(edited by Jack Daniels.9723)
Showing Posts For Jack Daniels.9723:
So you want to pay monthly fees for GW2?
Actually, I wouldn’t mind. I hate the freemium model quite a bit.
I think your logic is out of whack. In the beginning, Orr was the most rewarding place in the game and people were there. Anet is now making other places more rewarding, by making it so the reward is more spread out.
Not to interject myself into your argument but I feel that their effort to uncluster people on the map has not worked as planned . It seems they just moved the clusters around a bit. The maps are 98% empty with clusters at certain events.
Ex- you mentioned Hairathi Hinterlands. I’m there a lot too. You know why? There’s people there for the chest. After I’ve done the event chain a 100+ times, I’d like to do something else. There’s a ton of empty events.
If their aim was to get people out of Orr then they were sucessful. The events are virtually undoable now. The problem still exists, they’ve just shifted it a little. I love the chests and loot, but I think it may be part of the problem now.
Yep, exactly. I forgot to mention the chests, but yes that’s another one of those things that you see people piling up at, but virtually nowhere else.
Vayne, I didn’t mean to sound so condescending, and I will give a curt apology: sorry. It just gets very annoying when I have to try to explain the same thing in several essay-sized posts. To me that’s a sign that you didn’t try to understand at all. You simply BS’d it. I understand what you’re afraid of, but I’m telling you that it’s already happened… just in a different way.
Here, Vayne:
Seriously. Get a character. Come to somewhere like Stormbluff Isle. Now just go into an area like Lornar’s pass, or any map that is large, and preferably one that does not have an event chest. Now, explore a bit. Tell me how many champions you encounter that sit around for ages without anyone killing them. FYI, this generally only gets worse as you go to higher level zones. Try tracing the route you would go to get to the second dragon (forgot his name) for the first time. Tell me how many zones you go through where you could go almost half the map without hardly encountering anyone, or how many champions you see just sitting around, with no one to fight them. I have done the same on my warrior, and I will tell you that my list is huge. I encountered no less than four to five champion events, probably in the same map, that had absolutely no one fighting them.
The problem is that people gather people, and that’s causing people to gravitate to certain locations where there are (gasp) a lot of people! Go to Queensdale, and tell me how many champions go unfought. I don’t know about you, but I see the troll getting his kitten handed to him on about 30-40 occasions per hour, usually as soon as he spawns. I have also hardly seen any events really go empty, and I see plenty of higher-level people (30-40+) still running around the zone just obviously grinding on dynamics. Why would they be anywhere else (aside from event chests) when that’s the safest and fastest way to go? Sure, you could argue that they could explore if they wanted to, but going by the “human nature” analysis, why would they do that when there is another path of obviously less resistance? The more people in the zone, the safer it is to do. So I essentially see three types of places get a large population, and every other zone get effectively nothing:
1. Places near event chests.
2. Areas with a high population (Queensdale, Norn, and all places in #1).
3. Dungeons, all that other stuff.
You should quickly be able to see that the issue here is that issue #2 CAUSES issue #2, and without any reason for people to drain from areas that have issue #2, issue #2 just keeps getting worse and worse, aside from the few oddballs that are either going for a legendary weapon or actually care about exploring enough to hinder their progress in the game.
(edited by Jack Daniels.9723)
I’m not avoiding what you’re saying, Jack, you’re not getting what I’m saying. If you make higher level zones “more rewarding” then people will stay there.
Wrong. You’re not understanding what I’m saying at all. I’m probably going to give up after this time, because you apparently lack the ability and/or willingness to understand, and I’m at work so I can’t be doing this all the time, as fast as I do type:
- First of all note that this is entirely from the level gaining standpoint.
- You use less time to complete events at lower level zones, so they give a good time invested vs experience reward investment… and I’m not saying that this should be nerfed… just that everything going up should be scaled properly.
- Higher level zones are more difficult, so why do they give exactly the same reward? So “people will spread out”? It’s not really happening. Instead I’m seeing the exact opposite problem arise.
- Karma aside, there’s no incentive for people above 16 to actually move to 16+ zones. They simply go to another starter area. That’s what happens to nearly everyone I’ve talked to. And why would they? There is no incentive.
- You put in more time to do the events, you have fewer people to do them with, and yet you still get pretty much the same amount of experience. I’m saying that this experience should be scaled such that doing lower level zones is not a superior choice, but that these choices are on equal grounds, in a time vs rewards analysis.
- Hence, in your “human nature” decision tree, there would not be a superior decision. Simply two options which are relatively equivalent.
I really have to get back to coding, so I’m going to put this off until later. Please actually give a proper response in that time.
@Jack Daniels
You want to know what’s wrong with having people in zone appropriate levels. If you have to ask the question, you miss the point. Level shouldn’t be "so important’.
Stop shoving words in my mouth. At best, I said “most”. All I’m saying is that they should have more incentive for going to to those higher level places, not that they should all be there. I’m saying that if they want to do it, they should be more properly rewarded for it. I’m not saying that the people choosing to stay at lower level zones get such trash that it effectively doesn’t work and they need to move up. I’m saying they should get enough to make it more worth their while, if they choose to move up. As in, you get a bit more than you would at lower level zones. Not overwhelmingly more, but worth it. Enough to give more people an incentive to move up, while having some still staying around and doing lower level places if they want. I want more reward for you choosing the harder path. Which makes sense. You take a bit more risk, you get a bit more reward. It’s simple.
In a world like WoW’s Azeroth, the world is HUGE. There’s a ton of time and commitment that it takes to make a huge world like that…most of it is sitting empty.
There are different types of players. There are dungeon runners and raiders, looking for an ‘end game’. Tons of them. It’s what they want. So they don’t see anything wrong with people all crowded together in one zone. It’s normal for them.
In case you haven’t noticed, there are a whole lot of people who don’t like MMOs. They dont’ like WoW. Some of those people., however, do like Skyrim. There really is no one place you have to be in Skyrim.
And I’m not saying you “have” to be somewhere, again. Geez. Get that through your head. All I’m saying is that I want for there to be more reward if you choose to actually do something that is more difficult, thus giving people a bit more incentive to actually spread out and use some of these higher level zones so that there will actually (gasp) maybe be enough people in a dang zone to do a friggin champion with.
Do you really think there are people that don’t have favorite zones that they like to hang in (Hirathi Hinterlands is one of mine). Do you really think people all want the same thing?
No, and that has never been the point. Stop getting off-track.
What’s wrong with everyone huddling together in one small area is that the world becomes irrelevant. Small. For some people, boring.
Exactly, and what I am suggesting, I am suggesting to fix that at levels <80.
I, for one, love the way you can go anywhere and do anything in this game. I’m not fussed about rewards. I’m not going to go out farming. I’m going to explore the world…and after I explored it ENJOY the world.
Yes, and I’m saying you should be more properly rewarded for that notion, so more people would actually GO OUT AND DO IT, not just ME ALONE.
You probably think I’m in a very small minority. I think you’d be very surprised. We’re playing completely different games.
No, I think you’re just avoiding actually comprehending what I’m saying, and quite frankly it’s annoying.
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Since all you’ve done is dismiss perfectly valid points I’ll leave you with this. I’m not the only person who has stated they have busy servers. I’ve played at least ten other MMOs and usually, in fact almost always, it’s the end zones where all the people stack. Most zones are pretty dead in most MMOs. Guild Wars 2 is an improvement over them.
1. It’s not called “dismissing”. It’s called countering. You stated points, I gave you counterarguments. Learn proper vocabulary.
2. This hasn’t really changed at all. Instead of stacking at endzones they’re stacking at PVP and dungeons. All you’ve done is change the location. The only reason you see so many endgame people elsewhere (which “elsewhere” generally only implies lower level zones such as Queensdale) is because of the global events such as SB and Shatterer. Or maybe they’re making a bit of easy karma at the low level events there, but most of the time they’re just stacked in the area where each of those bosses spawn.
3. And honestly what the hell is wrong with having people mostly in zones for their level? I’m not saying that we should just make low level zones worth trash for higher level people, I’m just saying that the risk they take at higher level zones should actually be worth a bit more. ie, it needs to be worth it.
I don’t know about you but I do group events in the Harathi Hinterlands relatively often. I often start them in a few minutes later, there’s a group there.
I can only tell you my experience… which is having to skip about 5-6 champions while traveling through a map because there is absolutely no one around to do them with.
I don’t need hundreds of people for that group, because the events are balanced for less. Normal events are balanced for up to 10 players, and group events for about 50. So you don’t need more players than that.
That assumes that everyone ikittenone can do every event. That’s a mathematical impossibility because not everyone ikittenone will be the same level, nor do they have the waypoint for where you’re at.
I’m not sure what MMO servers you’ve been on in the past, but this is far, far from the worst. And nothing you can say will change that.
I hope not. I wouldn’t be playing it if it was the worst. It wasn’t something I ever implied in the first place, so you effectively have said nothing with these two sentences.
(edited by Jack Daniels.9723)
Because if that were the case you’d never see anyone in any Zone but Orr, which is precisely what Anet doesn’t want.
That would be for ~ level 80s, correct? Why does this concern the < 80 community? If they want to fix what capped players experience, be my guest. I’m only speaking of the leveling process.
If this is all it was meant to fix, they sure did a REALLY bad job with the solution.
And I don’t know about your server, but my server has people throughout all the zones. Maybe not tons, but enough to do events. I can go into any zone in my server at almost any time of day and find help for group events. Sometimes you just have to say something in map chat to make it happen. Doesn’t mean there aren’t people there.
Allow me to roll my eyes here. “some people” is about 10-20 (that upper boundary is stretching it by the way), sprawled across areas such as Lornar’s Pass. Do you know what the population density of that looks like? Probably not, or else you wouldn’t have made such a silly point. I remember I was on my way to one of the dragon fights and I decided to do some events on the way there. I was soloing every single one of the ones in the areas up until that dragon fight. And this was during the day, in the busy hours. Oh, and this was on a “Very High” population server. Explain that to me.
The game has always been meant to have people roaming the open world and on some servers, it definitely works.
Yeah, it works amazingly. </sarcasm>
What you don’t get in Queensdale is the farming of higher level mats, which can be used as a source of income. I mean powerful blood at this time is worth more than an ecto.
There’s mat farming and then there’s leveling. Sure, you can argue that doing that you can do both at the same time, but focusing on two activities at the same time is hardly the most efficient way to spend it.
Anyway, that’s why this design decision was made. I think it’s a kitten good one.
Why, because it stops near capped players from spending too much time in Orr? Allow me to roll my eyes again.
(edited by Jack Daniels.9723)
I have to agree, there’s a limited amount of things to do in this game until you get to 80, and not having any way to fast-track it after you’ve experienced a majority of it, besides sitting there and hammering your kitten off, is kind of stupid.
It doesn’t help (in fact, I think this is a large cause of it) that the exp distribution is broken, such that doing some repetitive dynamic events in Queensdale is far superior in an exp vs time tradeoff to doing anything else in the game (hello deserted higher level zones where you basically have to solo every event and heart you come across, leading to somewhat boring experience). An alternate playstyle only goes so far to help, especially since most any characters you’ll make will still boil down to mashing this or this set of buttons for every single encounter…. and what you’re going to be doing is still exactly the same. You’re just going to put
Sure, there’s “variety”, but is it meaningful variety? Not in my eyes. It’s still better than MMORPGs where you have to FETCH 300 OF THESE AND BRING THEM TO HIM, AND THEN THAT GUY, AND THEN HIM! on every single character, but is it that much better? I’ll have to go with the negative on that. Exp gains need to be balanced out in this so that no matter which type of leveling you choose to do in this game, it will be as rewarding as the risk/time invested. That leads to true, fun, and rewarding diversity… and hell, it might actually make it so that MORE THAN kittenING QUEENSDALE is used by more of the <80 population.
I mean, in a game where everything else is based off a risk vs reward type of deal, why the hell is me going around killing level 60 mobs and soloing hordes of zombies…. just as rewarding as if I was in Queensdale helping some kitten farmers hold off a random small squads of bandits that have a fraction of the damage and life (and me having about 3-10 times the amount of help)? I’m sorry, there is no excuse for that. You can chalk it up to “you do what you want and get exp, it’s your choice”, but that’s a bullcrap moot blanket statement that doesn’t make any sense. Why even bother adding those other options if you’re going to make them blatantly inferior? Don’t even get me started on comparing that to sitting there and crafting. Now, I still enjoy playing this, but I hate seeing potential wasted like this. This game has diverse dynamic events, across huge sprawling zones, and plenty of types of activities that people can partake in, so why are these wasted like this? I honestly get angry just thinking about it. I think that leveling alts would be more fun if there was no optimal or shortest route there, so you essentially do whatever you want… which is what this game was promising in the first place, wasn’t it?