Showing Posts For Anishor.6921:
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Yes, you should be focused on playing the game not trying to get +1 ring.
As I see players are finally starting to open to Guild Wars 2 criticism, I have decided to take another swing at making a forum post to get the ArenaNet developers to understand where they have gone wrong and how they can improve the game. Rather than make a typical complaint post, I’ve decided to explain why I think Guild Wars 2 is a flawed game.
In order to explain this, I’m going to be using their previous game, Guild Wars, for many comparisons. Before I start, please refrain from “go play another game/go design your own game” posts as they do not contribute to the discussion.
For those who never played Guild Wars, Guild Wars was a CORPG based on skillsets. The level cap is 20 and most content was designed for level cap.
Here are some of Guild Wars 2’s game design flaws that go against ArenaNet’s manifesto.
Levels are obsolete
After Guild Wars: Prophecies, ArenaNet noticed that lower level areas were becoming abandoned.
To fight this, they implemented tutorial zones where players would level from 1-20 very quickly. They also added Hard Mode to encourage players to revisit older areas. Many players who desired vertical progression quickly left, turned off by the level cap. However, in theory this system was perfect.
Because all content was at level cap, there was basically no need for a leveling system. This meant that once players were at level cap, they would experience the entire game as endgame.
Instead of creating a game which has no levels, ArenaNet quadrupled the level cap and introduced a downscaling system. Although this system gives players a sense of progression while still allowing them to visit old content… it works well until players reach endgame.
Here are several flaws of the current system:
- Older zones are obsolete and content is still categorized. Players will not visit older zones if the level range is numerically inferior. This is why ArenaNet cannot “make the whole game endgame”, because zones in the level cap are still the true endgame. This directly contradicts the ArenaNet manifesto.
- Balancing and dynamic content scaling is a development nightmare. Scaling a dynamic event accurately is difficult when players have different levels of power. This is mostly noted during event zergfests. While I encourage the idea of an event system, I feel it could have been better executed without levels.
- Having levels encourages vertical progression. Players do not want to be downscaled and many players who have 100% zone completion avoid older zones because of this.
Edit: for clarity.
I disagree, I think the down-scaling works well and does encourage players to revisit those older places, unlike pretty much every other MMO I’ve played since SWG. Myself and several members of my guild who are in full exotics @ 80, patrol and do dailes in the Norn foothills, because we still get rewarded fairly well especially if the Maw Shaman event chain pops.
@Ktham, it is a huge deal because it adds up and in the top 2-3 tiers people will want everyone to have the best or simply not queue because you’re hurting your server. That’s as much BS as the same line of crap when they said Jedi would be a rare Alpha class in pre-NGE SWG, what happened? Everyone went Jedi to be viable in World PVP.
Most of us aren’t trying to insult those that enjoy gear grinding but one of the main points about GW2 was that there wouldn’t be a gear grind. It would be a fun virtual world with horizontal progression. Especially since vertical progression MMOs are the norm at the moment. ( Rift, SWTOR, Aion, AoC, WoW, LOTRO, STO )
Exploit my vanity. More clothing, more appearance options, titles, banners for my guild.
Horizontal Progression > Vertical Progression for virtual worlds ie what GW2 is designed to be.
You do realize that a vertical progression game encourages having less of a social life than one with horizontal progression right?
Also the gym isn’t for socializing. It’s for working out, and pubs stink when you cannot smoke or drink.
being a software developer I understand that response to such huge issues take time, so no I don’t think they’ve completely sold the farm so to speak yet.
Donkey here! HEEEEHAWWWW!
I love the end game gear progression. Hitting a wall and never growing from 80 is a horribad idea in my opinion.
So why aren’t you playing one of the games designed for vertical progression from the get go. That have a lot more content for you to run through?
Rift? TOR? WOW? Aion?
Because all those games suck? And it has nothing to do with their gear progression. LOL.
The only game I can think of that did gear progression, and did it horribly wrong and that’s why it failed, was WARHAMMER online.
And I’m here because unlike you, I’m happy with gw2. “Why are you still here?” would be the better question?
I am for the most part happy with the game and I want it to continue enjoying the game, and a vertical progression will eventually remove said enjoyment. I’m being proactive.
We should ask Taugrim to do a rebuttal. Since he’s one of the champions of horizontal progression that can speak quite eloquently about it.
Donkey here! HEEEEHAWWWW!
I love the end game gear progression. Hitting a wall and never growing from 80 is a horribad idea in my opinion.
So why aren’t you playing one of the games designed for vertical progression from the get go. That have a lot more content for you to run through?
Rift? TOR? WOW? Aion?
Seriously, you’re moaning about some new free content like a little girl..
You missed the entire point. WE like the new content, I like the concepts, what WE don’t like is the improved gear stats. No case has been made as to why the power creep was introduced.
Fractals great,
New Zone great,
new gear great,
new gear with better stats than exotics VERY BAD.
It’s quite simple, we keep the pressure up here and start taking it to twitter and to facebook. We are their core and their dedicated gamers. We’re the ones buying gems not the content locusts. They’re just on the forms whining about how there’s not new gear to grind or content to go through.
You can have new content, that’s fun for everyone, you just don’t have to have new and better items with stats. Just keep making new skins that are cool and different. I don’t see why you need new “stats” to get people to do new content, you’re going from playing for fun to playing to keep up.
Agreed. You know even if the ascended gear was a trade off of slightly better stats like medallions, but no utility I would be down for it. But as it is now, there’s no trade off, it’s flat out better.
It’s quite simple, we keep the pressure up here and start taking it to twitter and to facebook. We are their core and their dedicated gamers. We’re the ones buying gems not the content locusts. They’re just on the forms whining about how there’s not new gear to grind or content to go through.
Also please for those of you with people that don’t agree with the change, please POST here and voice your opinion. You cannot be counted if you don’t voice your opinion. Encourage your guildies and your friends to post here. Make our voices heard.
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This game will not be competitive without a horizontal progression.
The thing is grinding is being added in most new games with such as black op 2 there are level to get things to unlock and there is a level of skill you must get to play. They are doing this for every thing and yes this is a type of grind because they want you to keep playing and by adding in something to get in the long run you keep playing.
If your looking for a game with out this i say play one of the old story games where you cant lose and there is nothing but a bit of clicking.
In most games that are well balanced they unlock variety. Not more powerful gear.
Further more, the players who enjoy the carrot model have considerably better options to play at the moment with far more content.
AoC, Aion, WoW, Rift are four I could come up with that have more traditional raids and gear grinds.
I understand the games income is from our gem purchases and the best way to get that it to appeal to the idea that we want to look how we do. IE our vanity. But moving to a vertical progression, you will see less and less purchases of vanity items because players are less likely to buy them when they know a new set of gear is right around the corner so why change my look if I’m going to have to do it again.
New gear isn’t the enemy, new gear with higher stats is.
Human beings are not donkeys. Please stop treating us like we are. The vertical progression and gear treadmill games are trying to turn humans into donkeys. The endless pursuit of ‘more powerful gear’ is the same as having the stick in front of the donkey on the trail trying to get him to plod along for as long as he’ll last. In those games you never get through end game because next expansion, or content release there’s always newer gear. It’s exploitative of some humans addictive nature. Like doing cocaine for the first time, always chasing that high.
MMOs were once about experiencing and playing a in virtual world. Games like SWG, GW1 and UO weren’t about the illusion that is ‘end game progression’. Guild Wars 2’s vision and Manifesto harkened to a return to those worlds. To gamers going to all areas of the beautiful game worlds that the devs have created and playing in them. GW2 in my opinion achieved that with the game they launched with. It was beautiful, it was a living breathing virtual world, were players actually helped each other. Exotic gear was moderately easy to obtain and could be obtain from at least four different ways of playing the game. After getting the spec and exotic gear you liked you simply could go about playing the game as you enjoyed, ie living in the virtual world of Tyria.
However recent changes have indicated a move toward treating us, your current and active customer base, like donkeys. Not just with the shift from the developers in terms of vertical progression with the plan changed to Legendary gear and the introduction of ascended gear. But the lack of communication to the player base.
Please treat us like human beings again. Communicate your long term plans with us for vertical versus horizontal progression in PVE and WvW. If you cannot remove ascended gear’s improved stats, restore the horizontal progression in some way and do it soon. There are a number of ways I know your talented design strike-teams can tackle the problem. Such as using the mystic forge to upgrade exotic gear to ascended gear to empower the item.
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I have to say I am surprised that we have a Next Gen MMO without a subscription model. I think the industry is starting to catch on with the releases of Hawken, Planetside 2, Mechwarrior Online and Guild Wars 2 all following the F2P format.
Bugs aside, you have to admit that GW2 has the best PvP and PvE content in the MMO market right now, and all this while being a recent release.
If they could just nail the annoying bugs it would be almost perfect (aside from constantly adding new content as every MMO has to do after release )
The main bugs that are tarnishing it from my standpoint are Culling, endless load screens at times, CTD at times, that never ending and very annoying catapult sound in WvW, sometimes if you are moving your character will get bug and keep moving backwards or forwards (using a movement ability usually stops it from continuing).
Other than culling, they don’t happen often enough to be game breaking (although that kitten catapult sound needs to get fixed pronto)
I don’t understand why when you go in the game you see large amounts of people enjoying the game and having fun, but when I come to the forums I see nothing but thread after thread about how GW2 fails. The forums are recently like this too, I’m starting to think that they are under attack by trolls.
The game doesn’t have a subscription, no one is forcing you to play it. Take a break if you need to, I did and came back a week later and im having more fun than ever.
Until the ascended gear the forums were mostly positive on a whole the only whiners were the donkeys who wanted that forever in front never reachable carrot ie – a gear treadmill and vertical progression.
I don’t understand why there’s culling that’s outside the control of the gamer.
I know my hardware better than anyone else, especially better than some game engine implementer, and I can accurately adjust my settings to make it playable as I need to. I’ve never seen such horribly-implemented “optimization”.
Render everything by default and leave it up to the player to adjust the settings. Or, better, leave your “optimizations” in place (I’m sure they were trying to pander to the less-than-avid hardware user, seems to be a trend these days, while insulting those of use who get it) and give the option to have full control available for us that want it when we want it.
It’s not just rendering but also the amount of information passed.
WvW and RPers are not ‘casual’ players but also are the most loyal supporters of a horizontal progression like we had until ascended gear was introduced.
I made my first piece of ascended gear yesterday for my back slot. It was a a little more difficult than getting an exotic but definitely achievable and not gated behind some elitist barrier.
To give an idea on stats – my toughness from that slot jumped from 28 to 34.
All said, nothing to get upset over. I agree I dont want a “treadmill,” but the slight bump gives people something to strive for without breaking the game.
Also – brilliant of them to only intro backs and rings for now with the promise of more to come. That way the “progression” of getting ascended is extended over a really long time, our current gear isnt invalidated and people interested in those things have something to look forward to.
I think if most people stop, take a deep breath, and think about it logically, they will see this not some horrible game breaking event – and that it may actually be a good thing.
This is a game breaking event. The game that was suppose to be based on horizontal progression. Horizontal progression encourages experimentation and freedom to change when you want. What about those people who have 3 different exotic sets? See the affect that would have? Exotics are easy to obtain, which encourages people to try differnet things. Like trying to find ‘for X build as Y class, lets try stat set A, B, and C’.
As soon as you change Y, A, B, C can change in horizontal progression. With Vertical progression you are very less likely to do that because it takes exponentially more time.
was running at over 100 FPS, and near 30 ms ping but still had both the invisible mobs and ability delay. That’s all server side.
Phase 3 with the number and strength of mobs required massive amounts of players with the server side culling were a recipe for disaster. Entire ‘zergs’ of players were wiped out by mobs that had been culled. So basically it was impossible to have fun with this phase of the event. I always understood the developmental goals of Anet for GW2 to be fun and not grindy in the virtual world of Tyria. But Phase 3 was exactly the opposite, not fun, hours of killing npcs that didn’t show up on screens until people were dead.
A number of my guildies, who are normally fanboys/fangirls were calling this the worst event in their gaming careers. Who have played WoW, Aion, SWG, TOR, UO, and EQ1/2 depending on their ages.
My question is why with knowing the culling issue had surfaced in WvW and earlier phases, is why was this pushed as it was implemented? This event and the ascended gear changes and a free trial? Had I been a person on free trial, basing whether I was staying on these weekend’s event, I would have uninstalled the game and never looked back.
My friend and I have been avid GW2 players since launch. With the implementation of this event with several people in my guild who I would normally describe as GW2 Fanboys or Fangirls described the event especially phase 3 “Worst Event I’ve Ever experienced in my gaming career.” Couple that with these changes and the ruining of horizontal progression is removing the desire to play from my guildies.
What is it with nov 15th and game companies pushing shattering changes to games?
Hmm though without the ability to equip runes or sigils it’ll be close depending on infusions, jewelry however is no contest.
The only healing change was regarding the amount of targets you can heal.
How often do you find yourself healing more than 5 allies?
WvW and any event in Orr.
This and that’s what made it worth traiting, you could heal mass amounts of people for small amounts.
I assume shout healing was one of the ones affected by the change to limit healing? Which sucks because the heals weren’t that substantial so I guess there’s not much reason to go full tactics anymore.
The current exotic BIS model works really well because it encourages changing and experimenting with builds. Just like I did in SWG with their stat system. You couldn’t get higher than +35 power bits without exploiting.
A New tier of runes and sigils could negate this entire mess if they stick to keeping them with the stat increase.
or
Ascended gear should have a smaller stat increase since from the look of it you will not be able to put runes or sigils in them. It’s akin putting medallions in your upgrade slots. You’ll have higher stats but no bonuses. But not so much higher that it’s not a trade off. I mean that’s what most specs do you can’t have everything you have to make trade offs. Should be the same idea with Ascended vs Exotics – Ascended give you more stats but get none of the rune/sigil utility. ( Legendarily weapons are a whole other issue since most of them are really ugly )
P.S. Devs, a very detailed informational post on your exact plans for the gear, progression, and where you’re taking us would help cool the fires.
There’s a few ways they could address that stat gap to keep Exotic viable.
a.) L80 Runes/Sigils/Jewels that Ascended Quality items cannot equip. Thus ensuring that Ascended gear has a smaller statistical advantage but trades off the utility and customization of runes/sigils much like the medallions that drop now do.
I think only infusion upgrades can go into a infusion slot. I want a full set of superior runes of the ranger on my damage set of exotic armor – I don’t think Ascended gear would give me this, since from what I understand, we cannot put runes in ascended gear, only infusions. That’s not to say there won’t be “Infusion(s) of the ranger” or something. There isn’t enough information to clarify that.
Yep, and if they added a new lvl of runes that could only go into non-ascended gear that had higher stats than they do now it would lower the gap and provide a trade off and keep the horizontal progression IMO. Of course these runes would need to be easily accessible to all playstyles.
There’s a few ways they could address that stat gap to keep Exotic viable.
a.) L80 Runes/Sigils/Jewels that Ascended Quality items cannot equip. Thus ensuring that Ascended gear has a smaller statistical advantage but trades off the utility and customization of runes/sigils much like the medallions that drop now do.
b.) Make Ascended Gear accessible by all forms of gameplay – Crafting, WvW, and PvE. So that the investment made to get the gear is proportional from the stat gain. For example if it’s 10% better, it takes 10% more badges in WvW or 10% increase in time/cost to gather mats in crafting.
c.) A fairly accessible manner in which exotic gear can become ‘upgraded’ to Ascended. For example this would actually be sensible use of the forge. Put in exotic item, ascended upgrade item, skill point item, wine would return the same item back just increased to Ascended value.
It stops counting win streaks at 25, but as others said it still keeps counting.
Are the Halloween Tonics crafted by Artificers intended to be account bound only?
Two simple suggestions:
1. Allow placing of guild emblems on summoned warrior banners
2. Make the warhorn sounds sound like an actual horn
I fail to see how this is game is grindy unless you want to kitten a legendary weapon as if it makes you some magically gifted gamer, which is what most of your post is whining about how you’ll never get one.
This is a thinly veiled whine about the legendary weapon requirements, I promise you it won’t suddenly make you into a good gamer. It also doesn’t make those with legendary weapons better gamers :p Create a look you like and have fun experiencing this virtual world. =D
Edit: since I was asked what a carebear is…. they are people who expect everything to have everything without having to work for anything… they are the people who expect every child in a sports tournament to receive a trophy just for showing…
You’re analogy isn’t correct for GW2 and it’s a common strawman analogy used by those in favor of vertical progression for PVP. A more appropriate analogy would be like this:
Take the Olympics in any sport where gear is a factor, say fencing. The olympic officials make sure there’s no advantage (it’s why the spanish grip is still not legal in competitions) and they don’t give the best foilist a better foil for their next match, no they give them a gold medal. That gold medal doesn’t increase their ability to compete but just recognizes that they’re the top for that olympiad in that sport.
Same thing here in GW2
Further more, that analogy is insulting. There should be more to PVP than just gear, experience and player skill in the medium should be the dominating factor. In my favorite PVP experience of all time, SWG’s Jump to Lightspeed Expansion, we space PVPers knew when we were facing a noob who bought his gear of a vendor.
Anytime we had said newb say ‘oh your ship is just better than mine’ we often gave them our loadouts and still blew up their arses in no time flat, because it took experience and player skill to fight players in space. So the idea that those of us that think gear shouldn’t be a substitute for team-play, experience, and skill are wanting an ‘everyone is special’ type system is insulting especially being made by someone wanting to hide their lack of ability to have team play, use experience, and skill behind some oversized and phallic compensating gear advantage.
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It’s simple Sleaze, you want a game with a vertical progression, this game isn’t designed to be that kind of game, it is designed to be a virtual world with a horizontal progression.
I suggest Rift or WoW if you want a setting similar to Guild Wars but having a vertical progression. If you like Star Wars and want vertical progression there’s SWTOR.
As a culture we MMO players need to stop saying things are bad because they’re different from our tastes. I don’t like WoW’s taste, but from a design and engineering standpoint I can appreciate it. As a whole if the market does better we the consumer get more options because the industry becomes less risk averse. I mean we don’t say “OMG I want coffee ice cream makers to fail because I want strawberry.” however that’s the exact kind of thing we are doing to the MMO industry. You should want every single MMO to succeed.
How about just logging in and playing in this beautiful virtual world we’ve been given, same things that drove players in SWG for 8 years =) That’s a real end game to me. Having fun living in the virtual world. That means crafting and selling, PVP, RP, Instances, getting a legendary weapon….
Massive and big doesn’t equate to clumsy or loud. All it takes to be quiet is control and knowledge. That entire idea is a stereotype perpetuated by D&D. Some of the largest creatures in the animal kingdom are super sneaky and stealthy. You only hear about the big dumb loafs because they make for comedic elements in stories.
GW2 is moving back toward a virtual world rather than a themepark. Yes there’s direction but it still acts more like a Virtual world than a progression themepark ( ala SWTOR and WoW ).
I hope at some point they add in player cities/housing or something like that, to further emphasize the virtual world point rather than a bunch new dungeons for progression people.
You might want to read what the developers themselves had said. This MMO is designed to be a Virtual World. Not a themepark.
You are guided through the leveling process somewhat, but because of down leveling and the event system you are actively encouraged to go back through the world on high level characters. Unlike themeparks where you go to Tatooine, finish Tatooine, and never return to Tatooine.
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Dusk pretty much nailed it…Moreover this game had a great launch compared to other games (Been on several of them…).Enjoy the game guys and enjoy it to way it was built,its different either its pvp or pve. HF!
lol this game does have good endgame content FOR LAUNCH, but dusk has NO idea what he’s talking about. A themepark game needs progression for PvE to have any sort of longevity, b/c there’s only a set amount of content that players can beat faster than the devs can make.
Without progression, why would people play things they’ve already played before? If you want no endgame, than this game will be like a single player game, which would be a bold thing to do for an mmo, and I guess makes sense for a B2P game, they want you to stop playing to ease up on their servers, and they have no incentive to have you keep playing since you aren’t paying them for new content.
Um this game is more virtual world than any that have launched since SWG. Just saying, and is designed to be a virtual world. Not a themepark. It’s the anti-thesis to wow.
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Never use them for just healing, the healing is like icing on top of the muffin. You could just eat the icing but you’re probably going to end up dead.
I run what I call a squad leader build using Axe/WH with Shouts. I may switch vigorous shouts for lung capacity but the healing is a nice extra on top. I don’t invest in any +healing though. Basically the spec, with soldiers runes makes condition dmg my kitten.
For WvWvW I run with Knight’s and a longbow in the alternate set, with a Battle Standard.
For sPvP I run with Berserkers and a Sword/Shield in the alternate set, With Elite Sig
@Anishor: Uh, what? How exactly does the WoW progression model illustrate the “Fox and the Hares” problem? In fact, I think it better describes GW2 – there just isn’t enough hares to sustain all the foxes for a prolonged period of time. WoW’s progression model actually provides enough Hares for the Foxes. People raid, and do so for months, chasing that carrot – I won’t go into whether its good or bad, but one thing is that it keeps players in the game until next expac comes. A better analogy for GW2 I think is “butter spread over too much bread” – the game is huge, but its very shallow in a lot of places.
SWTOR is prob a better illustration of the problem with the Gear Based Progression Model than WoW due to WoW’s size and therefore supportive development team, though you do have to factor in the massive amount of time between raid/content releases. All the hardcore guilds consumed all the content in less than a month, and were desiring the next set of gear and complaining about it on the forums.
The only games I’ve seen the raid+gear-progression model work in is AoC and Rift. AoC works because the content is very hard and usually takes a long time for PUGs and casual guilds to be able to clear the current ‘tier’. Rift has an amazing dev team that puts out content really fast, they must have epic tools to aid in that speed.
I’m with Dusk, the entire WoW progression model is set up to fail because it illustrates one of the most common problems in nature. The fox and the hare ( also known as the Predator Prey Problem, a common assignment in AI classes :p )
You have an ever growing group of foxes ( players ) consuming all the hares ( content ) more quickly than nature can produce hares ( ie content can be generated ).
Also the whole gear treadmill is a self-serving exploitation of human nature. It’s basically crack for some people, crack is whack.
I would wager that the majority of MMO players see reward(s) as their primary source of fun in that particular genre. For them, a single-player RPG would suffice as a source of pure “fun,” but, in their view, MMOs are about character progression, competition, and the accumulation of intangible rewards/items/money/etc.
I would disagree with this statement. I think the reward/raiding hounds are only a portion of the MMO community, ultimately no bigger than say RPers or PVPers. I believe WoW has created an illusion that these types are the majority of MMO players. If they were SWTOR wouldn’t have burnt so fast.
There’s large group of players looking for a more virtual world experience now that really haven’t been targeted by any MMO company in recent years.
Perhaps you should get out more then :p
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