Showing Posts For Prismatic.2096:
Hear me out. I realize this game isn’t World of Warcraft, nor should it become World of Warcraft. That said, comparisons between the two and observations of one’s successes over the other are inevitable, so I’m not going to try to avoid them. With that disclaimer out of the way…
Almost my entire guild, as well as most other players I’ve spoken to, agree that the game could benefit immensely from some equivalent of raids. Raid dungeons provide a whole separate level of PvE endgame progression that keeps players in-game until the next content release. Currently GW2 has no vast PvE endgame goal for players to work toward besides making a legendary (which let’s be honest, is tedious at best), high level fractals (which is just repeating the same mini-dungeons over and over), and clearing all of the explorable dungeon paths, each of which can be cleared in an hour or two on the first attempt with little to no preparation.
It also offers a level of build-up/payoff which is completely nonexistent in the game as of right now, and allows guilds to play together on a far more personal and co-operative level than the guild missions currently in place.
There are many who would jump on this suggestion wanting to drag the trinity and gear treadmill back into GW2 while we’re at it, but I believe both of those suggestions would massively undermine the design philosophy of the game. The trinity isn’t necessary because GW2 raid bosses would have a huge variety of other mechanics they could rely on, thanks to the fact that players can change their utility skills on a whim between bosses. There could be bosses that require players to use their crippling skills to kite dangerous enemies, or others that require tons of condition removal. There could be bosses that can only be defeated by using bundle items around their arena with clever timing, or others that have huge powerful attacks that simply –MUST- be dodged. Therefore boss mechanics that focus on the healers or tanks to increase the complexity of the fight aren’t needed and the trinity can stay out of this.
The gear treadmill is a much more delicate situation. There are many players who I’ve spoken to in-depth (including several of my relatives) who miss the sense of visible progression that was present in WoW from earning sexy new gear from the dungeons. They miss having those exclusive skill-driven rewards that they could show off to their friends to prove how “boss” they were. In my mind this doesn’t necessitate the gear treadmill in GW2 either, since I feel that same effect could be achieved with titles and armor skins from the raid dungeons. If the dungeons were hard enough and the rewards difficult enough to obtain, they’d carry the same social weight that the “hawt lewt” did. The sense that the player was getting better and more powerful as a result of their efforts would still be absent, but the design philosophy can only be stretched so far.
TL;DR: Most of the people I’ve talked to feel that the PvE endgame is still lacking in long-term things for players to do and the addition of raids could tidily close up that void.
I don’t expect a dev response, but a confirmation that this is a recognized issue would put a lot of minds at ease.
I don’t suppose I could get some kind of dev response on this? Why isn’t this beautiful asset being used? Is there any hope of it coming back?
My honest predictions as well as my preference:
1. Tengu
2. Kodan
3. Dwarves
Our guild has existed since launch, but has had a very hard time getting off the ground in terms of recruitment. We currently have 20 members, some of which aren’t very active. Because of this we’re very close to being able to do guild missions and dungeons on a consistent basis, but just need a few more people in order to do so. I don’t intend for the guild to ever get bigger than 100 active people, because at that point people just start turning into numbers.
We’re primarily PvE focused, but interested in all forms of content including WvW and PvP. New players are welcome, and we try to be as helpful to them as we can, but capable level 80’s are also very much needed.
This guild is as much about making friends to play this game with as it is about teamwork with those friends to experience (and hopefully succeed in) all content. We have a mumble server, and use of it will be expected for higher end dungeons. It can just as easily be used as a hangout for members, and my two cousins and myself are in it at nearly every opportunity.
There are pretty much only three rules:
1. Please represent us on at least one of your characters full time. This is for the sake of communication more than anything else, since you can’t see guild chat if you aren’t repping.
2. Please no character names like “One Hot Warrior”, or “I Like Men” (Both actual people I’ve encountered, not imaginary examples). We’re not without a sense of humor, but we try to keep RP-friendly character names. “Internet alias” type names like “Neutral Wraith” or “Rolosworld” are perfectly fine. Just as long as it’s something I can call you without feeling like an idiot.
3. It goes without saying but don’t be a jerk. Swearing is fine, sex jokes and general mature humor is fine, but if you’re throwing around slurs and/or making other members genuinely uncomfortable we’re gonna have to talk about it. If you still don’t stop, you’ll be gone.
If you’re looking for friends to progress through this game with regardless of your skill level, please give us a shot. If you’re interested send a whisper or mail to Zellin ingame, reply here, or send me a PM on these forums.
SPOILERS INCOMING
I feel that the death of Zhaitan invalidated the Priory’s entire stance. They found no big helpful weakness. The biggest contribution the Priory made against Zhaitan was the Mega-laser which as far as I can tell was just a generally powerful weapon which had nothing whatsoever to do with the Priory’s findings. Zhaitan was defeated primarily through brute force and courage (Confirming the Vigil’s ideals) and uniting against the common foe (Strengthening the Whispers strategy). This leaves me feeling like the Vigil and Whispers were correct, while the Priory just screwed around and wasted time while people were dying. It also feels like a huge disconnect from the Personal Story for the Priory, where you find a dragon blood sword which could potentially BE that silver bullet, or at least something the Priory could refine into one. That sword is never seen or heard from again, and Zhaitan is defeated without it, making the entire expedition to find it feel pointless.
Now having the Priory find some magic macguffin which instantly kills Elder Dragons would be unfair to the other orders, but they should certainly have at least found SOMETHING helpful that ties into the final fight. A simple fix would have been to change the Mega-laser into some special anti-dragon weapon developed as the direct result of the events in your Personal Story, and actually mention it beforehand, instead of finding out halfway through the fight that “Oh, Zojja’s charging up a random huge laser that nobody mentioned before this.” The way things are now it feels like as a Priory character everything I did with my order was wasted time. Vigil and Whispers characters were bringing the humans and Charr together, while I was hunting down a sword which as of yet has no relevance whatsoever.
From what I can divine, the primary motivations of the three orders are as follows:
The Vigil is putting the people first, and trying mainly to relieve the suffering of the individuals affected by the dragons. They hope to overwhelm the dragons with brute force and courage, but always put defending the people first and are perfectly willing to delay killing the dragons if it means saving more lives.
The Order of Whispers is trying to unite the races of Tyria, using the kind of subtly and blackmail that such a political endeavor demands. They’re trying to morph the world of Tyria into one that can SURVIVE the wrath of the Elder Dragons, whether we eventually manage to kill them or not. The Whispers are primarily focused on ensuring that the races of Tyria and their legacy endure in the face of these primordial monstrosities.
The PRIORY, on the other hand, is the only one of the three orders who are actively trying to find out how to KILL the dragons as their primary objective. The Priory realizes that we know practically nothing about these new foes and don’t even know how to go about fighting them. Because of this the Priory focuses on searching for a “silver bullet” to use against the dragons. Some sort of exploitable weakness or weapon that would help immensely in the conflict, if not be completely mandatory in order to destroy them.
1. Kodan. They’re awesome, make since lore-wise, and can conceivably be any profession, unlike the Largos for example, who would all be thieves.
2. Tengu. It’s HEEAVILY foreshadowed that they’re coming anyway, and bird people rock.
3. Dwarves. Far less likely since Anet seems to be pushing the angle that they’re not just hiding out underground and only have a couple survivors left, but would still be cool.
Detailed all my thoughts in this thread: https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/game/dungeons/Why-I-find-explorable-modes-unsatisfying/first#post1050888
-Make the bosses much harder, nerf the trash a little bit, and give better rewards for killing an individual boss to account for the change in difficulty.
-Do away with the paths, instead making one big open dungeon so that players can choose their OWN path through the bosses, until they are all defeated, at which time final boss emerges.
-Some feature which allows a party to save their progress in an explorable to account for the newly lengthened dungeons and loss of paths.
-Perhaps organize bosses in tiers instead of paths, giving access to three easiest bosses, then opening up a deeper section of the dungeon with the next three. Maybe allow party to save dungeon progress by tiers.
-Significant and meaningful lore figure at the end of each dungeon so that players are motivated to finish the dungeon and tack another achievement onto their character’s history.
I remember a lot of discussion about the gear treadmill before the game launched about how there were two parts to the cycle, getting gear and defeating bosses. There were then also two kinds of players depending on which part of the cycle motivates them, a player that defeats bosses to get gear, and the player who gets gear to defeat bosses. I also remember being told that those in the former camp would likely be disappointed with GW2 and that those in the latter camp would be fine. Unfortunately, I’m definitely in that latter camp, but I don’t feel fine. Thankfully the game just came out quite recently and MMO’s are always improving. I’ve offered my feedback, if you agree with me feel free to comment, if you disagree intelligently feel free to comment too. If you disagree rudely and unintelligently, feel free to waste everyone’s time and be ignored.
(edited by Prismatic.2096)
This could just as easily go in the Suggestions or even Lore forums, so if any of the mods think it wise, feel free to move it, but I really genuinely hope that Anet will hear me out here and give this a full read.
Three quick disclaimers up front: as much as I’m sure everyone is sick of hearing this game be compared to WoW, I’m trying to provide truly constructive criticism and if the best way to do that is to draw on my experiences as an ex-WoW player, then so be it. The other disclaimer being that I haven’t done all of the explorable dungeons yet so I could be wrong in my assumptions, but from what I’ve read about them I don’t believe I am. Thirdly I love this game, and I love Anet, and I really, really want to see this game succeed, so I hope that they’ll consider my ramblings.
Guild Wars 2 has been failing to hold my attention of late, and I feel like I’ve finally pinpointed why. I feel very little motivation to do explorable dungeons. Honestly a lot of that is because it feels like the story of my character is finished now that my Personal Story is finished and I’ve completed all the Story modes for the dungeons. All of the important baddies (Zhaitan, Faolain, Kudu, Gaheron, etc.) have either fled or been slain with extremely little effort.
Although I feel like there should definitely be a major capstone accomplishment for the end of the personal story (and Zhaitan fits that role quite nicely, even though I feel his fight should be a bit harder) I also think that there should be other major lore characters to work toward defeating AFTER that, who are much harder to defeat. It makes sense for Zhaitan’s death to not require a ton of skill on the player’s part, because they’ve spent their entire personal story building up a coordinated military effort to bring him down, and this way a much, much larger portion of the player base gets to complete that story. I consider that a sound decision.
However none of the explorable dungeons to my knowledge feature prominent lore figures like Faolain that I’m interested in defeating, instead leaving me to mop up some separatist underlings or gravelings left over from the story mode events. That’s my first criticism of explorables. I simply don’t feel like the events in them have
enough impact on the world and its lore/story.
The second thing that causes me to leave the dungeon unsatisfied is that it doesn’t feel like there’s real build up to any boss. This is the part where I’m going to hearken back to WoW for a moment, for better or for worse. I played WoW mainly during Wrath of the Lich King, and defeating a boss at the end of a raid that my guild had been fighting through for months is the most satisfying feeling I’ve ever had in a video game. Unfortunately it took that long for all the wrong reasons (Gear treadmill, organizing 10 people and the scheduling conflicts that arose from not being able to replace healers or tanks, and weekly resets) but the point is that we were fighting our way through a massive dungeon fighting bosses that would take a minimum of four or five hours to defeat the first time, and finally at the end was Arthas, or Yogg-Saron, or Ragnaros; somebody important to the lore and a true genuine threat to Azeroth.
My point is that I did the entirety of AC explorable (all three paths) in the time that it would have taken my guild to progress through one new boss in WoW on a very good day. However I am absolutely not advocating the implementation of a gear treadmill to pad out dungeon length. I’ve put a lot of thought into exactly what I’d want from explorables in my ideal vision of GW2, so I’ll outline my little prototype below.
(edited by Prismatic.2096)
Maybe it’s already been fixed, I don’t do enough WvWvW to know, but in my opinion anything even resembling permastealth should NEVER be achievable for the thief. Regardless of the amount of skill that it might require to pull it off, something like that is just totally unfair to other players and I refuse to use it, no matter how effective it is.
Anyway the rest of my Christmas List consists of a buff for P/P, because I don’t like feeling pressured into using daggers in dungeons for the sake of damage and at the huge expense of safety, and a little more durability for Thieves.
I really like how much the profession relies on evading, and it’s probably the main reason I don’t get bored with spamming Unload on my P/P build. That said, I do think that the squishiness should probably be dialed back just a little bit.
As many others have said, a little more support to offer in groups would be welcome too.