Guild Wars 2

Not “quitting”. Leaving.

Not ragequitting. Dis-satisfied leaving.

MMO’s change, but if a change is spurred by PVP when I’m a PVE/Dungeon guy: not interested.

It’s not a “criticism” of the game or the developers. I never said “this sucks” or “you suck” or… actually, did I say anything negative AT ALL about anyone? As in something insulting? I think I stated my opinions, my reasons, and my accurate actions based on reality.

That’s a critique. Not an attack or even “criticism” as traditionally interpreted.

Anyway, I’m off to do other stuff. Back in a few months.

xoxoxo

Huge difference.

Vayne.8563:

What part of leaving posts are against forum rules did you not get? You could have easily made this exact post without the threat of leaving.

However, every MMO makes changes to specific builds over time. Every…single…one. No exceptions. Well there is one exceptions. MMOs that aren’t supported at all.

Anyone who can’t see the ele bunker build was OP, honestly see it, well…

There will always be people who want to leave MMOs because they chose an OP build and it’s easy and now it’s not easy and they have to learn something else. Most of the rest of us just shake our heads and keep playing.

If you expect that other MMOs won’t nerf obviously OP builds, you’d be wrong. There are probably more non-elementalists ready to leave the game because of the nerf build than eles who are leaving because their build was nerfed.

I’d rather inconvenience one profession than all the others.

1) didn’t know it was against the rules because I didn’t read them; just like I don’t patrol the forums looking for possible future nerfs.

2) Ban me. I’m not “threatening to leave so someone will listen.” I’m LEAVING and hoping that the smart business people at Anet will listen. The repercussions have no meaning to me as I won’t see them.

3) It’s only obvious if you actually “win” by using the OP parts. I had a good time in PVE and managed to not die every 30 seconds in PVP. OP? Only if you dedicate your life to the game or have Tiger Woods skill at gaming. I am neither. The class was fine and fun for me because I felt like it was. I don’t need any other reason to dislike or disagree with the developers. It felt ok to me. They disagree.

Fair enough. It’s their game, their world, their rules.

I don’t like them, and don’t like the way they handled this situation so I’m leaving.

Not a “threat”. A fact. And I’m trying to be helpful to them by stating my opinions and reasons so that IF they care about a single, average, non-lifer’s opinion, they’ll have some to work with.

If that’s bannable… /shrug. It tells me a lot about the developers to help me make future buying decisions about their products.

Sorry for the overly long TLDR. It was only the first paragraph. I was trying to be helpful by putting it first, but since I’m not a forum pro, I guess I screwed it up.

Once again: /shrug.

TLDR: if the dev team is willing to completely change the playstyle of a class 8 months after release, what will the decide to do on the NEXT patch with the NEXT toon I spend 30 hours working on? I’m not willing to spend 30+ hours of my life learning a playstyle only to see it drastically altered for reasons that a) don’t apply to me (I don’t pvp much) and b) I didn’t see coming because frankly I don’t have any interest in “researching” a toon. I log in, I play PVE or a dungeon, occasionally take my gimpy skills into wvw or pvp for the chuckles, but then I log out without realizing that my class is “broken” because even with an “OP” class, I still suck so it feels fine to me – after all, I’m going to lose no matter how powerful the class is…

I love this game. LOVE it. But I took a break after reaching 80 on a Ranger because he felt a bit… blah outside of the standard story world (which was serious faceroll and kind of fun because of it, but not really challenging). Dungeons, spvp, wvw I just felt… mediocre. And didn’t really want to roll a new toon, so I took a break.

So I came back and rolled up an elementalist when some friends started playing again. Hard class at first but as I got into the low 30’s started to really shine.

Then, the patch happened and the thing that I enjoyed the most about the class (that I hadn’t realized until the patch) was the SPEED of movement around the world. Ride the Lightning was amazing for just feeling… capable in the world on that toon, but the complex play style was still a challenge and I was looking forward to learning even more as I moved up to 80.

Then the patch.

And the entire feel of the class changed. Yes, it is “just one skill” but it was a class defining skill and to have it’s utility cut in half by making it a “closer” so that it’s pure travel benefit was hamstrung and by having it’s effectiveness reduced by changing the range: too much for me.

Why? Because I DIDN’T KNOW it was “broken”. It felt right, balanced, fine and fun. Elementalist, particularly at lower levels is a weak feeling class, but that one ability… well, it just seemed to fit.

Now it doesn’t and I had no clue that the nerf was needed or coming.

I can’t know, and I refuse to spend my time working on a toon only to have it gutted for reasons I don’t understand and that don’t positively impact my game experience. I don’t pvp or wvw much, so why would I expect to have my toon completely rearranged for having “too much power” in a realm I don’t personally enjoy or inhabit much?

I wouldn’t expect it, but it happened.

Which means I can’t trust the developers when it comes to my time and fun. Which means I won’t devote any more time to the game until it’s “finished.”

I’ll come back. In 6 months or a year. But for now: love the world, the art, the music, love the difference between this and every other mmo I’ve played. But if I can’t trust that my toon will be as capable tomorrow morning as he was when I go to bed tonight… If I can’t trust that the hours I spent learning to play, developing the muscle memory of the skills based on their results… Basically if I can’t be sure that my time is respected: I’m not interested.

I hope everything gets ironed out, and that I’m still interested when I come back.

For now: Adios and Good Luck.

They’re probably just trying to finish the map.

Don’t be that person that attacks. Just let them finish and move on so they’ll get OUT.

Or you could get the “glory” from killing a helpless person who just wants to not be there in the first place and prove that you are a tiny-minded thing.

Carry on.

I thoroughly enjoyed leveling my ranger until Orr. Because of Orr, I stopped playing altogether until some friends talked me into coming back. I’m leveling an Elementalist at the moment for a change of pace, but the ranger is awesome for pve leveling in my experience.

Wait, is the main game fixed now?

If so, sub-games will be cool. If not, let’s wait a bit, m’kay.

The Cliff’s Notes in haiku:

Game has many bugs.
Nothing new here, same old meh.
Maybe wait, or not.

Oh, and just to be sure I contribute meaningfully:

The game has bugs. There’s nothing new about this, or the game in general. So, either wait for the fixes, or stop playing.

There really are several choices, but these seem the easiest to type. And, in the end, the most likely to actually happen.

I just want to ask one question then I’ll go cry in my chocolate milk for a while:

What items did your test team get for finishing the personal story?

I would KILL to be able to put that on my Male Norn Ranger!

But for your character… BWAAAAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAAHAHAHAAAAAAAA!

Did you <dying laughing can’t breath, no I’ll be ok, just a minute whooo, whooo, ok, ok, I’m good> Did you see the….. <ahahahahahahahahahaha, no no, I’m ok> Did you see the little thong looking thing in the rear view????

HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA.\

TAIL FLOSS!!!!

Priory. I looked at my charm/dignity/ferocity and was a Barbarian or something by the time I got to the choice.

I decided to mend my ways an become a scholar instead.

So I spent 50 more levels being muscle for the eggheads.

I had no idea that the decision was irreversible, or that it lead to an armor set at the end because I just played the game. No “research” or anything so I had to guess and roleplay it.

Haven’t really looked at the armor sets much except for a quick peek. They all kind of look a bit like latex pirate costumes to me so I’m in no hurry to get any of them.

Should have rolled a warrior…

Clearly, we out here in the world who aren’t botters, do not understand what the botters are doing that’s so dangerous to the economy.

I’ve seen bots. Of course I have. I have an 80 character and I’ve been in Orr. It was standing in one place waiting for events to trigger – presumably so it could kill/loot the waves of mobs and get the completion rewards for the events. I can see how over time, with many thousands of accounts doing it, that could be disastrous for the economy.

But I’ve never personally found a situation where dungeon tokens or karma could be used to make gold; maybe they exist but in my day to day play, I’ve never run across one, with the possible exception of crafting things then selling back to vendors.

So somebody please, correct me if I’m wrong, but short of crafting items, you can’t sell anything you’ve purchased with Karma right? And dungeon tokens… well if they want their bots to look pretty, ok then, but how does that hurt the economy? And while I’m at it, are you saying that there are bots running dungeons? That seems… unlikely considering how much activity is necessary just to survive, much less win.

So help us out with a little understanding of the real problem. Because as it stands, I’m not even willing to log in any longer. I love many things about this game and want it to succeed, but I don’t think it’s being harsh – rather just honest so that the point is truly made and hopefully taken – to say that I have better things to do with my gaming time than be part of a data collection experiment, which given the blackout of information we’ve received so far is precisely how I and literally everyone else I know who bought the game feel.

Let me say it again, I don’t know anyone, not one person in real life, who bought this game, who still plays because we don’t know what’s happening or why.

I know about a dozen who are waiting to get back into it, but not with much real hope. From our (opinion) perspective, the game is fundamentally broken and the development team haven’t any idea how to fix it. Blankets and nets are well and good in theory but the former puts everyone in the dark and the latter has just enough holes in it to be a terrible patch to stop a tidal wave.

I’d like to know why they’re rooted unless you spec into them so far. They MIGHT be worthwhile as is if they were mobile, but I mean really, who just stands in one spot in this game? Ever?

Seems a bit silly to me, but since I never use them anyway, it’s the least of the silly things about this game that I wonder about.

The only “fun” I had in wvw on my ranger was the 1 in a 1000 times I could find a spot to snipe from during a keep defense or if I managed to catch 1 or 2 lone opponents out in a field somewhere. The low damage output of all classes and the relatively high defense/hp of all classes means that you will almost never have enough time to down someone with your bow unless they are just stupid and stand there (which happens occasionally) or you have 5 other ranged classes all spamming them.

Out in the field at close range… I hate zerg, so I just refuse to do it which has limited my experience considerably to say the least.

So… I don’t think you’re doing anything wrong. The mechanics just need a lot of work to feel satisfying.

As much as I complain, 100% yes, and then some. 1,000% even. MMOs in general, and this one in particular are the best digital entertainment value in existence.

I still want changes/improvements to make it playable and rewarding post-80, but definitely worth what I spent and more.

We’re already going through the content too fast for the developer’s liking. Thus the current costs, diminishing returns code etc.

Not going to happen, at least not until MUCH more content has been added in future expansions.

Your job is to SLOW DOWN. Enjoy the content, whether you want to or not.

If they’d just fix the tiny feline CAMERA!

Make them as hard as you want, but let me be able to actually see the terrain I’m working with.

“But in the real world you wouldn’t be able to see perfectly!”

In the real world I’d also bring a rope and use my hands occasionally. /end debate

I think a fundamental piece of this puzzle that’s missing is “middle ground” or incremental rewards.

You think the list of stuff to get a legendary is absurd. I would agree, and precisely because I’ve played games like EQ and gotten epic weapons there. To get a “legendary” here is child’s play by comparison. Sure it will take a MOUNTAIN of time. But other than the badges of honor (which I honestly didn’t know were required until just now) every piece of the puzzle can be done solo, if you’ll put in the time.

Having said that, if you had ten OTHER steps in between that weren’t just grinding/farming, by the time you got to that last piece, it wouldn’t just be a relief, it would feel truly legendary.

So… what are the current steps?

1) level to 80.
2) grind 4 bajillion items.
3) profit.

I think this is what’s causing terms like “nightmare” to be used. And I agree because while getting epics in other games was truly an epic adventure requiring hundreds of hours, travel, groups, raids and luck, at least you had fun doing some or most of the steps.

“Legendary” in this game is just flat. It’s not legendary at all.

UnderdogSMO.9428:

elocke.7132:

They should make these chests give out karma and/or dungeon tokens. Now that would increase their value two fold.

and closer to Pay to win.

fine as is IMO

You know it just occurred to me that I don’t know what “win” means in this game.

spvp is equal territory. Exotic gear is “the best” available and is easily obtained.

So “winning” in this case means “getting your character to look the way you want it to?”

And what’s wrong with paying for that honestly? I’m not going to do it, but how does it hurt anyone if someone else buys keys, that open chests, that the legitimately looted in game, and they happen to do it often enough to get an armor set?

[edit: forgot that chests are sellable/buyable, so that last bit doesn’t really apply. Question still stands though I think.]

Honestly, I’m not sure how it hurts you if someone just pays cash for the look they want. So you ground out your gear. So he worked a couple of hours of overtime at the real life job.

I really don’t see much difference, but that’s just me.

So… “pay to win”. Didn’t everybody pay to win by buying the game, at least in some sense?

Short answer seems to be something like, “Um… because we didn’t think about that part…”.

Games have always had armor categories, so they all need armor categories.

Except that the fundamental reason for the existence of the trinity was BECAUSE of the existence of the armor categories.

And the reason for the categories was to balance the only two factors that really mattered in old school combat based games: damage and healing.

When you take out the trinity, you take out the need for armor because all classes become basically the same.

I think they just didn’t think it through.

AlexanderFaust.4518:

Derpinator.2894:

Masher: I don’t believe the keys drop from mobs.

Unless this was recently changed.. then YES, keys DO drop from mobs
*(picked up at least one in the past 3 weeks)

Ok. I sit corrected. /shrug

I don’t recall ever getting one, and as I said, I have nearly 200 hours played, so it’s obviously incredibly rare.

Oh, so it’s a role playing thing?

That’s… interesting…

Well, I think I personally would leave the camera alone and use those “water splash” effects like when you surface, but make them out of blood instead. Maybe add some dark red clouds or something that cut clipping down so you could barely see through it.

You know… simulate an actual shock state… instead of making me look at myself, and only myself while I flail at buttons…

Meh.

I wouldn’t mind seeing the be mystic forgeable into something. Maybe for every 10 I throw in, I get one back unlocked or something?

I wouldn’t spend money on anything I’ve ever seen or heard anyone else getting out of a chest no matter how specific they got: “uber gold, shiny disco-tint armor dye”. Nope. Not spending money on it. Much less on some random bag of crap.

Masher: I don’t believe the keys drop from mobs. I’ve gotten them from map and personal story completion if memory serves, and a few out of chests themselves as I opened them. I think I’ve had something like 6 drop in 200ish hours played.

I’ll say thanks for delivering an artistically beautiful game to learn about. It was really a treat at first because it overwhelmed my realizing how many flaws there are in the game mechanics since the only real mechanic is to run around in the world and look at stuff.

Now that I’ve gotten to the point that just running around has gotten old, it’s hard to appreciate even that any more. Why? Because the more of the game I see, the more I see the hand of designers putting things in my way to slow down even the one thing they apparently WANT me to do (explore).

By placing mobs so precisely…
And terrain blocks (mountains) so precisely…
And waypoints so precisely…
And making waypoints so expensive at 80…
And mobs with ridiculous spawn rates or staggeringly dull amounts of hitpoints…

.. that it’s hard to even appreciate the artwork any longer because even just exploring is a grind now.

Sad, but true.

And why is all leather armor shiny? It all looks like some kind of weird latex body suit. Very strange.

Anyway, other than that, thanks for a beautiful world, at least as much of it as I could stand to grind my through before The Hand of Design started showing up everywhere.

I find myself WISHING I could dodge in other games

I’m looking at you D3…

Armor weight as a concept is incompatible with eliminating the trinity. It existed in the first place to create class distinctions in pencil/paper games to explain why a wizard could do massive burst damage, or how a thief could achieve stealth and surprise but still manage hand to hand combat, or how a warrior could absorb damage while standing right in the monsters face and smashing it with heavy things.

The “role” in roleplaying has always been about two things: you play the role of the person (I am Grundar the Warrior), and the role of the character (I am a wizard of immense power, but I’m old and weak since I spent so much time studying my books!).

When you try desperately to eliminate true roles based on the only two options available in games that are combat-centric (damage and healing) you have to make other, new, informed decisions about how to replace those roles and my suspicion is that without being much more elegant and thoughtful about those replacements, you end up with a muddle: much like this one.

I’m not supporting “the trinity”, I’m just explaining why it existed and why attempts to eliminate it sound good in theory but are so difficult to manage in reality.

Everyone having a “dodge” skill isn’t good enough. Softened dps and healing for everyone isn’t good. So-so armor and dps for everyone isn’t good. It makes all the class play essentially the same way.

And I think most people who are less than satisfied with this game sense it, even if they can’t explain it to themselves.

Mr. Peters, if the intention is to limit either the number of runs per day to some number N, or the number of tokens per day to some number N… why not just limit those things instead of this complex system?

And if that’s not the intention, what is?

I for one am not losing interest in what’s here. I never had much interest in what turned out to be here. I was interested in what was promised by the company, which it has utterly failed to deliver so far.

There have been many threads about the differences between the manifesto and the delivered game so I won’t go into it, but I suspect that people with theories like, “This isn’t the game for you.” and the “MMO locusts always go to what’s new” and the “just wait, they’ll fix it” and the “this is different than other MMO’s” and “there is no gear grind” and all the others that support the game as it exists, either didn’t get exposed to the manifesto, ignored it, or never cared and just wanted another arenanet product because for whatever reason, the shine has worn off of GW1.

There is nothing revolutionary or even different about this game. It’s a massive time suck with beautiful artwork. It’s a digital museum featuring the work of a highly talented group of people.

And what others of my ilk are and have been looking for is a world to be a part of.

That’s what was promised. It’s not what was delivered.

Thus, loss of interest, with very little hope of redemption by the developers.

But they talked a good enough game that I’ll check back occasionally. I already paid for it, so no harm in it.

I agree with most here (80 ranger): the animation needs to be looked at. I’d also add that I have in fact evaded off of cliffs and bridges in the heat of the moment. It’s… disheartening.

It’s one thing to be situationally aware. It’s an entirely different matter to have a restricted camera, a skill that changes the length of the push based on the terrain, and many, many not-so-obvious pieces of geometry that make a difference to have to calculate, all in the middle of a battle. It’s just too much to expect out of most people and I think it needs either some more details added or some safeguards built in.

If it was “channeled” so that you held down the key to determine how far away you leaped maybe? But that makes diminishes how quickly if functions, which for an evade skill doesn’t make as much sense as an instant skill.

Anyway, I still use it since I got an exotic 1hs and it’s my highest damage option for main hand melee at the moment, but it definitely needs some love by the devs.

I’d rather see it have a chance to daze/interrupt/stun, along with a crit, with the chance going up the larger the distance gets. It’s more “realistic” since the reality is that a single arrow from a long bow or crossbow could knock a person down and kill them outright on a good shot. Nothing even CLOSE to that mechanic exists anywhere in this game right now and I for one think it would be refreshing. It would definitely keep me on my toes if I knew I could get sniped and 1 or 2 shotted if I wasn’t at peak situational awareness, but it would also make wall zerging much less appealing in wvw, which is in DESPERATE need of some love from anet.

But imo the most important fixes for longbow right now is to find a way to fix the physics so blades of grass and 3" edges on keep walls don’t block targets that are clearly in line of sight and fix the side-to-side dancing hack. It makes longbow feel like a complete waste of time in pvp/wvw except for the psychological effect of barrage (when you can get it to target).

As for appeal in general, I’d like to see more situational shots available as Seras.5702 suggests. A cool-down enabled “super long shot”. AoE blind, stun, slow, poison etc. Maybe make them trait specific to keep them from being OP or something, but yeah, most of the skills for Ranger are just “meh” at the moment.

I apologize. Truly.

Let me explain: we are all entries on a spreadsheet somewhere, being aggregated, summed up, somewhere else. We aren’t people trying to have fun. We’re numbers trying to create other numbers..

To me it feels like the decisions being made about this game and world are based on those numbers, rather than on what humans are/do/want.

Thus, I am a number.

And since the designers hands are so obviously mathematical, in m view, I was expressing my distaste at being merely part of a fomula, rather than a member of a world.

Hope that helps.

Oh, and in case you didn’t know, there are other things that people could be doing with their time. so you really have a small window of opportunity here.

Good talk.

They know. They’re trying.

So let’s all just wait.

I don’t advocate playing during this time; just waiting. fyi.

Every time I log in.

If you dear aNet are seeing the numbers drop, and I suspect you are, this might be why.

So my suggestion is: hide that fact a little better.

I know that isn’t specific, so it’s “hard” to troubleshoot. But let’s be honest. The specifics are glaringly obvious in the hundreds (thousands?) of other posts on these forums. And that’s just the ‘official’ ones; the unofficial are a massive smoking gun also.

Y u so angry?

On a related note: WoW is decent and fun. So is GW2. Neither is greatness.

Good talk.

Waiting for patches/fixes. TL2. Maybe even a little D3 since a few friends claim it’s less suck now.

Actually trying to reactivate my old EQ account to see what’s changed in the last 8 years, but not expecting much.

TV.

You know… the usual.

Oh, and studying quantum mechanics, re-watching old Feynman lectures and checking out the Holographic Universe theory. But nobody really cares about that stuff.

so.. tv. mostly.

Hellkaiser.6025:

sorry but reading that last one screamed to me of

“nostalgia goggles”

You wanna know how I know my class? you ask me, because you should know it yourself, because there’s no real harm in creating a level 1 alt, going to heart of the mists and being auto 80 with full traits unlocked and skills and going “hmm 2+2”
Getting the 4 that you should inevitably and simply get and going that could combo with x, and y etc. the game is simple enough to get rid of that rubbish “let’s force the players to sit down for 15 minutes at a time”

What I WOULD love to see in gw2 was more areas with fun things to do, like the inns are great and full of npc fun, but you can’t like pick up a set of darts and play a minigame with friend or enjoy a few drinks that make you bleary eyed and slur your words, the kinda semi RP fun that gets people in a light hearted mood and chatting.
If they were way more fun and had more in them players would be DRAWN into them naturally and you’d get a slightly better sense of immersion, as it is we’ve a massive massive MASSIVE world with many area’s and yet we lack hubs that draw people to them

This is the kind of thing that would make me forget all about the “lack of Nintendo hard challenge” in the game and give a nice sense of nostalgic “this is always good in a game and familiar”

Just saw this and had to say: darts is the greatest game in human history. All electronic versions so far have sucked, but if someone could do it well, I’d pay

and I agree that the massive number of “things” that happen that don’t actually lead anywhere in this world is sad.

I spent a half hour following an NPC in Rata Sum (or thereabouts) called “Prison Warden Zikki” as she patrolled her prison and talked with The Talking Bear, The Mysterious Chicken, The Mad Scientist and other. Only to find out that that was all that happened.

I was truly sad. I so wanted that to lead to something more.

Broke my heart really. Which is obviously different than a game heart which can’t be broken. Much like the “dynamic events” at this point, of which, I’ve only ever seen two fail. And those failures changed… well nothing I could see. So let’s call them “Timed Events” rather than dynamic.

nvmvoidrays.2158:

while i do miss UO and its systems, how it was designed absolutely wouldn’t fly now-a-days, simply because MMOs are much, much more popular and not obscure, niche titles. back during the EQ/UO days, 100k subscription was comparable to WoW’s peak of 12 million.

look at GW2. people consider it a “failure” and “its dying” because its not holding millions of people. i don’t care where you come from, two million plus units sold is a success.

honestly, if mortal online wasn’t a buggy piece of kitten, i’d be playing it all day.

i got into the beta for it, and, i absolutely loved what they were trying to do… but there were simply too many bugs/glitches. it’s gotten much, much better, but… it’s not there yet. maybe in a few years, it’ll be polished enough for me to purchase it.

if UO was released, today, in its T2A/Renaissance state, but modernized (i.e. controls like a game released in 2012, not 1997), i’d abandon GW2 immediately, but that’s a lofty, lofty goal. it won’t happen. tbh, i can’t stomach UO’s clunky, awkward controls/combat/netcode anymore after playing polished titles. back in ‘97, it was acceptable, but now? i can’t stomach it. i have fond memories of the game, however, and played it from ’97 to ’04 and then quit when they ruined it via trying to compete with EQ.

Agreed that “as they were” not one of those games would survive today. Some of their mechanics were kitten, no doubt about it.

But just a few of them made the games feel different than anything that has come since, and I think an actual death penalty was one of them. “Dying” in modern games means kitten. It’s a few seconds of irritation because you have to run back or pay a toll. BARF.

I’m not pining for the “glory days”, but some things made a difference. In EQ if you died you lost xp, had to run naked back and collect your corpse (even if it was in the bottom of a respawned dungeon), from your bind point (which could – if you were unlucky be literally hours away) or lose xp AND all your gear.

You didn’t kittening want to die in that game. It SUCKED. And you worked really, really, REALLY hard not to.

And just that feeling… that, “Omg, I’m about to die!!!! Run! Run! Oh please let me live long enough to escape!!!! Omg! I’m gonna die!!!!!!!!”

On a level 10 character had more impact than this entire game, and all the years of WoW combined.

That. One. Moment.

Sad to see it go, I am.

@EATtheDEAD:

Cheers. Tipping a Newcastle at ‘ya. And it’s been close to a month, but I’ve stopped playing for a while. I’ll definitely come back… some day. But it’s just too buggy and annoying this week.

Rukia.4802:

Hundreds. In pvp, bro!

Oh, yeah. I’ve done like 4 hours of pvp and gotten… four or five. But that’s useless. A bit like getting chocolate milk for showing up to kindergarten. It’s definitely going to happen if you put in the time.

And not one of those has been useful to the character I got them on.

So… meh.

200+ hours not one dropped. A couple from lvl70+ map completions (totally wrong items/builds and only lvl 78), but no mob drops.

I think that’s intentional though. They’re exotic. Like howler monkeys.

Ever gotten a howler monkey out of your Corn Flakes or as a free gift with a Big Gulp?

I’m not saying I like it, but I get it.

FateOmega.9601:

What? 21s for a few mins? Tell me how to do it.

Um… go to any midlevel zone (50+) and follow a chain of events for half an hour? If between actual cash and sellable items you don’t make 21s I would be… truly surprised.

Oh, maybe our definition of a few minutes is different. Sorry.

I didn’t mean 3 minutes, but something like 15 to 30 minutes depending on the business of the zone etc. should be easily doable

Rizzy.8293:

Derpinator.2894:

Rizzy.8293:

Losing 21 silvers before the new patch was punishing enough
11 silvers for a whole fix of every single item broken, is atleast acceptable

I agree that this is painful, but it’s not really consequential. 21s at level 80 is a few minutes of “work”. It’s just irritating, not meaningful. And that’s actually the reverse of my problem.

Those few minutes don’t MEAN anything except a few minutes. If you hadn’t died, what would your reward be for those same real-life minutes spent?

Nothing. 21s doesn’t actually mean anything positive in this game. That’s the problem.

Losing 21s sucks. Gaining 21s is… just gaining 21s.

See what I mean?

I understand the problem, if its Arah exp you’re talking about where a path takes 3 hours minimum with 60 tokens at the end, still not as bad, but recently I did Arah for the first time and it gave me 30 tokens and everyone else 60 tokens, that was bs.

That was punishment for me :|

Well, it’s the whole game I’m talking about, but this is a great example.

I want to run dungeons, and craft, and explore and pvp.

But my experiences with all of these have lead me to believe that they are all broken, contrary to the manifesto and unsatisfying because I expected them to as the Manifesto promised.

And that’s not even getting to the “punishing” part of my post (which I now realize should have been “consequential” instead). That’s just bugs.

Even if they worked, it’s really hard for someone to matter in any of these activities. There are a few self-proclaimed leaders in wvwvw for example. Maybe they’re really good at what they do. I don’t know and don’t care much at this point. My entire experience of wvwvw so far has been “leader A: zerg here, leader b: zerg there. leader C: wtf is wrong with you people??”

There are no tools built into the system to allow actual leaders to be promoted/demoted by the led. That’s just stupid. I’d lead but… lol. I tried to make sense a few times through the chatter. Not even trying to lead, just trying to understand. Result: same 5 leaders babbling/kittening about one another. Word of mouth is awesome, if you have time to use it, which with queue times, no casual player does.

I could go on, but I think it’s fair to say that the game is unfinished, and even when finished, it might not live up to the hype that sold it to me.

And I doubt seriously that I’m alone, so for whatever “we” are worth in terms of buyers, a chunk of the player base is not happy and probably won’t be back.

Hope that helps clarify.

EATtheDEAD.4768:

psshh.. kitten please. my house is made of steel. my attitude is bitter not bad, I’ve been part of this genre of games since it started and all I’ve seen since WoW has been poor attempts at recreating WoW.

I have to ask, with all respect, wtf are you smoking? I love that you (seem to) agree with me, but… you seem to be on a whole different plane than me.

Orson.8034:

I miss difficulty coming from game design rather than coping with bugs.

I +1’d this. Not sure if that’s actually a verb, but I did it. And since I have no idea if you know that I agree:

I agree.

Rizzy.8293:

Losing 21 silvers before the new patch was punishing enough
11 silvers for a whole fix of every single item broken, is atleast acceptable

I agree that this is painful, but it’s not really consequential. 21s at level 80 is a few minutes of “work”. It’s just irritating, not meaningful. And that’s actually the reverse of my problem.

Those few minutes don’t MEAN anything except a few minutes. If you hadn’t died, what would your reward be for those same real-life minutes spent?

Nothing. 21s doesn’t actually mean anything positive in this game. That’s the problem.

Losing 21s sucks. Gaining 21s is… just gaining 21s.

See what I mean?

I feel your pain.

Dragon = carefully timed chekittenll of stuff container.

The first couple of times were kind of fun because I didn’t know what to expect or do.

The third time it was a little pathetic.

There hasn’t been a fourth and won’t be. I mean.. didn’t we kill it the first three times? And if all we’re doing is pushing it back, what’s the chest for? We didn’t actually win. And even if we had “won”, why is the chekittenll of useless crap? No, better yet, why was the dragon carrying a giant chekittenll of useless crap that happened to drop when we pushed it back? And if it’s all useless crap, but everyone gets some, why not distribute it better?

Etc. etc. etc.

I have so much hope for this game as patches happen, but I’m literally afraid to play right now because so much stuff has to be fixed/tweaked/debugged.

So I’ll chill on the forums for a while and hope to hear that actually playing is worthwhile again soon.

DusK.3849:

I don’t miss them either. Good for you if you like that stuff, but we all knew it wasn’t gonna be in this game. At least those of us who opted to, you know, learn about the game we were buying, anyway.

By learn I assume you mean being exposed to “The Manifesto”?

Or do you mean that sacred responsibility of consumers to study the products they buy? I assume this means you research the facilities of the cheeses you eat for quality and safety ratings. And that you don’t by dental hygiene products without visiting the manufacturing plants.

Get off your high horse. Of course I checked out the game. I bought it based on the “Manifesto” and what was delivered was nothing like what was contained therein. Ok it was “like” the Manifesto. Just like phlegm is “like” oysters. Same basic consistency, but not the same thing at all.

So I don’t “miss them” or I wouldn’t have bought this game. I miss what they represent which is why I put “punishing” in quotes. To indicate the ironic nature of the word.

And I truly hoped this game would provide the same SENSE of accomplishment, of challenge, of being a part of a world that my examples illustrate. It doesn’t. At all.

So thanks for your valuable input. I know that I for one feel much different about my entire experience here due to your input. It’s almost as if you never existed. That’s so much different than I felt before I was completely unaware of your existence.

ostracize.8316:

Most MMOs these days have a permadeath community who plays by unofficial permadeath rules. With how easy it is to get resurrected in this game I’m not sure how hard it would be, but that’s always an option.

So… I have to pretend in the pretend world that when I “die” I’m “dead”?

Interesting. I’ll be honest, I’m a little disturbed by the necessity for communities like this to exist, but I also truly get hardcore modes in other game.

I generally don’t do them because the main reason I die is bad design or internet issues, but… I get the desire.

I’ll look into it.

Thank you.

Whiteblade.1504:

Just play Dark Souls if you want a game that has that kind of thing done right.

You also need to keep in mind that a lot of those mechanics aren’t really punishing, but bad design. Losing all of your gear means that I lose a lot of time and is a griefers paradise. No fast travel is just stupid, why do I want to run through the same location 100 times? Lack of a ‘leash’ is pretty much a griefer tool and makes no real sense. Staring at a book for 15 minutes to regain mana is just wasting my time, which is valuable.

I also like Guild Wars 2 because of how easy it is. The game was never meant to be super punishing or difficult outside of the higher levels of PvP. The PvE is meant to be something you pick up and just play as a co-op game or a singleplayer game in the case of personal story.

I’ll check it out, but my point wasn’t that those things should still be: my point was that easy feels easy and we can’t really feel good about doing what’s easy.

Griefers means pvp and I never mentioned that.

Running through the same content implies that that content isn’t interesting. That’s bad design and imo EQ only suffered from that occasionally. when content became irrelevant and uninteresting, porting past it was easy. Not true here.

No fast travel IS stupid. I never defended it because it was slow. I mentioned it because it was actually interesting (up to a point) and that point seems to have been lost here. Fast travel is a gold sink now due to “economies” in games, rather than a perk for having earned the right to bypass kitten you’ve already done, as it was in older games.

Lack of a leash is gerally only a griefer tool in a forced pvp environment. I never mentioned pvp. But I admit that trains sucks in pve. However, aggro management outside the “leash” range is easily implemented: if you didn’t attack, and you are outside the “leash” range, you don’t get trained/attacked. It’s a bad compromise to role playing, but it’s viable.

Yes, I agree. Your time is valuable. So is mine. I’m not arguing for meditation. I’m arguing for things that make our decisions have consequences. In this game, there is no mana, and your health basically instantly regenerates. So… when you end a fight with the 2 or 3 mobs the game always throws at you (or 6 in Orr, or 16 whatever), you instantly regain all health, and there is no skill resource pool.

So basically you just keep going forever like some kitten Energizer bunny.

I prefer, personally, to have a slightly limited pool of resources that can run dry and refill less-than-instantly.

Why?

Because it makes sense, even if a fake world.

If I have almost unlimited power, why not just give me actual unlimited power?

As things stand I constantly feel the hand of humans involved in keeping me bouncing from thing to thing. It’s all so… timed. So… predicatable. So… formulaic.

If you don’t feel that, more power to you and enjoy.

For me, it destroys the entire experience to have no choices.

Think about it. Do you have a choice to be a destroyer of everything nearby? And do you pay a price for that choice?

No and no.

You are, and always will be moderated. But you’ll never be weak. You’ll always be average.

Does that really, truly make you happy?

So, my assertion is: to feel powerful, you have to have moments of weakness. And most games fail on part two. They make everyone feel average at the expense of anyone having the option to feel powerful.

And this is just one instance. Let’s not even talk about impactful, different, important, useful, evil, stealthy or any of the 1,000 other possible things people could feel while playing games their way.

Aristio.2784:

Nostalgia goggles all around! You miss loosing out on hours of time just because you lost a random number generator roll? Do you all remember what good MMO population was? 100k subs was considered a AAA MMO.

Taking an hour of travel time to get to a group to grind the same mobs (Which wasn’t a challenge by any means) for two hours to gain a single level? I look back and ask myself why I spent hours a day to outclaim another group for a world spawn that took forever to spawn. If it’s one thing I don’t miss about older games is the amount of time required for anything.

Uh… no. Not really.

I miss things like knowing that if I managed to kite a mob to 10% health over 10 minutes, but messed up my timing even by one second and died. I’d have to pay a price for my lack of concentration. But if I managed to stay focused I’d see a noticeable portion of a level be achieved.

Case in point: Butcherblock Mountains dwarf kiting. It was great xp, but there was a faction penalty to pay for the opportunity that mattered, even if just a little bit.

It wasn’t random at all (except for lag which you can’t predict/control). If you knew the method, and executed it, perfectly (within certain tolerances of course) the reward was experience and loot.

If you didn’t know the mechanics, or didn’t execute them with skill, you died. And that sucked because you couldn’t just click on the waypoint and start again, or “ressurect” and keep going. There were real penalties for being incompetent.

I’m not a fan of penalties vs. rewards. It’s a game after all. But every minute I spent in Butcherblock felt like a reward when I won. BECAUSE when I failed, I knew it was my own fault (except for lag which does/still sucks).

Yes, an hour of travel time to get to a group sucked and I wouldn’t want that back. But the insta-port sucks too. If for no other reason than you CAN’T build a group of people you like to group with. I’ve tried in games like wow. “Hey, you seem to be kinda cool. Want to group again?”

“Sure. But it’s easier/faster to just pug. Nice to meet you though because this is stupidly easy. I can join any group and get by.”

/silence

And you said, “for two hours to gain a single level”.

Are you serious? These games took weeks, sometimes months to gain “a single level” and because you had done it, other people KNEW WITHOUT A DOUBT that you knew your class. Because it wasn’t possible to advance if you didn’t.

These days LITERALLY all levels mean is “you spent time”.

They mean nothing. And that sucks. Why have them at all? Oh, I know. Because everyone deserves to be as strong as everyone else. Well… you decide. And if that’s true, I ask again, why have levels at all?

Yes, I know what a “good” mmo population was. And I know that 5,000,000 people who like clam and goat cheese ice cream doesn’t mean that clam and goat cheese ice cream is actually good. It just means that a lot more people like clam and goat cheese ice cream than me.

Finally, yes, claiming world spawns sucks. As does claiming crafting node spawns, or tagging random zone mobs.

that can be fixed. And a STRONG argument exists that THIS game did that for the first time.

But that doesn’t make this game hard, or challenging, or rewarding.