Anet isn’t completely silent. They did say there were bugs they were working on, including the fact that some of the new player experience was supposed to not carry over to existing players and did. They don’t know why yet.
Ohh Vayne, your loyalty is cute. ( cute is the best I could come up with , without having the porcelain bus waiting for me)
+1
On this note;
I think it’s important for a company, especially an MMO company to take what their customers say into consideration. This doesn’t mean every single customer should be listened to 100%, but if someone has something to say there must be a reasonable enough reason for them to say it. Though many people might wrongly identify an issue they experience, it’s best to listen than to just ignore waves of people.
Anet clearly have a plan and an idea for their game but it’s also important to them to understand their game is played by the players. As well as it’s important for the players to understand those making the game have a vision for it.
Many in the forums can’t understand their vision but they also don’t seem to care to make their vision clear, thus frustrating many of their players.
But then again decisions are being made which might not be just in the best interest of players, they might be forced to make real business decisions, which might be against what players want.
All in all it’s a shame they made a game with such potential that time after time is met with so much criticism (almost always with some sort of credibility) due to their unusual lack of transparency in such trivial subjects with their players.
Also a note for Anet; don’t treat people as stupid, instead teach them to be better. No one goes into a game knowing the game 100%, but to assume that means they’re dumb is insulting. Make engaging, proper, yet subtle tutorials, don’t assume people are dumb and slow.
Overall I think they had the right idea into slowly introducing the game to new players but I think they went overboard and made some not so great choices along the way. I personally think many of their decisions made with the Chinese GW2 were on the right track, but not all of it was so spot on.
Also (unfortunately for some) the fact this is a free to play MMO will mean it must do things very differently from subscription MMOs, their income style is completely different and it seems Anet have been a bit wobbly trying to figure out exactly what their main income source will be with a free to play MMO.
Necros not having mobility is fine but they certainly should have stability. How can we be an attrition class when we can get ping ponged around so easily?
Since the idea is “necros are dangerous to be near but aren’t very mobile”, why not add stability to the necro in ways that force us to move less.
For example if the Well of Power added 1 sec of stability per pulse while you’re in it, it’d limit our mobility by forcing us to be in the well to get stability.
If the Wurm minion gave us 2 seconds of stability every 10 seconds we’re within 600 range of it, that’d give us stability while limiting our mobility.
Or a trait that gave us 2 seconds of stability if our staff marks are activated while we’re inside them (other than the mark of blood since it’s cooldown is too small and since it already gives us a boon if we’re in it). Adding to the idea that we’re dangerous to be near, while also rewarding skilled play.
Stuff like that would be interesting, stuff that makes us dangerous while hindering our mobility.
I had stopped playing GW2 for a couple of months, uninterested in the new content coming out as well as underwhelmed by the storytelling.
However although this patch was one with least quantity, it was certainly by my view one of with unexpected quality. I had been keeping myself informed about the Edge of the Mists so it wasn’t something that took me by surprise, but once I actually got into it I was pleasantly shocked by how fun it was.
I never really enjoyed WvW because of the huge scale that it is, so that smaller scale WvW style game really appealed to me. Not only that but the way the story was told for this patch made me feel like I was in an actual RPG game instead of watching a short movie.
It felt immersive, the story actually made me interested in hearing more, the way you got to just hang out with the characters made me feel a lot more interested in them. Even the fetch quest Taimi makes you do for her in the Edge of the Mists was surprisingly fun. The fact it was a PvE-like activity in a PvP world made me really get interested.
I think having areas like the Edge of the Mists where they can mix a bit of PvE gameplay in with the constant danger of a PvP environment would be a really interesting experience.
Over all I think this was a step in the right direction.
It’s really interesting to see the evolution of people’s attitudes and reactions towards this subject throughout the months.
Half a year back when the majority of players were starting to realize that not only was GW2 shallow but it wasn’t getting any better, people were angry.
Plain and simple; angry. People were outraged at the fact a game that was supposed to be everything right with the world wasn’t, and a game that they all invested so much of their time and money into just wasn’t worth playing any longer.
Now people are just generally content and accepting of the fact GW2 is boring as an MMO.
Anyway, GW2 isn’t a bad game. It’s pretty decent and fun, but as an MMO it really fails. Most of the things said so far in the thread are totally true.
I believe the only reason GW2 is still sort of alive is because no MMO has shown up yet to one up GW2. Unless GW2 changes radically, and fast, as soon as a decent MMO comes out this will eventually whither away and die.
I do hope that GW2 survives and thrives, I love the concept, idea and feel to the game, but right now it’s just not worth it. The only reason I’m still here is cause I’m waiting for a better MMO to show up.
I don’t mean to sound like I hate GW2, quite the opposite I really love it and hope that it’ll grow. Sadly it doesn’t seem like it’s gonna be doing much better in the next few months.
I started the game with a group of some 15 friends, today none of them play anymore at all. All the friends I made within the game months and months ago are all gone, not a single one is still around.
I don’t think there’s a huge demand for it tbh. I remember the Queen’s Pavilion, how there was an ocean of players down below and only a tiny handful of players doing the gauntlet and Lliadri events above.
The issue with that comparison is that below the gauntlet was the “champ zerg train”, you’re obviously gonna always have more people in champ trains – especially when at the time that was the best place to farm.
Those doing the gauntlet were the fewer players who did it for either the fun of it, or the achievements since the rewards were very low and got nerfed even further.
I know however that during the time the gauntlet was in game it was all over the place in the forums and Liadri was the talk of the town; a lot of people cared.
Challenging single player content.
I’m not saying just more single player content, but instead we need challenging single player content. I realized how I miss this about GW2 when playing The Nightmare Ends story instance.
It wasn’t particularly difficult and because of the story nature it’s too long and repetitive to do multiple times, but it was a lot more engaging than most single player content in this game (personal story, hearts, most DEs, etc).
We’ve been seeing a lot of new challenging content being put into the game, such as new fractals, tequatl, dungeon revamps, champ mechanics, new WvW borderland enemies, etc.
But as far as single player content there’s been a huge absence in the more difficult things we can do.
Liadri (and the jubilee gauntlet in general) was the last, and honestly only challenging content I can remember experiencing in GW2.
Although the Liadri fight itself did a lot of things wrong in how challenge is supposed to be done, it was refreshing to see a truly difficult single player content to experience.
I used to have loading times of some 2-3 minutes in Lion’s Arch.
I then bought a better and pumped up PC, naturally since it’s a new PC I had to reinstall GW2.
I’ve noticed no difference, it still takes some 2-3 minutes to load Lion’s Arch.
I don’t agree the skills should be a bit OP. I think they should be on par with the ones we have now, and for the most part they are.
Although some of them need to be looked at and tweaked slightly they’re pretty fine.
If they made the new healing skills OP then the meta would be to have those skills, and new players who don’t have the points would be forced to save up for one skill that now everyone must use if they wanna stay competitive, that’s the worst thing they could have possibly done.
As far as the ranger’s healing spirit; I was also a bit shocked at how huge the interval between each heal was, 10s is a bit too much for an 800 heal.
You can compare it to the mesmer’s signet which can potentially heal him/her for about 1000HP every 3 seconds. However you shouldn’t compare the two cause they each serve completely different purposes.
Mesmer’s heal only affects himself while the ranger’s affects a party. On top of that the spirit’s passive heal isn’t meant to be something you rely on, it’s meant to be a comfortable heal which keeps your health up when you don’t need the heal.
Also the spirit’s active is pretty nice, if you position yourself proper you can double heal yourself and heal your allies for quite a nice amount.
Either way I still think the 10s interval between each passive heal is a bit much, but what do I know, I haven’t played with it yet to see how it is.
My main is a Necro.
I must admit though, the Necro’s healing skill to me was the biggest let down among all the new healing skills.
Now it’s not useless, not at all, but it’s only nice and useful with a very specific few types of builds which are built almost entirely around the signet.
You can easily see what the devs had in mind when they built this skill but it feels like it was badly nerfed along the way.
It’s useful for siphon/attrition builds in which either you have various health regen on you at all times, thus this adding to the pile of constant healing you have available. The skill as such adds well with the thought we can keep constant attrition on the foe to wear them down while keeping our health up.
On top of that you also have a soft party heal and some decent damage on your heal skill.
In theory it’s a pretty nice skill that makes way to a new play style, and while it doesn’t fail in doing so, it’s clearly underperforming.
I think something anet didn’t take into account is the fact those using these skills are human players and can’t time their attacks perfectly in the middle of a fight to all match exactly 1 second from each other, thus consuming all stacks.
I’ve used this signet in dungeons a lot now and not once have I seen the stacks go down to zero in a 5 man team. I alone am able to remove 3 stacks most of the time, I’ve never been able to remove all 5.
There’s obviously a lot of fixes that need to go into this skill but honestly I don’t doubt they’ll be happening soon. It’s obvious anet realized they’d have to tweek these skills, some might be a bit too OP (warrior, ironically) while some might not shine as bright as they imagined (necro… ironically).
All in all, even though some of these new skills might not make for the most ideal of builds ever, they certainly spice things up and add diversity to the builds we see players using.
It’s been really fun messing with my build and I think having a regular skill release would be fantastic.
I just thought this deserves more attention and praise than it’s currently getting.
New skills (and skill balancing) are things that I personally and many other players have been wanting in the game since day one.
Although there’s some controversy to the usefulness/balance/overpowered nature of some skills I really loved them all for what they are; beautiful little specks of hope and love.
It’s fantastic how the new skills aren’t just “another +1 to my skill list” generic skill, but instead manage to individually change whole builds around. They do this in such simple ways too.
I’ve been catching myself in game a lot more, and I’m just generally more excited to play through all parts of the game for the sole purpose of enjoying this one new skill.
I think if Anet did some sort of constant skill release every X weeks, much like they do their LS, I’d be a lot more interested in just playing the game.
What do you suppose would happen if everyone who completed it got an ascended weapon. Then everyone in the entire game would feel they have to participate next time, just because the rewards are so good.
No one here said they wanted ascended items as a reward, in fact the only mention of ascended gear was people saying they didn’t want ascended gear to be the reward.
Ohhh nooo… you just invoked the wrath of those who say “don’t like it don’t play”, and also those who say “they have more than just one team working on one thing. The LS team is not the same as the core game whatever team”.
These replies are getting old…
On a more serious note, yes.
I agree, although it’s true that the LS team is separate from the bug fixing team it’s still a fact that they have a limited number of resources they’re putting into the game. Sacrifices must be made, you can’t just have all of everything.
There are limitations, there are budgets, resources to manage. Let’s say they had $50,000 a month to invest in their game, just because the LS team and the bug fixing team are different teams doesn’t mean they’re equal, they could very well invest $20,000 in the LS teams and $2,000 on the bug fixing teams.
To those who deny this explain to me why there’s been various full armor sets added to the gem store yet none added to the game since launch? Why not just add 5 new armor sets to the game and gem store every month? Because there are resources to manage and they’re currently investing in one part of the game while neglecting another.
What you said is true, of course they’re not completely neglecting the core game but they most certainly are giving too much attention to the LS.
When information comes out saying “this part of the game will now have this mysterious shiny unknown reward if you play it!”, people will want to get that mysterious shiny.
People who are not fond of the specific game type might make an exception because they’re being led by the belief that there will be a mysterious, possibly unique reward waiting for them at the end. Nothing is set in stone of course but once people are informed a mysterious reward is available, naturally they don’t wanna miss the chance to get something amazing.
You honestly can’t blame people who played for the sake of the mysterious reward, it’s criminally close to a bait and switch situation.
Now once they finally look at all their hard work and are met with an incredibly underwhelming reward, naturally they’ll get upset. That mysterious reward which lured so many people into this trap is nothing more than a few lousy items that you get many of every day.
I myself am not a huge fan of WvW and was tempted to get the meta for the sake of the mysterious shiny, however after playing for a while I realized “wow this isn’t enjoyable” and stopped.
Needless to say I was torn up inside knowing I wasn’t gonna get that mysterious box for myself, after all anything could be in the box, even a boat. I am honestly extremely extremely glad I didn’t go for the meta, however you must understand the frustration of those that did.
Imagine if you were told to climb a mountain, that there would be a mysterious one time only reward for you on top of that mountain. Once you finally reached the top of a mountain there was a little slip of paper saying “good job!”, how offended would you be?
Of course it wasn’t a lie, wasn’t criminal, no one said there would be gold on top of that mountain. But it was implied something worth your time would be up there, and although it isn’t criminal, it most certainly is a jerk thing to do.
Yes there would be those that climbed the mountain because they enjoy climbing mountains and that’s just fantastic for them, they got what they wanted. But how about those that did it for the reward? They’ll be very upset.
On that note, what Anet did here is a very smart and generally nice way to give reason for people who don’t normally enjoy one type of game to give it a try. Saying there’s a mysterious reward will peak people’s interests and make them want to go for that reward, it’s only human.
The issue here is that said reward was garbage. It was great that Anet wanted to motivate people to play WvW but it was really lousy of them to give these people such lousy rewards, when the idea that something mysterious and unique was possibly available.
We’re not even saying give these people a precursor, or ascended stuff, or money. But they could have really done better, then again, a lot could have been done better.
Yes to 100% of everything you said.
People don’t like dying, that’s it. Some zerk players got spoiled by the easier content and now suffer. The Tower itself is great. It was a good update.
That’s something that’s always bothered me in GW2. The open world content is just way too easy, it takes absolutely no mind, no thinking, no preparation, no tactics, absolutely nothing. Even Orr is beyond easy, which is a place I’ve heard complaints about in the past on it’s difficulty.
I’d say how can someone even die in the open world, but then again that’s just how the GW2 players were taught to play. Many don’t even know to dodge.
On that note, I also really appreciated how the tower isn’t swarming with waypoints. If you wanna get to the next level you have to get there without any retries. You die and no one’s around to rez you, go back to the start of the floor and do better this time.
There’s risk, now all we need is reward.
While there’s still a lot to be desired from these updates I must admit this most recent one strung a cord. I think the Tower of Nightmare is absolutely fantastic!
While I’ve heard a bit negativity towards the tower and I won’t dismiss it like it’s not there, I do think a lot more right things were done than wrong this time.
As far as the actual experience goes, finally an engaging fun and immersive gameplay experience that GW2 needs desperately.
At first I was a bit hesitant with the open world aspect of it worrying it’d be nothing more than a zerg train (I understand to some people it is), however though there is a zerg or two in there from time to time for the most part you’ll see smaller groups of players more than anything else.
The tower is engaging and challenging without being cheap. It lets the player explore and take the route they wish, giving much desired control and illusion of choice to the player. There are fun little instances to look for as you’re carefully traveling around in there and so on.
I appreciate the feeling of progression and safety the tower gives you every time you find yourself back in the center, until finally you reach that glorious climb to the top at the end. I do wish there were a few more levels with a bit more to experience but as it is it’s pretty fantastic.
I’ve heard the common complaint that it’s too difficult and can’t be done without a zerg, however often times I hear that coming from glass builds running solo.
Me and one other friend alone managed to get from floor 1 to floor 3 before our first death. Here’s the thing, there is challenge in here and it is difficult, but it’s honestly not that bad once you know what not to do.
We both moved slowly and carefully, killing little by little while not rushing ahead aimlessly, looking at where we were going and picking a route. The only times we actually needed help were with the group events (naturally), but when we came across those we’d just call in the map or look around for downed players and quickly enough at least a few would show up to help and that’d be enough.
The way the tower’s gameplay and experience works should be taken as an inspiration towards future updates. Not saying make dozens of copies of the tower, that’ll make it repetitive and boring, much like what happened with the LS.
All in all, though there’s still the common issues of lack of replayability, low rewards (that’s the issue of there not even existing rewards reasonable to actually give out to players in GW2), and too quick to finish everything, it’s still overall a very enjoyable experience.
To me the TP is the #1 problem with this game (almost tied with WP).
Right now this game has a lot of really obvious problems and flaws, however removing the TP from the game would almost completely fix most of the major flaws the game has.
It’d solve the issue of empty maps, people would swarm back to maps to get wood, ores, bloods, fangs etc. This would mean people would also be playing the game more.
It would suddenly make almost all loot valuable, even blues and greens since you wouldn’t be able to just buy them for scrap change. More importantly you wouldn’t be able to just buy the exotic or rares at will, making those higher tier armors even more valuable.
Chests, champ drops, moldy bags, etc would all become very valuable again.
Getting a legendary would actually be the sign of dedication and hard work (with a bit of luck) instead of the sign of someone willing to spend a lot of money.
Runes and Sigils would be extremely rare and valuable. Major runes/sigils would be a big part of people’s builds since finding a complete set of the very rare Superior would be a true feat.
The list goes on and on and on, sadly though I have absolutely no hopes or expectations of this ever happening in GW2.
So… yeah.
Either they remove the TP and fix 75% of the game’s major flaws, or they work like mad men to produce an insane amount of new items, armors, weapons to keep the game rewarding and interesting, or the game dies.
I’m appalled by the amount of people actually having the guts to say armor isn’t content. When armor is the central focus of most MMORPGs and is the central focus GW2.
I do understand the confusion some people are experiencing since literally no armor sets have been added within the actual game. The game currently is more about achievement grind than anything else, and that’s not cool.
Anyway, I agree with OP. At this point I’m wishing GW2 had a monthly subscription fee, maybe this way we’d end up with something more enjoyable.
It’s completely true they’ve gone the road of quantity over quality, it’s all about “look at all these new shallow updates we’re dishing out!”.
I don’t understand why the title is as it is. What you’re talking about doesn’t have anything to do with the title, the title should have been something along the lines “LS takes too long for me to enjoy it”, I dunno.
On that note I think the OP’s problem is boredom. It’s not that they can’t find something to do that’s enjoyable in 20-30 minutes, it’s that there’s nothing to do.
As far as the title goes, it’s true. If you compare what’s actually new playable content that you can do or obtain today in game, as opposed to how it was on release, there’s little to no new content.
You have fractals and a deserted new map, as far as new content goes that’s it… in over a year. You also got some new cash items and finally achievement rewards but nothing else.
Not one single full armor set was added to the actual game (for a game that claims it’s about the looks this is a sin), and a huge percentage of the “new” weapons added to the actual game are just recolored or re skinned versions of existing ones.
For a game that changes so often, it sure doesn’t change a lot.
It’s true that the game is seeing some bad times right now and something needs to be done.
My belief is that since the last few patches (since Teq) have been especially small compared to past ones they’re saving a lot of resources to release it all at once in a big update by the end of the year.
Of course at this point my faith in this game has all but vanished. I still check from time to time in hopes that a game I really love will prove me wrong when I say it’s rubbish.
I can’t be bothered to bring myself to play it no matter how badly I may want to. So honestly unless a really big massive change happens by the end of the year I don’t see me being able to stick with this any longer.
It’s really deplorable that not a one single armor set has been added within the actual game in over a year that it’s been out. For a game that is all about looks, not having any looks added within the actual none cash shop game is pretty horrible.
This is one of the things that bothers me the most. Especially when you realize that the thing this game is missing most of all are proper in game rewards, you then see them creating a bunch of new items in the cash shop but none to drive the actual gameplay.
Imagine how much more exciting for example it would have been if the new toxic weapons could be dropped from the new mobs, how much more exciting it’d be to fight the new enemies.
But no, instead the new enemies just drop the same old stuff every other enemy drops. Wow.
If I have a somewhat older computer and require more time to load a specific map (sometimes the difference can go up to 20 seconds and more) I should not be punished because folks with better computers managed to reach and complete the event in the meantime (champ trains anyone?).
If anything, your system suggestion would only make things worse for people with bad computers / internet speed. If you already take longer to fast travel compared to people with better pcs, if you had to travel multiple times (multiple loading times) through different gates, by the time you reach your destination the event would have ended ages ago. Being able to travel to a place very near the event as fast as possible is actually a solution to that.
I think his solution with what would be “Asura Gates” in every field area is great.
As far as having to go one by one by one I don’t see the point to that. I think a nice solution to the horrible WP situation would be something along those lines.
Each area could have only 1 waypoint. Or to make it actually feel like an RPG and follow lore and such, his idea with having 1 Asuran Gate in each area which could be used to travel to others at your choice would be great.
@OP
I agree with you completely 100%
GW2 has made everything extremely convenient and it’s a bit detrimental to the game in the long run I think.
For example LA is deserted… what’s that you say? LA is the most populated city? LA is deserted, the only place that is full of life is that central convenience center of LA. Where everything is so conveniently located, bank, TP, crafting, mystic forge, shops, repair, build reseters, everything.
Because everything is so convenient in LA the remainder of the beautiful city is empty of life.
In general almost everything that is a convenience in this game ends up hurting it, waypoints being the first to cross my mind.
In the end of the day this is still a game after all and it should feel as such. Most of all it’s an RPG and it certainly doesn’t feel like one.
As far as the waypoint issue goes, I would love it if it were completely removed from the game. I know it can’t be because the game is built around the idea that waypoints exist and since the world is so shallow traveling through it would be a total bore.
On that note, I think a good solution would be to invert the costs. The closer the waypoint the more expensive it is, the further the cheaper. Waypoints should be used to help a player travel long distances and that’s it.
Waypoints shouldn’t reward a player for being lazy. With high costs to get somewhere close to you, odds are people will avoid using them if they just need to go from spot A to spot B.
On that note, this would also help champion farming in some places. Wouldn’t completely stop it but would certainly help in the areas where every champ requires a WP (Queensdale).
my biggest problem with WvW is there is little to no strategy its whoever brings the biggest Zerg wins there is no way for a smaller group to outplay a larger group.
AND the only viable strat in WvW is Stacking and moving together as a giant clusterf*** of crap through a fight. in every other MMORPG that offers massive WvW type fights, a group doing that would get cursed at and told “stop being noob zerglings and spread out!”
but in GW2 is perfectly viable and infact the dominant tactic.
This is really mostly due to downstate.
Downstate means that blobbing/zerging is the most effective, because either you rally from all the crazyness, or your zerg resses you afterward.
If they removed downstate it would be less swingy, and the greater skilled group could actually beat the outnumbering group.
I never thought about the downed state this way, you’re actually pretty right on that.
How the downed state works, having the downed state, not having actual roles, and AoE having a limiting number of 5 all combined make for the current all ’round meta for this game.
AoE limits being a big factor (as big as downed state I think) to zerg/stack meta. Since they added the 5 target limit on all AoE, stacking is no longer dangerous. Previously when AoE didn’t have limits on how many targets would be hit if 20 people stacked tight, and 3 eles threw their AoE in the middle of the mass, everyone would take equal damage and be quickly killed.
Although this can also lead to some issues it did give much better strategy to the gameplay as well as better value to roles/build variety.
As far as this whole stack/zerg mess that came to be, I don’t think it was caused on purpose by Anet, I think they had very specific plans but putting all the individual plans together caused this mess.
It’s a shame it’s a bit too late for downed state to be removed and roles to be added to fix this mess (they could at least better refine their current dps/support/CC roles).
As far as everyone bashing on Scarlett goes, she’s not to blame for this. Bad story telling is one thing, but no amount of good story telling can save this mess of an achievement mindless grind the the new events have become.
Scarlett herself isn’t even all that bad a villain, she acts maniacal and insane but if you read the story on her (which committed the crime of being posted in a website instead of in the game) she has a reason for being so. There’s a mysterious past to her with something she experienced no one knows about which gave her a reason to be the way she is.
What makes the players feel this horrible pain with the game they invested their time and money (and faith) in isn’t Scarlett herself, but that it’s become so boring and the story so repetitive.
Scarlett is somewhat cliche but isn’t terrible.
Now if they decide they’re just gotta staple Scarlett into every mess they come up with, then she’ll become nothing more than an annoying pain on everyone’s sides that every players just despises having to deal with again (the aetherblades are becoming GW2’s Team Rocket).
Instead of doing this they need to make sure they create Scarlett’s own story and true motive behind her actions, propelling her main plot instead of shoving her into all kinds of filler content.
I’m sorry but you want serious content from the people who brought you Legendary weapons such as clown confetti shooting gun, a disco ball on a stick, unicorn shooting unicorn bow, a c… a chicken harp, and so many more!
I don’t mind comic relief or silly content in my RPG, but only as long as it’s about 25% of the game’s content or less, not 75% or more.
On my own side yet related note; as far as Legendaries go, it’s absurd that they would make the most elite weapons to be party props. I don’t think a single one Legendary weapon should have been the gag some currently are.
Wanna have silly weapons? Go ahead but don’t make them into Legendaries.
As far as this next update goes, what good is the seriousness of it when it’s the update with the least content in a downward spiral since Tequatl.
Unless they dramatically change their Living Story design ideas with this very next update, I really can’t say I expect much anymore – and as consequence caring less and less.
… but I did go in alone, was it supposed to be for a 5 man fight?
Edit: Sorry, I thought you meant the opening instance. Since I didn’t grind, I don’t have the mini to see the rest.
I got the mini a few days ago but couldn’t be bothered to continue.
Finally went and continued that business today and the fight to put him down was nothing but autoattack. I literally did nothing else, my HP never fell bellow 75%.
Unless there’s another fight after the one to put him down that I’m missing, then how can anyone have the audacity to say this is a hard fight?
Although there might be something I’m missing, I haven’t payed too much attention as I got horribly bored by the first day.
To people complaining about Halloween being better last year, it’s almost exactly the same as last year (the only real difference is no Reaper’s Rumble, but let’s face it that’s not what made last year’s event so great).
The real problem here isn’t that this year’s is worse than last year’s, it’s that players are getting tired of these mundane, repetitive, drawn out and time gated achievement hunting for an item every other player will also get.
You might love chocolate, but if you’re forced to eat a chocolate bar every single day eventually you won’t be able to stand chocolate anymore.
Since all they’re giving us is more of the same achievement chasing with shallow content to back it up and non existing rewards, it’s only natural players are less than thrilled with these events.
The reason most players remember last year’s Halloween as their favorite event is because it was the very first event we had. It was new and interesting and exciting, now it’s just boring.
Except, it was made worse than last years lol.
I don’t think so, it’s virtually the exact same. In fact this one is more well polished than last year.
Fixed some of the camera issues in the Tower, fact you don’t have 20 people with you is an improvement. The fact they’re giving us more time to do the achievements is better. Rewards are generally better, they fixed the worthlessness of some items such as candy corn.
Best of all, we’re not being forced into an almost entirely blind scavenger hunt in which we will almost certainly need to read a guide. I must admit though I enjoyed the scavenger hunt, wish they did it again but better implemented this year.
Overall we got more of the same, nothing is arguably better or worse. A few improvements here and annoyances there but overall just more of the same.
I was able to play with my friend, well we were in the same instance at least.
I dunno if that was my luck or what, but I do agree that they should allow these new activities they put into the game to be enjoyed with a friend. The fact you can’t play with friends harshly diminishes the fun you could have.
To people complaining about Halloween being better last year, it’s almost exactly the same as last year (the only real difference is no Reaper’s Rumble, but let’s face it that’s not what made last year’s event so great).
The real problem here isn’t that this year’s is worse than last year’s, it’s that players are getting tired of these mundane, repetitive, drawn out and time gated achievement hunting for an item every other player will also get.
You might love chocolate, but if you’re forced to eat a chocolate bar every single day eventually you won’t be able to stand chocolate anymore.
Since all they’re giving us is more of the same achievement chasing with shallow content to back it up and non existing rewards, it’s only natural players are less than thrilled with these events.
The reason most players remember last year’s Halloween as their favorite event is because it was the very first event we had. It was new and interesting and exciting, now it’s just boring.
Just read the FB post on the breast cancer awareness day that happens every year with everyone dressing up in pink.
I was thinking it’d be really cool, interesting and fantastic if they released a new gem shop item around the time in which a large portion or all of it’s earnings would be donated for the cause.
It’d earn my respect.
AFAIK the last time events were added to the game (except big stuff like Tequatl), was back in November. If we’re just noticing them ten months later…they’re probably not that effective in making people stand up and take notice.
Still I’m glad some people are enjoying them.
I think I’ve read a few dev posts in which they commented on adding small changes to events or few events scattered around the map from time to time. Not talking about the lost shores new bunch of events back in November.
It’s only natural you’ll find more negative feedback than positive in a forum such as this due to the fact that if people are satisfied, they’ll just play and enjoy a game. If people are dissatisfied however they’ll tend to speak up about it.
That being said I think it’s important to take note of very positive new additions in the game which I personally think have been making the whole game experience better; new events.
Recently I made a friend start playing with me, being a brand new player we’ve been taking it slow so he can fully appreciate and understand the game. Redoing with care the low level areas I’ve noticed a lot of new events as well as new event chains.
This made leveling up more fun and immersive all together.
I’ve noticed some events or resulting chains were added to minor events around the map which make the whole “things are happening and there are consequences to them” more believable. With actual new events which result from failing in different ways.
Having new events in the areas not only make playing that area more fun but adding more thought out events like some I’ve seen (even if simple) help you get interested in the world.
I just wanted to speak up to say this is very appreciated and I think we’d all benefit from even more events and event chains all around. Making the whole feel of the area more personal and interesting.
It gives a player a true sense of interaction with the world. I think if more of the smaller simpler events had larger chains which came from various methods of succeeding or failing said event, it would make the whole experience richer.
All in all, just wanted to say these events are not going by unnoticed and they’re appreciated.
I personally would welcome both Elona and Cantha.
I myself prefer Elona because that’s when I started playing GW1 and it’s very memorable for me, lots of Nostalgia. On top of that I think the lore and setting were very impressive.
Seriously? So nobody else realized that the 5th picture OP posted has someone wearing new armor, a new weapon and new face paint too?
No that is a new NPC called the Blood Prince… read the OP…
Completely missed that. Either way that’s still a new all around look. Something they introduced with Rox and Braham and soon later they released their looks.
Seriously? So nobody else realized that the 5th picture OP posted has someone wearing new armor, a new weapon and new face paint too?
Personally, I’ve seen a fair few people wearing Phoenix armor, an occasional person wearing Krytan armor, and a rare few people wearing the other types. This absolutely pales in comparison to the number of people I see wearing Temple Armor (all armor classes,) Gladiator Armor, Citadel of Flame Armor (all armor classes,) Duelist Armor, Tier 3 Human Cultural Armor (Always female, of course, light or medium,) Order of Whispers (Medium) Armor, Conjurer Armor, pretty much any female crafted armor, and light Arah armor. And those are just the really common ones.
Point is, the idea that the best armor sets are relegated to the gem store, and that masses of people are paying for them in a “pay to win” scenario is, in my evaluation, ridiculous. The gem store armors are a small part of the full set of armors in the game, and a small portion of the armors that seem to get used the most. Could it be because they’re expensive? Maybe, but a lot of people don’t seem to have trouble coughing up the dough for cultural armor or flashy weapons that cost more than multiple gem store armor sets, whereas relatively few people even seem to like the Aetherblade suits.
If people being able to purchase items with real-world money somehow devalues that item for you, I think you’re putting too much stock in “exclusivity” of whatever it is. There are a ton of flashy items (high-end weapons, titles, dungeon armor) that can’t be practically bought with real-world money by most people, so I don’t see why it’s so absolutely necessary that all new armor sets, armor sets that were not in the game at the time of purchase, be exclusively un-buyable for real world money, either.
Completely unrelated to everything that at least I was talking about.
Everything you said is true, but completely missed the point.
I’m not talking about the Black Lion armors being too expensive, or not exclusive enough. I’m talking about the fact that no armors have been added into the game in which you can obtain directly and exclusively within the actual game via gameplay – thus enriching the game itself.
To think that not a single armor set has been added into the actual game since launch, which has been over a year now is a shame.
I completely approve of gem store bought armors, I myself bought a few. My issue is when there’s only gem store bought armors.
The issue with only having new armor in the gem store is the “pay to win” factor.
Now you might say “what are you crazy? They’re only for looks, how can you say it’s pay to win if it gives you no stats?”.
Well you see, when the game is based all around looks and not stats, and all the new looks they add can be purchased with real world money. Then it becomes pay to win.
Generally in GW2, despite the new ascended armors the game is still all about looks. Unless you’re doing high level fractals, ascended changes nothing about the game. So GW2 is still all about new looks. This is obvious which is why they’ve added new weapon skins on various new events, as well as added new armor skins for some.
The overwhelming bulk of these new skins have only been added to the gem shop or are obtainable in some way through the gem shop (such as purchasable dragon coffers). Because of this if we want any of the new skins they’ve added, we can just buy them (or gamble for them which should be illegal).
Now I fully agree and understand the need to add new looks to the gem shop. They’re a company, they need to pay their workers, but to only add new looks to the gem shop and no where else is the issue. It’s something that can destroy or greatly diminish a game’s worth.
I’ve heard many game developers or companies say “oh so what if they can just pay to win? If they want to, let them! It’s their choice, if they don’t want to they won’t”. In actuality this causes more harm than good to a game.
Players will naturally be inclined to take the most “cost benefit” route possible in a game. Not saying all players will, but that’s the most natural course in a player’s mind. Because of this if you give players the chance to just “pay to win”, odds are they will. This will greatly reduce a game’s life span because if a player can just buy his way to the finish, he’ll have no reason to continue playing.
The players of GW2 (generally) want new looks, it’s what the game is about. If in every (or most) events they added new weapons or armors which could only be obtained through gameplay, the players would naturally be inclined to play the game more to obtain those.
With this drive they wouldn’t need to time gate so much of the new content added. Because with a real reason to play, people would just play the game for the sake of playing the game to obtain what they want.
They wouldn’t need this “look! New shiny content every 2 weeks! Please stay interested!” thing they have going on now – although I do appreciate the new content a lot.
Because most of the new things added for a player to achieve can be simply purchased with real world money, the game’s value is greatly diminished as well as the player’s experience.
(edited by Delryn.7235)
Sorry for any confusion, what I did mean to say was armor sets. That’s what I was talking about originally, I was even thinking of putting armor sets in the title instead of armors because it might cause the confusion but was worried the title would be too big.
Anyway the point is that zero armor sets have been added within game, in a way where you can only obtain them through your hard work, instead of just buying them with money.
Although the radiant and hellfire pieces were added, they actually serve to prove my point.
Since the game doesn’t have a subscription fee they need to make their money by investing their resources into the gem shop. Because so many resources are invested in the gem shop, they’re left with a lot less of time and money to design things into the actual game, so all they managed to add was the very underwhelming same skin for all armor classes hide-able armor pieces – also known as radiant and hellfire.
This is made especially frustrating due to the fact they stated the game was supposed to be about customizing your character, and the end game was about getting new looks. How can you get new looks when zero were added into the actual game?
…inside the actual game. Other than the upcoming ascended.
I was thinking about the new ascended armors being added and suddenly came to the realization that since launch, a year now, GW2 has seen literally zero new armors added within the actual game. As in not in the gem store.
Made me really sad.
That my people, is the price of no subscription fee.
Abyss is the my biggest disappointment.
A friend who wore medium armor had abyss and I found it to be beautiful. So naturally I thought “I want abyss for my necro!” I was very displeased with the grey I bought.
Also, the arah armor you’re wearing looks a lot darker than mine. I guess the male arah armor is just overall lighter, it’s pretty sad honestly.
Edit; keep in mind this was before you could preview dyes.
@ Silentsins
In a perfect world games would be rich and full of fantastic things for us to do and every second of gameplay would be filled with ecstasy. Sadly we don’t live in a perfect world, sadly companies and people have limits, restrictions, time constraints, budgets etc.
It’s understandable that a game needs some (some) padding and “filler”, that doesn’t mean it has to be boring and bad.
After all limitation is the greatest fuel for innovation. The person/company just needs to be creative and smart with how they design things.
They can make repetitive and boring filler, or quirky and interesting filler. It’s the difference between “kill X rats” to “avoid being hit by X rats while luring them to traps”.
Of course it’s not that simple, but that’s the idea. It’s still filler and just filler gets boring fast, but a game needs more than just one thing to succeed.
Mechanically, a well-designed “quest” (as in MMO “quest”) is one which uses existing gameplay in a way that’s not often experienced elsewhere.
For example, “kill ten rats” is a terrible quest from that point of view, whereas “dodge attacks of ten rats so you can lure them into a trap you’ve set beforehand” is quite decent.
Still a pretty boring quest with no story.
It’s true, it is. He didn’t say it wasn’t boring.
It’s just that simple things like that can make a big impact, changing up what a player does every now and again is good for a game.
Even “boring” activities can be fun when you introduce new ways of going about things.
+0 for weapons (don’t really like or hate them, they’re ok. Like Tequatl ones betters)
-1 for Armor (they’re ugly as hell, especially the light and mediums. also due to them all being asymmetrical)
Nooo! Do you have any idea how few asymmetrical armors are in the game? Especially light armors?
I understand some people don’t like asymmetry but I for one think asymmetry looks fantastic. I’ve been forced to stick with the completely symmetrical armors in this game for too long.
It’s a breath of fresh air having asymmetry for once, even though the light armor barely has any asymmetry anyway.
+1 for weapons
+1 for armors
I for one am in love with the armors. As a matter of fact the armors are what made me finally care about ascended.
People hate on “busywork” so much but those small things add to the experience. If a game has only one thing for you to do through out its entirety then something that would be considered epic will end up being mundane and possibly boring if everything you do is just more of the same “epic”.
If the game had just events it would be even worse off than it is today. The hearts though some tedious manage to add to the experience. They’re used as a mean of breaking up the repetitiveness of the game.
If you’ve just completed 10 events in a row which makes you invade a huge fortress you’ll end up enjoying your more quiet time of watering plants.
However as it stands both the hearts and events are deeply lacking.
Most lacking of all are the Story Missions and I wanted to talk about that a little.
Story Missions had such great potential, because since they’re instanced they give a player the opportunity to experience something unique to them, something “personal”… as it should have been.
Since they create a world in which only you exist it could have been so much more. You should have been given more freedom to choose your actions. No I don’t mean give us more dialog options, dialog options though important are the weakest of all gameplay features to add to a player’s sense of choice.
Something along the lines of putting the player in a large instance and telling them “your objective is to retrieve a stolen item, good luck”. Then letting the player choose manually how they go about this. Please, no giant green stars to guide you.
Will they enter the enemy’s lair head on and face the horde of enemies waiting for them? Will they try to sneak around and not get caught? Will they attempt in causing a diversion to get a chance to sneak in? Will they kill the keeper of the item they’re after or will they avoid confrontation?
The possibilities are endless, and it’s something that is easy and cost efficient to create in a game since you’re not paying for cutscenes, you’re just creating gameplay.
The smallest of things make a huge difference in this. For example you need to first reach the enemy’s lair. The shortest route is through a bridge but there are enemy scouts in the bridge which might alert the camp of your presence. You have the choice to go around, but around there’s a lot of very powerful wild creatures. You may also choose to go underwater undetected, but it’s the longest route, etc.
None of this however should be specifically told to a player. A game should never say “you have three paths you can take, the bridge, the side, or underwater”, this is a big mistake. Instead the game should just present the situation for the player and let them inspect their surroundings to come up with a solution best for them.
People are not stupid as many game companies like to think they are.
So in conclusion Personal Stories could have been such a fantastic experience for the players, instead what they seem to be are regular instanced events with too much dialog.
It seems too much attention and emphasis was put into the events. Like everything was supposed to just be about events. Especially since we know hearts, vistas, and so on were all added last minute. It seems all that was planned were events, ArenaNet cared too much about events and put too much focus on events.
Which in the end is ironic as to the fact of how uninspiring or unrewarding most events are.
On another somewhat related note to the points of interests and vistas; waypoints.
Yep, there’s the difference between waypoints and mounts: one immerses you further in the game’s world, the other takes you out of it.
Another difference is that scaling the terrain on a mount may be – gasp – kind of fun and challenging. Can’t have that.
On the other hand, lack of waypoints at all easily leads people to abandon exploring and stay put in the general area where they know the loot may lie, since getting back to it on short notice will be impossible. Not to mention getting where you want to be on short notice can be extremely important sometimes. So it’s a bit of a dilemma.
Which is why I understand GW2 was desgined with waypointing in mind. We however don’t need waypoints to be littered all around the map, just a very small amount in each map to help someone out is all we need.
There are some ridiculous waypoints, like in Divinity’s Reach.
On the 1st floor in the middle of the crafting area there’s a waypoint, directly above it near the bank and trading post there’s another.
After the first time getting the waypoints, I’ve never again walked up or down that area. I just waypoint to the trading post, get what I need. Then waypoint down to the crafting tables, then once I wanna leave the city just waypoint out.
Why do we even have those elevators that get you up and down if their use is completely removed? Why do we even have that beautiful aquarium hallway in between both locations if we’re never gonna see it more than one or two times? Same as the ones in the Grove.
The waypoints remove the beautiful atmosphere the game has as well as horribly breaking immersion. Instead what we get with waypoints are long loading screens.
Right because quest rewards in other games, like Guild Wars 1 even were so friggin fantastic. Not to my recollection.
I remember getting a variety of gear I didn’t care about,. or gear that didn’t fit my profession or play style. I remember getting hammers, when I was specced for swords. I remember getting items way below what I was already using (which if you bought the game of the year addition was quite easy). I remember thinking, what a weird thing that this guy just gives me a hammer I didn’t ask for and I don’t need. Those were the good old days.
At least with hearts, you get some karma, which you can spend on the reward you want, or save and get no reward at all.
I think you’re glorifying what quest rewards in most games were.
And again, hearts weren’t designed to take the place of quests, dynamic events were. Hearts are there to keep you in areas where dynamic events happen. Comparing them to quests is pointless.
So that’s not even remotely close to what I’m trying to say with quests. Giving example of common weapons which are rewards for “kill X things” quests in other games adds nothing to the current discussion.
Also at no point in any of these posts did I say we should copy quests and/or quest rewards from other games, in fact that’s the opposite to what I’m saying. We should have epic quests with fulfilling rewards.
Another thing, there are no grounds for a GW2 player to criticize another game’s less than thrilling rewards on basic quests, when GW2 offers the weakest and most pathetic rewards of any MMO I’ve ever played.
Events give you no rewards beyond a small amount of exp and currencies, hearts give a pathetic amount of silver and copper (the true reward for hearts are the shops they open but still, not actually a reward). While Story Missions give the same type of rewards as basic quests from other games, things such as blue hammers or green boots which are usually way below your level since Story Missions are such a boring chore after the first couple times you do them.
Lastly, all you’re doing is knit picking bad examples of GW1 quest rewards and ignoring the fantastic ones such as new skills and spells. That’s not a nice thing to do.
On another somewhat related note to the points of interests and vistas; waypoints.
I am completely and entirely against the abundance of waypoints we have in the world. I personally think the game shouldn’t have any waypoints at all, however I understand GW2 was specifically designed with the idea of waypointing in mind.
Having some 20 waypoints in reasonably small areas is ridiculous. You pretty much don’t have to walk anywhere when you can just teleport at will.
This not only ruins immersion, but also severely limits the desire to explore players may have. On top of all that what’s the point of having such a huge fantastic world when it’s made to feel minuscule since you have the power to be wherever you want whenever you want it.
Everyone complains that they never see players running around in the world and that areas are too empty of players. Here’s the thing – it’s not, but since people can just teleport anywhere you rarely ever see anyone actually walking places.
At most I think areas should have one waypoint in each entrance and nothing more.