungeons if you like that. So yeah…the focus of the devs can make a big difference to how people play their game.
Different people are attracted by different kinds of content, that’s why there’s many different games out there, and you get to choice the ones that best pick your interest.
An unfocused game can’t compete against focused games, because it revolves more around quantity than quality. Let’s imagine an example:
Game A: Mediocre/ decent at world exploration, story and pvp.
Game B: Excellent story.
Game C: Excellent exploration.
Game D : Excellent pvp.
Which game do you think story-driven players will pick? B. And those who love exploring? Game C. And those who love pvp? Game D. Hybrid players might pick game A, but they’ll never get extreme satisfaction out of each of its features.
GW2 has one big detail akittens side: it has no direct competition (although that’s debatable). There’s little diversity in the MMO genre out there, which is mostly filled with WoW and WoW clones. There’s no good pvp-driven mmo out there, or else, gw2’s pvp would already have lost the little support and faith it still has. There’s no good world-versus-world pvpve driven mmo out there, although one is already in the making. And most pve experiences follow the wow’s formula and combat, or archaic formulas and combat. GW1 is not a MMO, and is outdated too.
GW2 gives you “freedom”, but it’s a very restricted freedom. It gives you freedom to grind where you want: grind world exploration, or events, and do a dungeon or two inbetween. GW2’s “freedom” is almost never exciting, because there’s no tension, epic feeling or danger created from challenging encounters. GW2’s “freedom” is restricting, because most builds you can do will suck or will be very niche (pvp only, dungeon only), most things you want are gotten from the TP (which means all you’re doing with your “freedom” is farming gold), and most things you can pick are unfocused (dungeons revolve around predictable fights with enemies with a looot of hp, world exploration is repetitive because the devs don’t have time to focus on expanding it; events are repetitive because the devs don’t have time to focus on them, etc, etc).
This is the “freedom” of GW2. Giving you the choice between several tasks, most of them mediocre because they were not fleshed out, and they were not fleshed out because the devs didn’t focus enough time to flesh them out.
What is GW2 best at? The (solo) combat? Although it still has ways to go, the combat in GW2 is fun because it was focused – the devs clearly spend a lot of time on it, as it shows when you have an entire team devoted to balancing and expanding it. The streamlined content? GW2’s devs focused a lot on making the content as streamlined as possible (no talking to npcs, automatic event system, etc). These things make this game stand out from other mmos.
(edited by DiogoSilva.7089)
Different people are attracted by different kinds of content, that’s why there’s many different games out there, and you get to choice the ones that best pick your interest.
An unfocused game can’t compete against focused games, because it revolves more around quantity than quality. Let’s imagine an example:
Game A: Mediocre/ decent at world exploration, story and pvp.
Game B: Excellent story.
Game C: Excellent exploration.
Game D : Excellent pvp.Which game do you think story-driven players will pick? B. And those who love exploring? Game C. And those who love pvp? Game D. Hybrid players might pick game A, but they’ll never get extreme satisfaction out of each of its features.
GW2 has one big detail akittens side: it has no direct competition (although that’s debatable). There’s little diversity in the MMO genre out there, which is mostly filled with WoW and WoW clones. There’s no good pvp-driven mmo out there, or else, gw2’s pvp would already have lost the little support and faith it still has. There’s no good world-versus-world pvpve driven mmo out there, although one is already in the making. And most pve experiences follow the wow’s formula and combat, or archaic formulas and combat. GW1 is not a MMO, and is outdated too.
GW2 gives you “freedom”, but it’s a very restricted freedom. It gives you freedom to grind where you want: grind world exploration, or events, and do a dungeon or two inbetween. GW2’s “freedom” is almost never exciting, because there’s no tension, epic feeling or danger created from challenging encounters. GW2’s “freedom” is restricting, because most builds you can do will suck or will be very niche (pvp only, dungeon only), most things you want are gotten from the TP (which means all you’re doing with your “freedom” is farming gold), and most things you can pick are unfocused (dungeons revolve around predictable fights with enemies with a looot of hp, world exploration is repetitive because the devs don’t have time to focus on expanding it; events are repetitive because the devs don’t have time to focus on them, etc, etc).
This is the “freedom” of GW2. Giving you the choice between several tasks, most of them mediocre because they were not fleshed out, and they were not fleshed out because the devs didn’t focus enough time to flesh them out.
What is GW2 best at? The (solo) combat? Although it still has ways to go, the combat in GW2 is fun because it was focused – the devs clearly spend a lot of time on it, as it shows when you have an entire team devoted to balancing and expanding it. The streamlined content? GW2’s devs focused a lot on making the content as streamlined as possible (no talking to npcs, automatic event system, etc). These things make this game stand out from other mmos.
Okay, this is where I can directly disagree with your comments.
Because you’re breaking people down into simple categories that don’t really work.
You say if you’re interested in story, you pick game A, if you’re interested in exploration you pick game b. That might be true for lots of people, but it’s not true for lots of others.
Because some people like exploration AND story and very few games give you both. On top of that, people like exploration and story with friends, and that’s where Guild Wars 2 comes in.
Of course I could play Skyrim. I did in fact. I got probably about 75 hours of play out of Skyrim. I have 3000 hours play out of Guild Wars 2. And that just couldn’t happen without the guild I’m in, and that’s where it all falls apart. A lot of people ARE looking for a social experience on top of their game.
And to me, the cooperative play of Guild Wars 2 PvE is a godsend in MMO space. And you’re right. It’s not great at story. It’s not even particularly great at exploration. But then I’m not a one trick pony. I like it all, and this is the only place I can get it all. And a lot of people don’t want to play three or four or five different games at one time. Some do, but some don’t.
The real thing is this. There really isn’t a game coming out any time soon that offers an alternative to Guild Wars 2 for players like me. Probably the first one to come along will be ESO, but that won’t be out till second quarter next year. And you know, like all MMOs when it launches it’ll either be small, or a buggy mess. No large MMO with tons of content has launched in ages that wasn’t a buggy mess.
Guild Wars 2 has almost a year to stabilize this game, get stuff right, get people more into it.
ESO will be new and shiny but it’s coming to this area with some very high expectations attached to it. Little can sink an MMO faster.
What is it about? Why, it’s about a talking pile of ragweed called Trahearne, who trolls everyone that thinks they’re the star of the show.
This. A million times this.
Your answer lies within RNG.
@Vayne,
You’re right that my examples were too narrow, but that was for clarity’s sake. I also like both story and exploration, and even more so with friends, but unlike you, I don’t find GW2 to be as satisfying at offering those things as it could.
There’s almost no reason to meet new people in the game, so unless I have friends I know in the real world that also play GW2, exploring the world is a lonely experience. I’ve 100% explored Tyria with my elementalist – completed it a few days ago, and I don’t recall any friendship I made. Besides, pve experience is so easy, that when i was playing with friends, combat got very trivial.
Some people blame the players for not interacting more with the in-game community, but it’s not the player’s fault, it’s the mechanics. If there are no mechanics that make people play together (guild-driven content, party-driven content, etc, etc), most players won’t play together. Surely, it’s still important to add support for those who like to play solo, but GW2 mostly only cared about those. There’s no healthy balance between community and solo experience in this game, it’s mostly one-sided to solo content, with the except of a few dungeons, which are only a small thing of what there is to experience in Tyria, and a few guild missions, which are gated.
But as you’ve said, there’s no game coming that offers a real alternative (well, maybe the new ff14, but it has a monthly paying model). We’re left waiting for for this game to get better, expecially and hopefully in an expansion, but it still doesn’t changes that this game was very unfocused when it was launched, it tried to appeal to every player with quantity of content, but then there was not enough time to focus on the quality of each type of content.
Maybe, the Living Story development is going to change that – it certainly seems very focused, with new content revolved around the same premise; but living story is still at an experimental phase, and the only thing we see anet focusing mostly at the moment, is on online shop and RNG content. I don’t mind that as long as that’s what is needed to keep supporting the game, so it can get massive updates later on; but should all future content in GW2 revolve around this RNG content model each month, with little else to bring to the table but a few unfocused, independent gated content, I’ll lose hope in this game.
(edited by DiogoSilva.7089)
@Vayne,
You’re right that my examples were too narrow, but that was for clarity’s sake. I also like both story and exploration, and even more so with friends, but unlike you, I don’t find GW2 to be as satisfying at offering those things as it could.
There’s almost no reason to meet new people in the game, so unless I have friends I know in the real world that also play GW2, exploring the world is a lonely experience. I’ve 100% explored Tyria with my elementalist – completed it a few days ago, and I don’t recall any friendship I made. Besides, pve experience is so easy, that when i was playing with friends, combat got very trivial.
Some people blame the players for not interacting more with the in-game community, but it’s not the player’s fault, it’s the mechanics. If there are no mechanics that make people play together (guild-driven content, party-driven content, etc, etc), most players won’t play together. Surely, it’s still important to add support for those who like to play solo, but GW2 mostly only cared about those. There’s no healthy balance between community and solo experience in this game, it’s mostly one-sided to solo content, with the except of a few dungeons, which are only a small thing of what there is to experience in Tyria, and a few guild missions, which are gated.
But as you’ve said, there’s no game coming that offers a real alternative (well, maybe the new ff14, but it has a monthly paying model). We’re left waiting for for this game to get better, expecially and hopefully in an expansion, but it still doesn’t changes that this game was very unfocused when it was launched, it tried to appeal to every player with quantity of content, but then there was not enough time to focus on the quality of each type of content.
Maybe, the Living Story development is going to change that – it certainly seems very focused, with new content revolved around the same premise; but living story is still at an experimental phase, and the only thing we see anet focusing mostly at the moment, is on online shop and RNG content. I don’t mind that as long as that’s what is needed to keep supporting the game, so it can get massive updates later on; but should all future content in GW2 revolve around this RNG content model each month, with little else to bring to the table but a few unfocused, independent gated content, I’ll lose hope in this game.
What’s the difference if you don’t need people to do content. I think it’s a hoot to have a couple of people doing hard group events together. A lot of people duo this game.
And my guild has tons of fun, not just in dungeons, but in the open world. It doesn’t matter, if it’s easy or hard if you’re having fun to some people…maybe even most people. Who knows?
The point is, different people do like different things and for a lot of people this game IS social. My guild has close to 100 members, about 30 or play quite a bit. We’re always hanging out and having a good time. I don’t need a game to force me to play together to join a guild.
Again, for those who don’t want to join a guild, they’re not forced to by game mechanics, and as a result, it’s not as focused…but it still offers more freedom.
I don’t think Final Fantasy is going to do that well. Many many MMOs have tried to ressurect themselves, and none that I know of are resurrecting themselves without being free to play. I just don’t think that’s going to work.
At any rate, Guild Wars 2 is probably destined to be more of a niche game long term…but I think there are enough people for it’s niche that are willing to support it via the cash shop.
Picture a small child..give him a box to play with..when he gets bored with that box…give him a box thats a little bigger.but then RNG comes into play and the box doesnt change..then you get a temporary box..its fun for a few days and that gets boring also ..thats what GW2 is all about.
(edited by Ghettoblade.7962)
@Vayne,
You’re right that my examples were too narrow, but that was for clarity’s sake. I also like both story and exploration, and even more so with friends, but unlike you, I don’t find GW2 to be as satisfying at offering those things as it could.
There’s almost no reason to meet new people in the game, so unless I have friends I know in the real world that also play GW2, exploring the world is a lonely experience. I’ve 100% explored Tyria with my elementalist – completed it a few days ago, and I don’t recall any friendship I made. Besides, pve experience is so easy, that when i was playing with friends, combat got very trivial.
Some people blame the players for not interacting more with the in-game community, but it’s not the player’s fault, it’s the mechanics. If there are no mechanics that make people play together (guild-driven content, party-driven content, etc, etc), most players won’t play together. Surely, it’s still important to add support for those who like to play solo, but GW2 mostly only cared about those. There’s no healthy balance between community and solo experience in this game, it’s mostly one-sided to solo content, with the except of a few dungeons, which are only a small thing of what there is to experience in Tyria, and a few guild missions, which are gated.
But as you’ve said, there’s no game coming that offers a real alternative (well, maybe the new ff14, but it has a monthly paying model). We’re left waiting for for this game to get better, expecially and hopefully in an expansion, but it still doesn’t changes that this game was very unfocused when it was launched, it tried to appeal to every player with quantity of content, but then there was not enough time to focus on the quality of each type of content.
Maybe, the Living Story development is going to change that – it certainly seems very focused, with new content revolved around the same premise; but living story is still at an experimental phase, and the only thing we see anet focusing mostly at the moment, is on online shop and RNG content. I don’t mind that as long as that’s what is needed to keep supporting the game, so it can get massive updates later on; but should all future content in GW2 revolve around this RNG content model each month, with little else to bring to the table but a few unfocused, independent gated content, I’ll lose hope in this game.
I agree completely with you. Other mmo’s have tried this forced grouping approach and it failed with them as well. They then decided that the game should choose your parties. Thus LFG was born. It wasn’t just WoW that did this there’s plenty of games with similar machanics in their game.
STO for example allows people to group thru their LFG system to do all manner of content much of which gives you a choice in your currency between the guild vendor currency or the currency for reputations you’re building for gear and special items.
That model to me is far superior than expecting people to just jump on whenever without an in game calendar to schedule things or to expect that enough people will be online in any given guild to form a 5 man group at any time of day. It just won’t happen.
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