Guild Wars 2

Red Queen.7915:

Exactly how are GW1 veterans excluded? oO That thought never even occurred to me, and I’ve been playing since 2006. Is this an “everything used to be better” thing I’m not getting? Or do people think the game has changed so much it isn’t Guild Wars anymore?

Little of column A, little of column B. Almost everything used to be better, and nothing actually feels like Guild Wars anymore. I was a long time Guild Wars player, and I don’t feel like any aspect of GW2 is intended to appeal to me.,I’d love a refund for both my time and money, but until science figures out the whole time machine thing I’m SOL.

There is no HUGE population gap between the servers. There are only leecher guests who dont even bother to organize Wurm/Teqila, or do not participate in an organized event in their servers.

A main map can hardly carry 150 players at a time and every server has 150xY, where Y >= 10, many players in prime time.

Some people gave example of TTS; however, Desolation is the first killer of the Wurm. We do not have any kind of guild like TTS. There are only 150 players (guests included sadly) in main map and awesome commanders that are organizing the event for hours.

The main problem is not population of servers. Main problem is the leeching mentality that popped up with guesting system. As one person said above, players don’t even bother organizing an event in their home server because they think “Hey we have Deso, just leech it”.

I don’t say remove guesting system. I don’t blame all guests, because of the majority’s leeching mentality, rest of the players have to use guesting anyways. So, I will re-write my suggestion: “Let any guest to guest a low/medium populated server at any given time in a day. Let them also guest to high/very high populated servers after midnight and in early mornings. But in afternoons and prime time kick all guests from server and close these servers to guesting.”

It amazes me how these kinds of arguments rarely go into specifics.

We still have a variety of classes.
We still have a very versatile skill/trait system.
We have a direct continuation of the old GW lore.
We still get stories to see, just swap “mission” for “dungeon”.

The core mechanics make the game both more accessible and more interesting for veterans.
The limited armour and weapons are gone, we have overall more freedom to create “our” avatar.
An open world enables us to actually play with people without the need to find a group that’ll stick with you for a whole afternoon of “boring” leveling.
That same open world changes according to our actions (not nearly as much as people seemed to have thought initially, but enough for me) instead of always being the same whenever we leave a city and play in an instanced area.

This is how I’d counter these not very detailed arguments. I get it’s very subjective, especially when it comes to how a game “feels”, but denying there’s anything of the old Guild Wars left seems a little shortsighted and frankly ignorant to me.

It takes 5 failures for chain if you play good defense, this means 5 platform groups failed, if these platforms had 4 people that means 20 people failed. 20% of people failing is not a small amount.

That’s not actually accurate. If a run at the Marrionette runs all the way up to the wire, the maximum possible attempts, then that would mean four successful and five unsuccessful Phase 2s, nine in total, 45 total platforms. To achieve that state, you could have as few as five platforms out of those 45 failing, and in my experience you wouldn’t likely have more than ten in total. If it is five platforms causing those failures, then it would only be 11% of the participants that would be causing failure for everyone else. Factor in that the wardens cannot reasonably be soloed for the most part, and you also have to consider that most platforms which do fail likely included at least 2-3 good players that just couldn’t hold the whole thing on their shoulders, and it’s really a tiny number of players that can ruin it for everyone else.

Even If it were 20% of the players that were causing the wipe, that’s still not right. If even a simple majority of the players are good players then the event should succeed, the main flaw in this event is how they prevent good players from making up for bad ones.

People who ENJOY some amount of tension, who want to learn. Who like to fail from time to time in order to challenge them to come up with new and creative strategies.

And that’s fine, so long as the “abnegation” players do not feel pressure to join in on those same activities. So long as the “tension” activities are not necessary for the story, and do not offer superior loot (even cosmetics), I’m fine with them, but if you tell me that I get a lot of cool loot, or some cool skin I can’t get elsewhere, then I’m going to want to complete it, even if I hate every second of actually playing it, and even when it makes me not like the game a little more each time I do.

Let people who enjoy challenge play FOR the challenge, and nothing else. Do not try to bribe players into playing content that they do not enjoy.

I recognize this. I don’t expect every player, or even a majority to improve their skills. The hope is that ENOUGH of them will that we will be able to create more creative and nuanced content.

And fair enough, but when you do this, you need to also do one of two things. You need to either A. allow players to segregate themselves, so that good players can run the encounter ONLY with other good players and exclude everyone else, or B. You need to make it so that bad players cannot ruin the encounter for everyone else. As I suggested above, since the platforms are “all or nothing,” even a few bad players per lane can ruin a run for everyone else. If the platform events could be completed with only three of the five platforms cleared, it would create a cushion to prevent this.

I’ve actually been a part of one successful Marionette run now, and one that got to 4/5 but blew the last four turns trying to get that last boss, so my personal record is now something like 1:15, and of all those runs I’ve only died twice on a platform, but I can’t really put together a clear “why it works” when it does. I mean, I’ve had runs on my home server, and on overflows, I’ve had them with voice coordination and without, with very supportive guilds and commanders that run it tight and without, and it seems to make no real difference. The only thing that really makes a difference is whether the skilled players and the unskilled are distributed evenly on the platforms, such that none of them is too weak, and as far as any individual player is concerned, that is a completely random element.

Hey Josh,

I wanted to put in two cents on a small design change that could have been implemented on the Marionette fight. Many times I’ve been on a pad that gets the job done first. When that happens, I’m standing around trying to avoid the aoe and just watching. While I know that as a pad is completed, it buffs adjacent/other pads in some way, but it’s not enough to keep me from being bored standing around looking at other groups win or fail.

I think it would have been better if, as you get your pad down, a “path” opens up to move to other pads. This increases the chance for a win overall for the “lane” and I think would foster teamwork in a slightly better manner. All of a sudden people are not standing around waiting, watching, and just avoiding the aoe.

While I know that this is not a possibility for the current fight, I can only ask that it be thought of when you separate groups of people in the future.

I love the marionette right now, even if I’m on a map that fails, mostly because of the communication people have in map chat. Even without tools like Ventrilo, TeamSpeak, or Mumble, maps have still been winning the fight on server maps and in overflows.

Darmikau.9413:

Is there any way you can comment on the “raid” aspect of these events? I think Wurm and Tequatl fit more of the example.

The fact is, these events require a highly organized and skilled group of players. Knowing this, they reach an inevitable point after launch: Players in the open world don’t attempt to do them because it can’t be done with the level of coordination that zergs have. The only people with access to these events are groups like TTS. Even on my server, TC, which is highly populous, there is almost nobody at Tequatl. If you want to do him, you have to join one of these groups, be able to participate at a specific spawn time, and have the group invite you to an overflow server. That’s essentially the opposite of open-world content.

I’d -LIKE- to do Tequatl and the Wurm, but I know I can’t without trying to join these groups. This begs the question of why these events are still open-world and not instanced. I know the world needs to be alive, but I think the fact remains that these events are simply too difficult for open-world completion and end up barren after the hype passes, which makes me sad because I actually want to do them.

essentially in the long term these events are supposed to be organized by the community. Forming groups like TTS is just using the tools available to gather the people who want to attempt this type of stuff. TTS and its like are actually the solution, not the problem.

Now you say, then why not make it an instance? because anyone who is in the map, just has to join in if they see people organizing. You arent really supposed to have this event being attempted all the time, only when a lot of players want to, and they have some organized leadership is it supposed to happen.
With this in mind, wurms guaranteed spawn timer, and in the future, event chains that are started by the group, are probably a better means of initiating them *rather than tequatls window.

I’m personally very happy with this content update, although maybe I’m biased because I’m on Desolation. It’s just nice to see content in the game that is pushing players to have structured, organized groups in large numbers. While there are still some very clear issues that continue to exist (such as overflows and the very nature of “boss timers” rather than being able to see content when you please), for me this is by far the best content we’ve seen since Fractals were added to the game.

I am very sick of the “leecher” comments that always seem to come from the high population servers. There IS a discrepency of servers…and it is not just in population, it is also in playerbase. I know entire guilds that transferred servers either for WvW or for Tequatl, or because they felt that their server just simply wasn’t “leet” enough for them.

Server population is one number. Active players out of that population is another number. Good players out of that population is another number. I would argue that Desolution (EU) and Blackgate (NA) have a higher population than other servers, I would also argue that they have a higher population of active players (since I know of at least one guild worth of 400 players that moved to Blackgate, because they thought that Borlis Pass had too few active players)…and there are probably others that did the same thing. And then I would also argue that Desolution and Blackgate have a higher number of Good players…simply because for a long time people have referred to them as the “elite” servers and as such someone who thinks of themselves as “elite” transfer to there.

Honestly, I love guesting to Blackgate here in NA (Jade Quarry also). I do so often in the noon hours when I am not at work as well as in the middle of the night when I cannot sleep…because during those times Borlis Pass is also asleep or at work. BP is really only active starting at about 6:00PM central time until about 10:00PM central time….Blackgate is active 24 hours a day, 7 days a week. You guys call me “leecher.” I call me “I want to do the event and there was only 10 people doing the event on my server 2 hours ago.” But every night I do the Marrionette locally on my server at 8:00pm central….because then we have enough people to do it.

People are not always guesting to be a “leecher”, sometimes people guest out of necessity…which is what I think is the problem with these events. I dont want to have to guest to be able to do it. I want to do it on my server…but there are not enough active players on my server at odd hours to do it…and probably not enough good active players to accomplish it with any regularity….it would be nice if you could send a message to all the good active players on a server and tell them all “meet at wurm” or “meet at Tequatl” but that simply does not work.

I love the Marrionette. I hate the Wurm and Tequatl though because I have to guest to other servers (or overflow with TTS) to even attempt to accomplish it. Not that I haven’t joined in with others from BP to try Teq regularly….

Josh Forman:

“tl,dr: Not all content is going to appeal to all players. So we make a range.”

I get that and appreciate it mostly… but the content of this chapter of LS didn’t really have a range. It’s all “hard” PvE large group content. (save the story instance)

My personal gaming mood changes day by day. Sometimes I’m eager to hurl myself at challenging content until one of us breaks… sometimes I want to run around Kessex killing moas to relax.

When an update like this comes along, I feel a significant amount of pressure to “get in the mood” so to speak. If I log in to turn my brain off for a bit… only to find the new hot content, that’s been hyped up by the devs/PR, that’s gating the plot instance I might be interested in, that most of the playerbase is checking out, that has achievement points attached to it, new skins (gemshop and otherwise) attached to it, and that it will cease to exist in the game in a matter of days… well… regardless of the type of experience I may want out of GW2 when I logged in, I’m compelled to do the new stuff.

To use Anet’s TV show analogy… I can struggle through a particularly unpleasant episode of a show I usually like, or I can switch channels to another program I like that I’m in the mood to watch.

And when I get more invested in that other show that gives me the experience I want regardless of what I’m in the mood for, I stop caring about the first one.

Now I’m rambling.

…. Basically, you want to do a range of content, then each update needs to have the same range of content. Not “hard stuff” week followed by “explore/grind enemies/collect stuff” week.

btw- glad they let you post again

The thing that basically never got a content update was PvE. Or at least not in the sense of having a new map with new events & tasks. Ok we did get Southsun Cove, but that’s kind of a small map that I think many were never too happy with for several reasons. Besides it only has events and not very interesting ones at that. Most events in PvE whatsoever aren’t exactly worth going after. I always thought the most interesting to see would be new maps that includes tasks & events that you don’t need zergs to complete. There’s so many places in the world map that I would’ve expected to see new maps come out at. But maybe this sort of (real content) is reserved for any future expansions?

Josh Foreman.8250:

I agree. This is the weakest part of the design. If I could go back in time I’d make sure our brilliant designers and content people had the time to make it so after you break a regulator you can /cheer to res the nearest downed player.

this is what makes josh awesome

Josh Foreman.8250:

…

I don’t have time for more replies, but I’ll keep reading. Thanks for the feedback everyone!

i’ll admit before the release i was expecting casual garbage but now after playing through and beating both marionette and the wurm I think it was a good update. The real problem here is the overflow issues. the challenge is welcomed this game needs more hard stuff. but having to waste an hour spamming join in bloodtide is kittenty.

After giving it some thought about the guesting scenarios people have brought up. Would it be more beneficial to just be able to pull in a friend from another server via party mechanics than just allowing people to guest to another server? Wouldn’t that also make playing with friends on other servers a much simpler idea than logging out changing servers than logging back in? It might eliminate some of the frustrations over the guesting system as it currently stands.

Make it instanced and let players be able to choose their roster. That’s the only way you’ll truly be able to see how many people can beat it without getting pushed into the broken system that is overflows.

The biggest problem that I have with GW2s “Raid Content” is that there is no way to control the players you experience it with. The overflow limitations always some how manage to leave people out because the vast majority of PvE players accross multiple servers migrate to a select few to do this content leaving piles of overflows and disjointed parties.

The reason why 40 mans in WoW worked was because you had control over the people that went in with you as a part of the team. Ever time I do the new world bosses who knows who will show up, they could be new, or veteran, skilled, or unskilled, and all of those variables coupled with the fracturing of organized groups across multiple overflows and main maps results in frustration, plain and simple.

If you want to create challenging content for organized groups as you have stated previously Anet you need to do so in a closed system in which the players feel like they have more control over the situation, even if it is smoke and mirrors. I know many people who just dont even want to bother because its not fun because they cant ever get on the same map as their friends.

There in lies the ROOT CAUSE of the problem, the system is designed in a way that players can not experience the content with other players that they want to do it with because the guesting system has inflated some servers so much during these events because so many players want to just coat tail their way through the achievements.

I think the boss fights themselves are well designed, fun, and engaging. The problem lies in the other systems that effect this kind of content: Guesting, Overflows, etc.

Red Queen.7915:

[Radio Edit]

Vague because this isn’t exactly the thread for it, but whatevs. YOLO.

There really isn’t that much class variety. Every class fits the same roles, there are thematic variation sure (warriors punch things, necros have death magic, thieves commit thievery) but at the end of the day every class is still just does DPS and heals themselves when they need to.

Saying we have a varied skill system is probably the biggest lie ever told short of “the check is in the mail” and “I’ll respect you in the morning.” Half of the skill bar is locked to the weapon you’re holding and you have no customization therein. Don’t like 100 Blades? Too bad. Don’t like Phantasmal Duelist? Tough titty kid. The other half is also partially locked, Want to bring more utility skills in place of your heal or elite? Can’t do that. Want to create a build around an interesting elite skill? Probably not going to happen since we’ve traded the likes of Blood is Power for Signet of Rage.

As for attributes vs traits, that’s an apples vs oranges issue to me. If you like traits knock yourself out. I liked attributes more, they make more sense to me (being better with axes makes your axe skills stronger) and there weren’t a thousand passive effects tied to them like there are with traits.

We have a direct continuation of the old GW lore.

Sure, though depending on your opinion of Anet’s writing staff that could be a good or a bad thing. :P

Disagree with the notion that the game is more accessable, Guild Wars was very intuitive and easy understand for me, and the large variety and intricacies of skill interactions made the game much deeper. Now we have a thousand particle effects covering everything we do and a petting zoo making combat indecipherable. GW2 is more confusing to watch and play than GW1 ever was.

Being able to get max stat gear and then spending the rest of the time playing the game or customizing your appearance was one of the things that made GW1 good, no vertical grind, no stat optimization. Just get your gear and go. If you want to be pretty go do that, you wont be any different than someone who just has the first max stat stuff they bought.

I’d argue that any leveling is boring, but at least it was over after 20 levels in GW1. The open world and graphics are probably the only actual improvements GW2 made over its predecessor. I’d have much rather paid $60 for GW1 with an open world over what I’ve gotten out of GW2, because I certainly don’t feel like I’ve gotten my $60 worth out of the game yet.

To me, saying there’s anything left of the old Guild Wars is just being blind and delusional. I’m a Guild Wars 1 player, and I don’t feel like there’s been ANYTHING intended to make me happy as a customer. I’d love to love this game. I don’t think I’ve ever tried and fail so hard to enjoy something. Instead all I’ve gotten is frustration and a bunch of fanboys telling me that I’m “wrong” for wanting Guild Wars 2 to actually BE Guild Wars 2.

I love both new fights. I really do!

My only concern is the issue that still plagues this game. The camera.

I have so many issues with the camera on the marionetta fight. I feel like I’m being forced into a FPS half the time because of how the walls are set up. It has caused me to die more times than I care to say during my time playing GW2.

It was really bad during Queen’s Jubilee and I feel it’s reared it’s ugly head again!

To be more on topic though, I love a challenge and these new events present that to me. While I play casually, I’d like to think I’m more than that. I’m not a hardcore player that runs the toughest content right away but I am definitely not new to the scene and feel insulted almost to be called a "casual. " I love how we have to rely on each other to get things done. I hate how people can be so crude and uncooperative in map chat but it always warms my soul when I see people trying to make everybody better and trying to get things done.

Remember to be positive out there and not tear your hair out. Step away if you’re that mad, there is nothing worth being angry over.

My 2 coppers.

HappyPrimes.3904:

Red Queen.7915:

[Radio Edit]

Vague because this isn’t exactly the thread for it, but whatevs. YOLO.

There really isn’t that much class variety. Every class fits the same roles, there are thematic variation sure (warriors punch things, necros have death magic, thieves commit thievery) but at the end of the day every class is still just does DPS and heals themselves when they need to.

Saying we have a varied skill system is probably the biggest lie ever told short of “the check is in the mail” and “I’ll respect you in the morning.” Half of the skill bar is locked to the weapon you’re holding and you have no customization therein. Don’t like 100 Blades? Too bad. Don’t like Phantasmal Duelist? Tough titty kid. The other half is also partially locked, Want to bring more utility skills in place of your heal or elite? Can’t do that. Want to create a build around an interesting elite skill? Probably not going to happen since we’ve traded the likes of Blood is Power for Signet of Rage.

As for attributes vs traits, that’s an apples vs oranges issue to me. If you like traits knock yourself out. I liked attributes more, they make more sense to me (being better with axes makes your axe skills stronger) and there weren’t a thousand passive effects tied to them like there are with traits.

We have a direct continuation of the old GW lore.

Sure, though depending on your opinion of Anet’s writing staff that could be a good or a bad thing. :P

Disagree with the notion that the game is more accessable, Guild Wars was very intuitive and easy understand for me, and the large variety and intricacies of skill interactions made the game much deeper. Now we have a thousand particle effects covering everything we do and a petting zoo making combat indecipherable. GW2 is more confusing to watch and play than GW1 ever was.

Being able to get max stat gear and then spending the rest of the time playing the game or customizing your appearance was one of the things that made GW1 good, no vertical grind, no stat optimization. Just get your gear and go. If you want to be pretty go do that, you wont be any different than someone who just has the first max stat stuff they bought.

I’d argue that any leveling is boring, but at least it was over after 20 levels in GW1. The open world and graphics are probably the only actual improvements GW2 made over its predecessor. I’d have much rather paid $60 for GW1 with an open world over what I’ve gotten out of GW2, because I certainly don’t feel like I’ve gotten my $60 worth out of the game yet.

To me, saying there’s anything left of the old Guild Wars is just being blind and delusional. I’m a Guild Wars 1 player, and I don’t feel like there’s been ANYTHING intended to make me happy as a customer. I’d love to love this game. I don’t think I’ve ever tried and fail so hard to enjoy something. Instead all I’ve gotten is frustration and a bunch of fanboys telling me that I’m “wrong” for wanting Guild Wars 2 to actually BE Guild Wars 2.

you like Gw1, you want more of it understood.

but yeah the skills/system is diverse, not as diverse as gw1, but gw1 is at the far end of the spectrum, which is fine, but you dont tell a 6 foot 4 guy he is short because manute bowl exists.

sequel means dif thing to dif people, i loved gw1, but i like many things they did with gw2, i wouldnt want a gw1 HD, but thats just me

Red Queen.7915:

That same open world changes according to our actions (not nearly as much as people seemed to have thought initially, but enough for me) instead of always being the same whenever we leave a city and play in an instanced area.

GW1 was actually more varied than GW2 in this department. When you load into an instance in GW1 there can be more variations of where the mobs are located. There are patrolling mobs that you have to pay attention to in order to avoid getting pinched between two groups. In GW2 there is none of that, not even in the dungeons. Well except in a couple of spots in Arah.

The world doesn’t really change. At best some things get a new coat of paint from time to time.

Josh Foreman.8250:

. We’ve done some WvW,

uhhhh do you mean adding actual acheivements to stuff we already do and giving out such poor rewards for completion or do you mean adding the bloodlust that is so easily ignored by most severs or do you mean adding toxic events to the mercenary camps causing people to stop doing the mercenary camps for a few weeks?

Khisanth.2948:

Red Queen.7915:

That same open world changes according to our actions (not nearly as much as people seemed to have thought initially, but enough for me) instead of always being the same whenever we leave a city and play in an instanced area.

GW1 was actually more varied than GW2 in this department. When you load into an instance in GW1 there can be more variations of where the mobs are located. There are patrolling mobs that you have to pay attention to in order to avoid getting pinched between two groups. In GW2 there is none of that, not even in the dungeons. Well except in a couple of spots in Arah.

The world doesn’t really change. At best some things get a new coat of paint from time to time.

its actually in a lot of the dungeons, i can remember it in TA SF COE HOW Ascalon. But now people know where and how to avoid much of it, Or they just kill it all.

Most of the time people just run past mobs though

Hey Josh,

The biggest, most frustrating, most baffling issue with Wurm is the overflow system. I was just in an overflow on BG(one of the larger server populations) and we had about 20 people try to kill Crimson. We knew we couldn’t get all of them, why try right? We did the escorts and failed miserably without a single burn. The event just doesn’t scale. AT ALL. 20 champs running around one shotting the 4 people that stayed, since the others realized the this was an exercise in futility.
Is this the way that GW2 is going to progress with open world events? Be in a maxed out server, or wait a few hours afk to get a chance to do content?
You guys really need to look hard at what the overflow system is doing to the playerbase and make a change or changes asap.
I would recommend having an overflow system like GW1 did with districts so people who are not in the main server can at least organize.
Either way, the current meta of Wurms is: Unless you’re on a large,full, main server, you have little to no chance at completing the content, which will lead to people not even bothering.

Stormcrow.7513:

Hey Josh,

The biggest, most frustrating, most baffling issue with Wurm is the overflow system. I was just in an overflow on BG(one of the larger server populations) and we had about 20 people try to kill Crimson. We knew we couldn’t get all of them, why try right? We did the escorts and failed miserably without a single burn. The event just doesn’t scale. AT ALL. 20 champs running around one shotting the 4 people that stayed, since the others realized the this was an exercise in futility.
Is this the way that GW2 is going to progress with open world events? Be in a maxed out server, or wait a few hours afk to get a chance to do content?
You guys really need to look hard at what the overflow system is doing to the playerbase and make a change or changes asap.
I would recommend having an overflow system like GW1 did with districts so people who are not in the main server can at least organize.
Either way, the current meta of Wurms is: Unless you’re on a large,full, main server, you have little to no chance at completing the content, which will lead to people not even bothering.

This guy nailed it. Cheerz.

Etien.4601:

Stormcrow.7513:

Hey Josh,

The biggest, most frustrating, most baffling issue with Wurm is the overflow system. I was just in an overflow on BG(one of the larger server populations) and we had about 20 people try to kill Crimson. We knew we couldn’t get all of them, why try right? We did the escorts and failed miserably without a single burn. The event just doesn’t scale. AT ALL. 20 champs running around one shotting the 4 people that stayed, since the others realized the this was an exercise in futility.
Is this the way that GW2 is going to progress with open world events? Be in a maxed out server, or wait a few hours afk to get a chance to do content?
You guys really need to look hard at what the overflow system is doing to the playerbase and make a change or changes asap.
I would recommend having an overflow system like GW1 did with districts so people who are not in the main server can at least organize.
Either way, the current meta of Wurms is: Unless you’re on a large,full, main server, you have little to no chance at completing the content, which will lead to people not even bothering.

This guy nailed it. Cheerz.

Exactly its been an issue with tequaltl and its more of an issue now that is not being addressed.

Josh – it’s really refreshing seeing you defend a game having a variety of content for a variety of playstyles. The first MMO I played has actively driven off raiders and anyone who enjoys challenge. It’s great to have a dev who wants to keep adding some challenge to the game whilst also preserving that easy escapism playstyle as well. Thank you.

So basically they want us to try to get better with new builds and learn etc, but then add nothing that will help us with that. and by that I mean:

No talent/skill profiles
Incredible expensive and hard to get armor sets (with max stats)
No wardrobe function to switch between armor sets to try new things

I just don’t understand Anet. They keep giving us stuff no one really asked for, but ignore what we really and, most importantly, NEED. And we have needed a lot of these simple features since day one. Even more pathetic is that Guild Wars 1 has some of these features.

They have never responded to these issues and wont, because this would affect gem store sales. Really sad to see that Anet going this route. I actually fear we will begin to pay gems to unlock any new skills that are introduced. 500 gems per new skill sounds about right.

Most people in this thread.

wickedkae.4980:

So basically they want us to try to get better with new builds and learn etc, but then add nothing that will help us with that. and by that I mean:

No talent/skill profiles
Incredible expensive and hard to get armor sets (with max stats)
No wardrobe function to switch between armor sets to try new things

No gear checks! No damage meters! No in-game voice comms! Play how you want…

… but you need to L2P if you want to do new Living Story?

Uruz Six.6594:

wickedkae.4980:

So basically they want us to try to get better with new builds and learn etc, but then add nothing that will help us with that. and by that I mean:

No talent/skill profiles
Incredible expensive and hard to get armor sets (with max stats)
No wardrobe function to switch between armor sets to try new things

No gear checks! No damage meters! No in-game voice comms! Play how you want…

… but you need to L2P if you want to do new Living Story?

that sounds actually like a really good concept to me.
no gear checks
no damage meters
just learn how to play your class

Thanks for the great post Josh. Please don’t listen to the people saying it’s too hard because it isn’t.

This is the best PVE content Arenanet has made and they’ve come a long way. Arenanet should be proud of themselves, please continue to make more.

Ace.1726:

Thanks for the great post Josh. Please don’t listen to the people saying it’s too hard because it isn’t.

This is the best PVE content Arenanet has made and they’ve come a long way. Arenanet should be proud of themselves, please continue to make more.

agree…..and have messaged them so.
this is very near the sweet spot between 1111zerg and small group dungeon content……while not perfect (the inability for finished platform groups to help unfinished platform groups in some way), the event is awesome and they should build on this for future PERMANENT content.

Uhh ya you guys missed the point. You can’t play how you want. At least not to the fullest extent.

Part of getting good with your class is the ability to try everything your class can do and use it all efficiently. Anet has gone out of its way to make it very difficult for players to test and try different builds to the fullest extent. Good gear is mandatory. Don’t fool yourself. Different gear is required for different builds. Anet makes sure all of this is impossible. Very hard to get better with so many hurtles.

If GW2 is about skill then why am I not allowed to learn and switch between set builds easily to test and learn? If all players could do this then ALL doors of a class would open and people may actually find what they like. Instead you basically need to pick a specific direction and build your gear around that. That leaves very little room for people to learn and get better all around. I would love to try more build son my necro, but I am fully ascended and if ANY anet dev thinks I’mgoing through that nightmare again… LOL ya right. I am now stuck with my build and if people need me to maybe do something different to help the group, i can’t. the whole system is beyond stupid.

HappyPrimes.3904:

I’d have much rather paid $60 for GW1 with an open world over what I’ve gotten out of GW2, because I certainly don’t feel like I’ve gotten my $60 worth out of the game yet..

wow. i disagree with some of your statements (especially that you actually liked the combat of GW1 over GW2), but you are entitled.

if all you’ve received so far in this game with respect to the free content updates has not been worth your $60 (seems crazy to me, but whatever), why don’t you move on to another game? seems like masochism.

Xailen Shadowclaw.9351:

Josh Foreman.8250:

Zylonite.5913:

I play the game to have fun, not to become better at something….If something tries to change me then it means it does’t accept me as a player??? so is the GW2 player base not accepted within ANet’s walls that now we have to change?

Some people only have fun WHEN they are learning and displaying mastery of skill. If you are not like that, cool. No problem. We love and accept you just as you are. We made most of our game content for you! Don’t ever change. Seriously, there’s room for all of us here.

This makes me sad. What is life without challenge? Absolutely boring.

Yes. GW2 is life. sarcastic

phys.7689:

you didnt lose because 1 group wiped, you lost because 5 groups wiped, or your lanes allowed too many enemies through.
Everyone wants to blame the last group in the last platform, but really 1 group failing cannot lose the event on its own.
It takes 5 failures for chain if you play good defense, this means 5 platform groups failed, if these platforms had 4 people that means 20 people failed. 20% of people failing is not a small amount.

Also, it seems like either people are getting better at the event, or less people who dont know the event are playing. I have had more victories lately, less preparation time, and people getting farther even on fails.

When you’re talking about 100 people, I consider 20% failing to be small taking into consideration you’ve probably never played with any of the people on your platform before. A group doesn’t even necessarily wipe to fail, they just time out. Furthermore, you can’t pin failure on every member of the group, 3 bad players with 1 good player is doomed from the start. Or in the case of champion 2, it could be possible that it chases 1 person who is unable to kite it correctly.

As many people have pointed out, there is a stark difference between a challenge where entry is controlled and one where it’s no holds barred. Logically, you expect less out of the latter. I also expect content to be tuned appropriately.

I wish I could say I see the improvement that you do. I think I’ve seen champion 3 beaten by an entire lane once. Champion 2 still fails regularly, more often than it succeeds.

Josh Foreman.8250:

The PvPers would negate the PvE, PvE negates WvW, WvW negates PvP, etc. Think of an MMO like a newspaper. Some people only read the comics. Some only want the sports page. Some like all the parts, but enjoy the local news the most, etc.

so… then why you push pve and living story in to www, yet I dont see that happend in pvp or pushing pvp in to pve. Thats a bit like one sided/hipocritical?. take a look on www section since day one of YOUR game ppl shout take your pve out of my www. But we all know the answer to that, dont we?

Fights like Wurm should be instanced. If it were easier to get a single group of people together for the fight, WITHOUT PUGS, then Wurm would have been killed day 1, and would be killed often since.

Many of us are not even trying to fight the Wurm anymore, because we can’t get a competent group together to do it, without being overran by useless pugs that won’t get on TS or use proper gear.

Relshdan.6854:

wow. i disagree with some of your statements (especially that you actually liked the combat of GW1 over GW2), but you are entitled.

if all you’ve received so far in this game with respect to the free content updates has not been worth your $60 (seems crazy to me, but whatever), why don’t you move on to another game? seems like masochism.

My neighbor has thrown his garbage in my yard before. That’s also free, doesn’t mean I’m grateful for it. It can seem as crazy to you as you want it, if I wanted your opinion I’d have told you what it was before asking for it.

I paid money for Guild Wars 2, and I do not feel like I’ve gotten my money’s worth. I am an unsatisfied customer end of story. I’d complain to the manager of a restaurant if I thought the service was bad, I’ll do the same here.

I either want my money’s worth, or I want my money back. I’m sick of waiting and hoping Anet will do something I’ll actually enjoy, because I’ve lost all faith in them at this point.

Josh Foreman.8250:

Zylonite.5913:

I play the game to have fun, not to become better at something….If something tries to change me then it means it does’t accept me as a player??? so is the GW2 player base not accepted within ANet’s walls that now we have to change?

Some people only have fun WHEN they are learning and displaying mastery of skill. If you are not like that, cool. No problem. We love and accept you just as you are. We made most of our game content for you! Don’t ever change.

This worries me a bit, Josh. Most people (I guess) aren’t new players, GW2 isn’t like any jump’n run which you play days / maybe a few weeks. GW2 is a game which many people play for months now, and it’s inevitable that the player becomes better in that time. Players also get levels and gear which makes them even more powerful, so you could be afk in a zone, having mobs attacking you and you will survive. You can entirely ignore mobs by running away in most zones, since they can’t keep up with the player at any time (few use cc skills on you and if they do, they do it rarely).

I don’t like that. It limits the challenging content for players who enjoy a interesting gameplay to level 80 zones mostly imho.

When we look at current games we see the popularity of really difficult games. Dark Souls was huge because of that, Tribulation Mode in GW2 was loved and press enjoys the “higher” difficulty in WildStar.

My suggestion: include really challenging environment within each zone, which opens up new areas to explore with strong monsters to fight. Not only small areas but actually bigger parts of a zone. Something where you have to prove that you know how to dodge, or learn certain patterns. This way even new players could start to learn how to meet a challenge while players who don’t like this simply stay away from this parts of the map.

Making every area accessible by just ignoring the mobs while running through makes the game feel trivial in these parts imho.

… a huge berserker troll guards the entrance to a cave… well… I just run by, into the cave… bye troll.

Ehh, I don’t know if Tribulation Mode was “loved”. Even as a lover of SAB, TM was downright frustrating at times. XD But it was definitely enjoyed by the subset of people it was made for. The truly great thing about it was that it was completely optional, and it could be solo’ed. Your success or failure rested entirely on your own skill and abilities (well, subject to lag and disconnects).

Tribulation mode’s only fault was coin system. You could only finish TM by “try and see” tactic and it needed 8329482094820 coins or gem store’s Infinite Coin.

I admit, tribulation mode might have been a bad example, let’s say SAB in general instead. It isn’t a cakewalk and you have the option for an easy mode as well. I’d like content like this. Tribulation mode is a bit extreme, my mistake.

Stop giving arenanet crap for making something difficult. It’s not on them if you’re bad at the game. Don’t turn this into WoW forums by complaining when something’s too hard.

Josh, if I may give an idea for a “hotfix”-capable solution the to platform problem:

• Remove the current Electrified Aura buff.
• When one platform destroys their console, take all that platform’s players and distribute them via the algorithm which also sorts them when thy initially go up, but now restricted to the remaining platforms.

In other words, players congregate more and more as platforms finish.

This’d solve the problem in one fell swoop. It sadly also removes the part where the came coerces you to improve, but I think the argument that any try will have a handful of new/untrained players and those are easily enough to break the fight for everyone has merit.

As such, I’d do this – it can be hotfixed in I believe, since all coding is already in place – and do the “real” fix with the next boss encounter.

Marcus Greythorne.6843:

My suggestion: include really challenging environment within each zone, which opens up new areas to explore with strong monsters to fight. Not only small areas but actually bigger parts of a zone. Something where you have to prove that you know how to dodge, or learn certain patterns. This way even new players could start to learn how to meet a challenge while players who don’t like this simply stay away from this parts of the map.

Yeah, I’d agree to this. Maybe any area of a map that’s dominated dragon minions or worshippers can get the nod, or all the bad guys. Can’t have the Nightmare Court missing out, bad things could happen.

For people who still want “Let us help them if we finish our platform earlier”, one of the devs said that they tried to implement it but they couldn’t do it in a good way. So that’s why there is no platform helping.

phys.7689:

Uruz Six.6594:

wickedkae.4980:

So basically they want us to try to get better with new builds and learn etc, but then add nothing that will help us with that. and by that I mean:

No talent/skill profiles
Incredible expensive and hard to get armor sets (with max stats)
No wardrobe function to switch between armor sets to try new things

No gear checks! No damage meters! No in-game voice comms! Play how you want…

… but you need to L2P if you want to do new Living Story?

that sounds actually like a really good concept to me.
no gear checks
no damage meters
just learn how to play your class

I agree i’m not waiting for gearchecks and dps meters either, only supports players saying, “you don’t have item X or your DPS is not XXX, so GO AWAY”

PLease NO

However most of us need to learn a new event. that 2 hour timer between different attempts is keeping us from learning it.

We all know that you learn a lot from mistakes, so a fail is learning you a lot both as player and the group. However, if you want to use this experience and try to do it better you have to wait 2 hours before you can try again, and since no one will wait that long you also have a whole new group, 2 hours later (also thanks to overflow system) therefore major part of the group experience is lost as each group is different.

If we could at least get a few direct retries, we can make use of the experience and learn improve as a group. Also players can learn a lot faster, adapt were needed and try again.

This can be done in open world by just starting the event again a few min after it failed. If needed there could even be a short in between event to prepare for the next attack that starts immediately after the fail.

Please give us a chance to try the event again with the same group after a fail so we can learn it as a group and defeat it.

Marcus Greythorne.6843:

Josh Foreman.8250:

Zylonite.5913:

I play the game to have fun, not to become better at something….If something tries to change me then it means it does’t accept me as a player??? so is the GW2 player base not accepted within ANet’s walls that now we have to change?

Some people only have fun WHEN they are learning and displaying mastery of skill. If you are not like that, cool. No problem. We love and accept you just as you are. We made most of our game content for you! Don’t ever change.

This worries me a bit, Josh. Most people (I guess) aren’t new players, GW2 isn’t like any jump’n run which you play days / maybe a few weeks. GW2 is a game which many people play for months now, and it’s inevitable that the player becomes better in that time. Players also get levels and gear which makes them even more powerful, so you could be afk in a zone, having mobs attacking you and you will survive. You can entirely ignore mobs by running away in most zones, since they can’t keep up with the player at any time (few use cc skills on you and if they do, they do it rarely).

I don’t like that. It limits the challenging content for players who enjoy a interesting gameplay to level 80 zones mostly imho.

When we look at current games we see the popularity of really difficult games. Dark Souls was huge because of that, Tribulation Mode in GW2 was loved and press enjoys the “higher” difficulty in WildStar.

My suggestion: include really challenging environment within each zone, which opens up new areas to explore with strong monsters to fight. Not only small areas but actually bigger parts of a zone. Something where you have to prove that you know how to dodge, or learn certain patterns. This way even new players could start to learn how to meet a challenge while players who don’t like this simply stay away from this parts of the map.

Making every area accessible by just ignoring the mobs while running through makes the game feel trivial in these parts imho.

… a huge berserker troll guards the entrance to a cave… well… I just run by, into the cave… bye troll.

Have you been to Orr mate? I had no idea you can afk on Cursed Shore and not be dead after 10 seconds.

Anyways, this discussion is not about challenging content. That has been discussed many times in the past and as you said many other game that are challenging. I also love challenging games like demon souls and dark souls, but this topic is about changing the way we play and work with other players in bigger groups to accomplish things.

There is already challenging content in the game. It is called fractals level 49+….

Josh Foreman.8250:

I agree. This is the weakest part of the design. If I could go back in time I’d make sure our brilliant designers and content people had the time to make it so after you break a regulator you can /cheer to res the nearest downed player.

I would have laughed so hard at this – using emotes to produce effects would really be great ;-)

Tribulation mode’s only fault was coin system. You could only finish TM by “try and see” tactic and it needed 8329482094820 coins or gem store’s Infinite Coin.

Yeah, Tribulation Mode only “worked” as a troll against the players who tried it. It made for a funny Wooden Potatoes video. I saw no reason to subject myself to that, especially not without a Pay-to-Win coin in my pocket. Actually, while I cleared World 1 just fine on Normal mode, by the middle of World 2-2 I just gave up on the idea, I think I could have done it eventually, I don’t think anything was beyond my skills, but the worlds took way too long to clear and I just didn’t care, so I finished them on baby mode and was fine with that. If they’d have divided World 2 into about 6-8 separate zones, where you could clear one and return to it later rather than having to clear all of 2-1, 2-2, or 2-3 in a single pass, then I probably would have done that over the course of a week or so.

Josh, if I may give an idea for a “hotfix”-capable solution the to platform problem:

Remove the current Electrified Aura buff.
When one platform destroys their console, take all that platform’s players and distribute them via the algorithm which also sorts them when thy initially go up, but now restricted to the remaining platforms.

In other words, players congregate more and more as platforms finish.

/second.

We need something here. MY home server’s actually been doing pretty good on this one, they’ve cleared it as a server about ten times or so, I was in one of those, but they seem to have pretty much given up, the last few runs have had almost no coordination or presence, they have devolved to no different than Overflow (meaning, among other things, that they never get past the second chain).

I agree i’m not waiting for gearchecks and dps meters either, only supports players saying, “you don’t have item X or your DPS is not XXX, so GO AWAY”

Here’s the problem though, currently we have the worst of both worlds. We have game mechanics that demand gear checks and DPS meters (try to take on Tequatl with a party full of level 70s in greens), but they don’t give us the tools to actually do it as it needs to be done.

I don’t like those things either, I don’t like the elitism they generate, but if they don’t want gear and DPS checks then they need to design the content to not require them, by either scaling very precisely (like scaling down for each character with less than exotic, less than rare, less than master, etc.,), or by designing the content based on the lowest common denominator (ie if the event takes place in a level 50 zone, then the content needs to be balanced based on a full raidgroup of level 50s in greens). Otherwise when you have no way of telling what a character is bringing to the party, or of excluding them if they don’t bring enough, then you just end up with everyone failing, and it being their fault, but being completely incapable of stopping that from happening.