Showing Posts For Jeff Nyman.6314:
So, just out of curiosity — before this thread eventually gets buried under an avalanche of others — is there a way on these forums to get the attention of developers (or representatives) such that they are more likely to respond to specific things that people are asking about?
I looked around but didn’t see such.
SWTOR had this problem as well, where long-standing queries were felt to be ignored and it was leading to a certain amount of angst among players. It was really the entire lack of any sort of developer response that mattered to people, moreso than concern over any “negative” answers the developers may give.
On SWTOR’s forums they opened up a Suggestion Box forum although, to be honest, the developers (or, again, a representative) rarely if ever respond to anything in there. So maybe that’s not the best example, come to think of it.
Does anyone tried the LFG tool and stay in there for a few hours to see if it works?
I can’t speak for this since I’m not at that point in GW2, but you sort of highlight what an issue would be for me: “stay there for a few hours.”
A lot of times, I have a plan of what I’m going to do when I sit down for a gaming session. So let’s say the last thing I have to do in my personal story is the final quest. So I sit down for a gaming session to do just that … and …. I have to wait a few hours to do so.
Again, I can’t speak to this in GW2 but I can say that in SWTOR there was often a set of “heroic” quests or even a flashpoint that I wanted to do. But I couldn’t because I would have to wait awhile — sometimes hours or more — to find anyone willing to do it. (And then hope that when we started, they didn’t rage quit, get disconnected, or simply have to go to handle real life.) That was sometimes just waiting for one person, much less four others!
In those cases, however, at least the heroics and the flashpoints were optional. They weren’t part of your personal (class) story and thus could be avoided without any loss of story continuity, role play experience, or simple gaming time. That’s not quite the same thing for the final quest of your class story in this game.
All that said, I probably should not let experiences with one MMO necessarily color my experiences with this one. I’m definitely rethinking my position on GW2 now.
I will be the absolute FIRST to admit I cannot do even a small portion of what people like Wethsopu, (the warrior in the vid) can do. I posted it as merely a “it CAN be done”. it will take work and thought and lots of failed attempts.
… Sorry for the sidetrack. I guess I just meant to really just say that the game IS solo able. or at least possible to be. For myself, I enjoy the challenge and the prospect of the challenge.
No worries; I don’t see this is a sidetrack at all. In fact, I appreciate you posting the video. I think it actually is interesting to see that it can be done, admittedly via a very skilled player.
This may in fact be one of those cases where the “MMO casual player” (like myself) simply will find that GW2 is not for them, assuming they want to complete the personal story. I come from SWTOR (which was my first MMO) and while, like you, I do enjoy a challenge, I also have limited time and want games to be fun more than I do frustrating. Admittedly, that’s a tricky balance. But I found SWTOR let me have that experience because, ultimately, everything in my “class story” was solo’able, even if sometimes challenging. The trick is that the challenges were proportional to the fact that some people would not group up to complete their final class mission.
What I don’t want at all is a game that is “impossible” for me to complete (at least in terms of ‘personal and/or class story’), which I thought might be the case with GW2 given what I have read and heard.
I’m now at least potentially revising that view a bit. That being said, slogging my way to 80 only to find that my initial perceptions were correct would be a bit of a bitter pill, I suppose.
In these kinds of threads, there’s always a few that like to say “Oh, that’s easy, I solo’d it without problem.” I usually dismiss those posts, simply because that’s easy to say in a thread without anything to back it up. I’m not saying such people are lying; simply that I have no way to know.
However — one poster above actually posted some proof: a video that seems to indicate solo’ing this dungeon is possible. The video is played in a very fast form so it’s not really possible (for me, anyway) to glean any insights into it.
So maybe for those boasting that they have already done this final quest solo and that it’s the “easiest story dungeon”, maybe a better discussion to have is this: people who have problems solo’ing it should post what they have issues with and those that have claimed to solo it can offer specific tips about how they overcame those problems.
That would seem to be a more likely way to engage on this topic since the developers are reluctant or unwilling to.
(edited by Jeff Nyman.6314)
I am rather sure they DID comment on it, when this was brought up soon after release.
And they basically said something along the lines that they wanted it to feel more epic, and thus made it require a group instead of going in solo.I’ll see if I can find the post again, but I seem to recall that it was something like that.
Certainly I’m willing to stand corrected; I’ll be honest, I didn’t do a great deal of searching. I just feel that in the posts I’ve seen on this topic, there has rarely, if ever, been any sort of substantive feedback where the developers engaged the community on this topic, as opposed to just making a pronouncement.
With that being said, this issue comes up quite a bit on these forums. So if this is a case where (a) the developers are never going to change something that is being asked for by at least a segment of the community and (b) the issue does in fact keep coming up in topics, maybe a sticky post might be warranted that gives the developer viewpoint and why this final dungeon will not be soloable. At least then the community has a canonical reference they can point to.
This is actually the one reason that I don’t play this game any further and have pretty much given up on it. I check back in regularly just in case this has changed.
I realize that this may seem like a silly reason for me to not play a game I paid for. But I’ve heard numerous people who do play the game regularly tell me that it can be hard to find people who want to do this again and the last thing I want to do is waste a bunch of time leveling a character just to find it takes me a long time to do the last quest because I have to group. (I have limited game time as it, with kids and a job, so anything I perceive may block that — even if down the road — tends to put me off.)
I’m not sure why the developers (or a representative) won’t at least comment on this in a substantive way. If it’s never going to happen, I suppose they can just say that so the topic stops coming up. (On the other hand, I suppose their silence may, in fact, be indication of that.)
Anyway, the suggestion of the OP has my support as well as that of others.
Thanks for the info. I’m definitely glad to hear this. I’m very much a casual player so part of the concern for me is that I’m going to likely take a long time leveling up to 80. Then again, by that time, who knows, the dev’s may tweak the system so that the personal story ending can be done solo.
I appreciate the response; thanks again.
Okay, so I’m one of those who held off playing this game too much because I was disappointed by what I heard regarding how the final quest to your personal story requires a group.
It’s not that I’m against grouping, per se. I guess I’m a little miffed by the fact that you must group for a “personal” story, but whatever. I’m sure that horse has been beaten to death.
So the question is this: have those who have gone through their story had any trouble grouping up when it came time to complete your story?
I ask because I’m also playing SWTOR and for some of the more major engagements, it can be difficult grouping, in that it takes way more time than I’d like. (That said, SWTOR doesn’t require you to group for your “personal” class story, so it’s never stopped me from actually completing anything.)
I’m just concerned about working my way up to level 80 of my personal story and then finding that I can’t complete it because of lack of being able to group.
You survived Issormir and killed it, yeah there were some other guys probably to help. The thing is, we aren’t tracking them. We are tracking you, this is your story, your part. So chances are they too were awarded a similar title, but thems the breaks with game design versus lore.
Certainly fair points.
I guess it just seems odd to call something a “Great Hunt” when I was not part of any hunt. But I suppose if you look at it as the “Great Hunt” for the village as a whole — or the hunters within it anyway — you were just one small part of that great hunt festivity.
So — okay. I can get behind that. In fact, I guess that’s kind of interesting. You were just one of the many slayers of Issormir who are being celebrated.
That said, I still think Knut’s task of actually capturing that darn thing and somehow getting it up that mountain is a heck of a lot more impressive than a bunch of us basically hacking a captive worm to death, but … I guess with Norn’s it’s all about taking what you can get. Put another way: you are already upstaged by someone else on your very first quest — but that gives you something to strive for.
Hmmm. Interesting.
Thanks for your input. You helped me reorient my thinking a bit.
I hope this isn’t a sign of things to come. It might just be a sign that I’m being too picky.
In your very first quest as a Norn, you have to kill this giant worm called Issormir. This is part of your “Great Hunt”.
Now the problem is: you don’t really hunt this creature down in your Great Hunt. The worm was actually brought to the camp by Knut Whitebear.
So it was actually Knut who hunted down the worm. Then he somehow managed to capture this giant worm, and lug it back — alive, mind you — to a specific area so that us other “hunters” could fight it.
To me, it seems that, really, Knut is the one that did something incredibly impressive. I merely attacked the captured worm. Not only that, but I did this with a group of other people. (NPCs granted; but still a group.) After this I was hailed as a champion hunter and the “slayer of Issormir”, even though I’m not entirely sure I delivered the killing blow.
As the first quest that serves as the start to your story, this is pretty weak.
My hope is that this is not an indication of what’s to come. But … am I just being too picky?
I’ll preface this by saying that I have NOT played too far into the game yet so I can’t vouch for what I say here personally. That being noted, I’m going on what I hear regularly on these forums and what still stops me up from leveling too much more. What I say here is related to the notion of the OP’s claim that the “design team should be ashamed.” I think I agree — if what I hear is accurate. So here’s what I understand:
- The personal story has a lot of elements that simply don’t really matter in some wider sense. Meaning, the impacts of choices are rarely felt and the notion of your personal class rarely comes into play in determining the course of your story. (While not everyone says this, it seems many players agree with that sentiment.)
- I hear that in the “second half” of the personal story, YOUR story really starts to become more the story of someone named Trahearne.
- I hear that the final quest for your story requires going through a dungeon, thus requiring a group. (Yes, it’s an MMO but this is also the final personal story quest.)
- I hear that the final quest may not even really “show” your character unless you are the group leader.
- I hear that the final boss battle (Zhaitan) is not really all that great because he goes down fairly easily.
If what I’m hearing is true, that seems like a staggeringly disappointing way for this game to have been crafted — but only in this limited sense (which maybe means it can be fixed?). Yet if the design team disagrees, I would certainly think they would want to engage on this topic. (And if I’m simply misunderstanding, then my post is largely useless!)
Again, if what I just said is true, it’s more the pity when you consider that Guild Wars 2 does seem to have put a lot in place to alleviate some of the more “traditional” (read: aggravating) MMO mechanics.
Have any of the dev’s, story designers or content designers responded in any substantive way to criticisms of this sort? I ask that because (1) I can’t find it if they have and (2) it seems like a huge area of friction and disappointment with the community, given all the posts I’ve seen in this area of the forum.
I’m not trying to stir a pot here or advocate for or against the game itself. I’m genuinely curious because what it’s starting to look like to me is that if there’s ever an MMO that combines the story telling of Star Wars: The Old Republic (along with the class-specific story elements) but with the updated mechanics as well as look-and-feel of Guild Wars 2, we will have a phenomenal MMO on our hands. But it’s going to require the game designers to really interact with the community in substantive ways.
I’m debating on whether to start a new MMO, coming from SWTOR. I tend to be a very casual player, treating an MMO mostly as a solo experience — at least for “class quest” and/or “personal story” type stuff. (I know — it’s an MMO. But to me that just means I’m playing in a world where I can play with other players; I don’t always have to.)
What I’m reading is that your personal story cannot be completed without grouping up and going through a dungeon.
(1) Is that true?
(2) Is this dungeon in any way solo-able (such as if you are geared up appropriately)?
I know I perhaps shouldn’t necessarily let one thing like this stop me from even starting the game, but I have to admit it’s causing me some pause. Am I just being a bit unreasonable?