Hmm, I’m still seeing other players symbols larger. Specifically, as I stated above, Symbol of Wrath, and I have Writ of Exaltation traited, although I don’t have the symbols last longer or healing symbols traits. Really weird, but I suppose I’ll just live with it.
I am still waiting for an actual fact to support the claim that servers are dead and the sky is falling.
But no one in this thread is arguing that…
Drama much? I don’t see the OP saying the “game is dead and the sky is falling”.
No. But thanks for asking.
That is how a great deal interpret the OP. As well a good amount of the post after sure support that stance.
Again, this rational that because every single one of the over 1500 DE have to have multiple players at them is horrible. just because others are not on the DEs does not mean the game is dead. I have a screen shot I can post from the Champion brood mother from this morning with 20+ various guild tagged players at it.
By your definition that means the game is too crowded with so many players at one DE.
I don’t see many interpreting him that way at all, but dunno maybe I’m looking at a different post. The “rational” that DE’s are meant not to be soloed is Anets rationale, other threads people have quoted Anets exact verbiage. Once again the OP is merely raising the valid point that having to solo DE’s which were meant for multiple players is a design decision which needs attention, he is not debating if the DE’s are empty or not as you seem to be, although IMO they are pretty well abandoned and the player either figures out how to solo them or has to skip them and do something else.
Scientific? No, I very specifically clarified it was people I know.
Hung over? No, most folks I know were not hung over.
I am still waiting for you to present an actual fact though. An actual fact to support the argument that the game is dead and the sky is falling, because at a specific time on, on a very specific server, at a very specific dynamic event, the game is dead.
Brilliant deduction my friend.
Drama much? I don’t see the OP saying the “game is dead and the sky is falling”. I see the OP making the point that the game centers around DE’s, that the DE’s are not meant to be soloed, and that the low population, in particular on Sunday morning is making it tough to advance in the game. I think you totally missed his point in overreacting.
I agree with the OP, BUT… I’m able to overcome it and do most of the DE’s solo, but NOT as Anet intended and that’s only the ones I can outlevel by 2-3 levels. The ones which are at my level I wouldn’t be able to do except for all the bots usually parked there.
As for guilds, I have 100+ in 2 I belong to, currently about 10 people on in those 2 guilds. Multi guilds are a pita at times as well, most of the time you have someone in the guild sending you a tell that if you don’t represent them they will kick you.
Most folks I know have map chat turned off 90% of the time. I am curious as to what interesting logic anyone would use to claim map chat chatter is an accurate metric for player population.
Everything is another excuse. No players at your DE? It’s sunday morning, everyone is hung over. No /map chat? The scientific figure of 90% of players have /map chat turned off.
I agree that other MMO’s have abandoned quest hubs, it’s just the simple nature of the game. But what bothers me is people who say that there are no abandoned areas in this game at all, now that may not be you, but I’m not necessarily responding to you. As I’ve said before, I accept this and don’t really have much of a problem, most MMO’s nowadays are single player RPG’s with a chat box.
As for the chat box, even on Sunday mornings most of the other MMO’s I’ve played were fairly populated with chat banter, but a world server would probably have more people in it than just a zone chat room. I terribly miss the light banter, advice and general chat while tooling around doing quests, it just makes GW2 feel that much more like a single player game.
I just don’t see why people get upset when confronted with the trend of most of the zones, besides noob and end game zones, are pretty empty, especially on a Sunday morning which was the OP’s point.
I played a couple hours this morning, about 2 1/2. Not a single post in /map chat, not a single one, not even a lfg or need more for DE, no trade, no auction, no RP chat, nothing, nada, zilch. Contrary to popular belief most of us aren’t drunk, hungover college students who sleep until 1pm on Sundays. Some of us like to get up early (9am is early?!?!) and play for a couple of hours on our Sunday off from work.
Interestingly enough I’ve been on for about half an hour in Straits of Devastation with an alt currently, which is considered about prime time for a MMO. Once again /map chat is completely and utterly barren, I’ve gone thru about 2 DE’s that were completely empty and I couldn’t finish (adding to the 4 or 5 DE’s this morning, only one populated with bots). I don’t mind though, I can overlevel myself and I figure out a way to beat the DE solo, in fact I kind of enjoy the challenge.
If it is so bad, quit and leave. Trying to grip at the rest of us via the forums is useless. Had you been on my server, I would never had heard the OP anyway, because I generally keep map chat off because of people just like the OP spamming it with complaints that no one is on. The last thing I need is my chat spammed with whiners crying about population.
I do not care what MMO you play and how many millions are or are not playing it, there will be places we do not congregate in.
Please OP remain signed out. It gets old stumbling across post such as this that are the decay of the forums, because I was doing something somewhere different, and because we didn’t flock to what ever DE you were doing to join you. (which I do not really believe you, or you would at least mention the name of the event, level, and location)
Heck, there are zones I haven’t even set foot in yet. But I guess since we all are not doing the same DE you are, we are all at fault. Let us know next time so we can all drop what we are doing and accommodate you. I apologize for having fun with my guild in WvW this morning, next time we will abandon such frivolous fun so we can go do dynamic events in PvE to take you feel crowded.
Gah, I hate people like this. The “if you don’t like it then quit” people. The OP makes a good point which should be open to discussion. I think it’s you that should take your own advice, if you don’t like forum threads then “just quit and leave”, better yet take more of your own advice and “remain signed out”.
There is a lot of content that is virtually abandoned in this game. IMO that’s a function of the game as a single player game with a chat box, but that’s my personal opinion and expectation of the game. Nonetheless it is what many players are experiencing.
I’ve soloed 3 toons to 80, engineer, guardian and warrior. I think there are correct statements on both sides. DE’s can be soloed, at least IMO with these 3 classes if you outlevel content by a couple of levels. I’d make sure I was 2 levels above any content and that made the game a LOT more enjoyable. The caveat is that once you get to the high 70s and 80 the DE’s became much much less soloable, especially when they become the same level you are, but it’s not so much of an issue because there are more players (bots?) at the very high level DEs.
The one thing that intrigues me is the players that swear up and down that there are tons of people playing this game. Then when confronted with reality say that they are not playing because everyone sleeps out their hangover, or whatever other excuse they put for a particular day or time of day.
I’m self employed so I work at my own pace, there are many times I play in the mornings, afternoons, or evenings and I see it equally dead at all times. The evenings do pick up a bit, and the level 80 areas are fairly well populated as would be expected, but everything else is completely deserted, I can go for literally hours with not a single person saying anything in /map chat.
For me it’s ok, I resigned myself to this being a single player game when I bought it and am quite happy with it. It just intrigues me why people deny what is clearly in front of their eyes, at least on my server, I can’t speak for other servers. Maybe the other servers are chock full of players and even in the mid level zones the DE’s are just as full as they were on release day.
..No I’m human.
I’m using symbol of wrath with the trait writ of exaltation and I find my symbols are slightly larger, but in watching other guardians there symbol of wrath is huge compared to mine. I’ve looked but don’t see any other traits that would account for this, what am I missing?
Also out of curiosity which effect is tied to which ring/color effect of the symbol? I see a smaller blue ring/radius, and a larger tan ring/radius, which is the retaliation and which is the damage, I don’t see a range on either effect in the tooltip.
Those are my 3 mains. I haven’t done a ton of wvw but a little bit and have a small feel for it. Engie is 80, guard is 70, and warrior is 72. I’m sure others will chime in with more input. Engineer is decent for wvw, but at times it seems the only option is for support. Warrior is ok if you are with a pack, but otherwise feels like too much of a glass cannon, you can build him to be more supportish but then lose dps. Guardian is pretty awesome IMO, I’ve gotten myself out of a lot of sticky situations and ambushes with him. It just seems like they have a tool for every situation, and they are fun and very cerebral to play.
It’s a tough call though, all 3 have their moments. I think you really need to cue up to wvw as much as you can and get a feel for what playstyle you like.
Rick, Thanks for replying to my earlier post and explaining your position on this, I think I get what your saying.
In a game where a sizable group of players NEED each other to overcome certain elements of the game this forms a long term commitment and that commitment forms a communal social bond. Because a pact is made and it’s a long term goal it facilitates real lasting friendships in game.
This is a mechanic that works well in WoW endgame for some folks so if your MMO background and experience is coming from this point of view then I have to agree there is not yet a game mechanic that perpetuates this behavior in GW2 (Yet).
I have done the Raid guild thing and gear grind and although I can appreciate the commitment and social bonds this mechanic brings with it, I think in large it just doesn’t work for the greater population. It also brings with it a number of social and game mechanic pit-falls. With the “no sorry your gear isn’t good enough to play with us” syndrome.
The social mechanics in guild wars 2 work in a very different way, In that right from level one players are being conditioned to behave in a very honorable and helpful fashion to their fellow players.
Players are not penalized for hitting a mob that’s already been tagged by another player and because you’re not robbing the player of kills or experience two or more complete strangers can find themselves spontaneously working a zone in harmony.
Players just naturally work together and transition from what some might call the more solo-able content right into taking on a Champion mob or other group only content. It becomes as natural as seeing your friend trying to lift a heavy box into his trunk and without hesitation or saying a word you walk up and give him a hand.
The down state works in the same way, it triggers a parental response in players you might see from an adult helping a child up after skinning a knee.
So there are some very strong social mechanics at work in GW2 that I think will be topics of many game design lecture of the future.I do agree however the “The Long term social group Commitment” is a mechanic GW2 should look at exploring but I don’t think we’ll see it manifested in an endgame gear grind.
Certainly some great points. I’ve stated it before, what worked for me when I had free time and was able to group and raid doesn’t work for me anymore these days with a family and job. Certainly the answer is not the old style forced grouping, the popularity of “solo” MMO’s has proven that beyond a doubt.
I think the whole public quests thing that MMO’s started to do a year or so ago and GW2 took off with by doing their dynamic events is a good start, but the pitfall that GW2 fell into was making the DE’s too easy from a strategic point of view. Players should be banding together and in zone chat be figuring out a strategy to bring down an event, instead of everyone just silently hitting the event with as much dps as they have, never communicating with their fellow players at all. This is where I’ve always been confused, it’s pretty much a single player game at that point with a lot of “NPCs” around you. I’m not sure if players just never experienced the very cool feeling of taking down something which requires true teamwork between real people, but it is just that, a very cool feeling.
Now if some MMO can capture that feeling of teamwork without the time grind that is currently needed. As much as I like the DE’s, I just don’t think Anet captured that feeling. It’s certainly not a bad thing, I enjoy the game and am leveling my 3rd alt to 80, but for me it’s definitely a single player game all the way. I’m hoping some of that teamwork comes in PVP, I’;m not a big PVP guy, but I’m going to give it a chance mainly to find friends and a sense of being on a team.
I would think most players would want to get away from their personal lives. I think this is one of the distinctions that is not being made here. Personally I’m not advocating chit chat or personal live reveals, but more of exactly what you don’t like, strategizing about the game itself.
I wasn’t saying that no strategy or game talk would happen, or even that it should. In fact I advocated some game chatter about builds and combo skills! I think that’s the obvious thing to chat about. I’m also not saying you’d immediately delve into your abiding love obscure Battlestar Galactica trivia or your recent bout with a nasty spastic colon.
Of course you’re going to talk about the game, but the chatter doesn’t need to be about what you’re doing right then. Maybe you talk about what’s going on in WvW and a big siege that just happened, or you talk about trying to gather those last few legendary mats. Maybe you do branch into talking about other games (Any SC2 players here?), or you talk about how funny you think Arrested Development is and how glad you are it’s coming back (like me).
The talk doesn’t need to be overly personal, but it doesn’t need to be dry and totally concerned with what happening in that moment in the game either. Of course talk over strats and how you want to approach an encounter, by all means. I just think the social experience extends beyond that, and that GW2 is giving me even more opportunity for that type of interaction than MMOs I’ve played in the past.
Let’s not even getting into RPG gaming as an escapist activity or I’ll need to get into some “live reveals” =P.
Lol, no I agree with you. Part of the problem besides the rise of the “casual MMO” is also the rise of dungeon “speed runs”. Players today want everyone to be perfectly geared and to kitten and get through the dungeon as fast as possible, that’s also a reason why being social has dropped off in pretty much all MMO’s. I feel that the introduction of grinding for tokens is what brought along this very sad state of affairs, but even before that there was this mentality of DPS > everything else including strategy, if you could beat any encounter with pure DPS then why bother with strategy. A lot of these things have been trending way before GW2, it just seems that GW2 took them to the next level.
Forum bug: Why don't quotes/edit appear at times?
in Account & Technical Support
Posted by: Rick.1378
the cookie data is invalidated at times and it thinks you’ve been away long enough to be logged out. But a hard refresh or clicking a postlink usually corrects it
TY I’ll give it a shot
“In my opinion” threads should stop.
So why did you make an opinion thread?
In my opinion, grouping just to coordinate a kill and having a conversation purely about the game objective with no personality isn’t much of a ‘social’ interaction anyway. I realize this probably isn’t what you’re advocating, but it happens a lot with forced grouping mechanics, and to me it’s a negative.
Interesting outlook. I’m not sure why I would play a video game which was based on a band of adventurers getting together and killing a boss which they couldn’t defeat alone but then not want to strategize or talk about the game. Most people who play MMO’s don’t open up about their personal lives, not at least just with casual groups. That takes a lot of interaction, the guys I raid with for example are very social with each other about their personal lives.
I would think most players would want to get away from their personal lives. I think this is one of the distinctions that is not being made here. Personally I’m not advocating chit chat or personal live reveals, but more of exactly what you don’t like, strategizing about the game itself.
People should just do what they enjoy and not try force others to do things their way, the great thing about GW2 is that you can socialize as much or as little as you like with no negative effect on your game.
Indeed.
Forced grouping is not a good thing.
While I personally like forced grouping, I think it’s not good for business as most that play MMO’s these days don’t like it. But I think what some of us are advocating isn’t as simple as just forced grouping, which really is a brute force way of increasing sociality.
IMO if they put in some more strategy into the DE’s, where instead of having to form groups the people in the zone would have to communicate in zone chat and do some coordination. I think that might be a start, same for the dungeons.
I think even the Public quest events in EQ2 were better than the DE’s in GW2, although EQ2 only had a few of these events they required quite a bit of strategy and could not be zerged down unless you had a ton of raid equipped players.
I do love the DE’s for flavor, the scripts, the NPC’s, all that stuff is quite awesome. But the fights themselves are simple zergs. Even the dragon events, the ones which are supposed to be among the harder events, are just zerg fests with no strategy whatsoever.
LOL …. Some of you guys should be in politics…..what a spin job.
/sarcasm…The game makes it too easy to group, it’s like I’m always in a team so my friends list stays empty, because it’s like everyone around me is my friend and trying to help me ……I don’t like that can you please fix that? …./sarcasm off……LOL
Come on guys 9 out of 10 MMO’s today give players a single player path to level cap and WoW was the game that virtually popularized that. There are a crap ton of Group encounters in the game and I bet all of you have been saved by another player coming to your rescue after you got one too many mobs on you…you don’t see that in most MMO’s.
The fact that there’s no kill stealing in the game inspires other players to hit the mobs that are on you and I’ve seen players countless times work their way to my “face down in the mud” body to give me a rez.
The social mechanics ANet implemented in this game basically emulate being in a group with every players near you. You share in the kill and rewards mutually.
I’ve been playing MMO’s since the beta days of UO and this thread reminds me of the arguments back in the day when some thought adding a mini-map was dumbing down the genre, or how instancing was going to be the ruination of the MMO as we know it.
Vanila WoW was cut throat, and the community was horrible. You had all kinds of people wanting to be your friend so long as you could give them a leg up, but once they found a better home and a guild of level 60 players starting to raid you were yesterday’s news. Guilds fractured on a daily bases as the level capped players ran off to join bigger guilds and or drama over loot drops fractured so called friendships …. Yes please lets have more of that, some of you guys really look back at vanilla WoW with rose colored glasses.
About the only thing I’ll agree with is they need to tune up the difficulty on a few encounters so people are really challenged into taking advantage of the cross profession combo mechanics.
I think, as many others are, you are mixing up socializing with socializing. One one hand there is socializing as in making friends that you keep in contact with, you contact to form groups up, you form a trust that they know how to play the game, maybe there is some true socializing in there like general banter and such, maybe even something deeper like “how are the kids”. This is what has disappeared over the years of playing MMO’s, it’s still there but I have found it’s more in the raiding scene where you get that camaraderie between players and a familiarity where you can look someone up, GW2 doesn’t quite have that most of the time.
On the other hand you have what GW2 calls socializing, and as you correctly pointed out most other MMO’s today, this has been changing in the industry for some time. You can call what GW2 has as “social”, but it’s really not IMO. Do I have to exchange some chat with someone every single time I do an activity? No of course not, that would be too much. But at the same time I’ve got a level 80 who’s done most of the dungeons, 2 level 70 somethings, and a couple of lower level alts. I’ve done all the maps, most of the DE’s and events, I belong to a large guild, I’m the type of person who likes to chat in world chat and zone chat. I’m a very very social person in MMO’s, you know what I have zero friends in my friend list. DE’s require zero communication, zero strategy, zero reason to figure out the best way to fight something. Dungeons are the same way, just put on your zerg gear and get to it, maybe you will get lucky and some of the players will play some support roles, but it’s still something they do on their own usually with no input from anyone else.
I’m not trying to pass judgement because I enjoy both sides of the coin and I think the more “social” a MMO becomes the less “casual” it becomes, and vice versa. But it is just amusing to me that anyone denies that in maximizing casualness the game has certainly lost quite a bit of the social aspect of MMOs.
Underwater fighting STINKS (unless you are an engineer). It’s annoying to lose all your class abilities that you’ve worked so hard to learn and enjoy, and it just makes you feel so weak at times. I don’t dread going in the water, nothing in this game so far is truly “hard”, but I just get very annoyed when I have to do underwater stuff as I know it’s going to be slow and annoying.
That’s not even bringing up the bugs, Mobs that teleport out of the world and back in, mobs that leash, mobs that go invulnerable but continue to attack you, targeting issues, etc.
I love the idea of underwater fighting, but I think it needs some love on Anets part.
The game is definitely socially challenging. You can make friends in any game certainly, but there are mechanics which the early MMO’s understood which made it much easier and more satisfying to make friends. The era of casual MMO’s, where everything is easy, everything can be soloed, everything takes 5 minutes to do has pushed MMO’s to this point, it’s not just GW2, it’s just that GW2 took this loneliness and multiplied it by perfecting the casual MMO.
Personally I miss the days of true socializing, but those MMO’s took TIME, forming up groups took time, defeating a dungeon took time, doing raids took time, doing overland quests which required grouping took time. This is the achilles heel of a truly socially trended MMO, and is the arch enemy of people who don’t have the luxury of time. I used to love MMO’s which forced me to be social and gave me lots of friends as a result, but a wife, baby and job later I don’t enjoy that as much and like casual MMO’s like GW2, but I still miss having friends in game. GW2 can be an extremely lonely place, no zone chat, zero none, no one in my guild ever on even though it’s a pretty huge guild, lots of the mid level zones you have to solo the DE’s and even when people help you it’s completely in silence, kill and move on.
I’m not sure what to make of it yet. As a single player game that I paid $60 for I’m greatly loving GW2, just a phenomenal single player game. As a MMO I’m kind of having a hard time with it, but I’m ok with that as there is no sub fee.
I believe the majority of medium and heavy armor are very ugly, but if you do some mix-matching you can get something good like this:
Wow, can you list what armors and what dyes you used for the heavy armor pic? Very very nice looking.
(edited by Rick.1378)
Of all the MMO games I have played GW armor is ugly. No cool looking armor just to be cool looking. I do not know who designs the armor but why no cool swashbuckler style armor for light armor.. why is it all so ugly. I play a Female Ranger and armor is ugly no female style at all in the armor.. same with the male armor. I ultimately hate the looks of almost all the armor in GW.
You clearly haven’t seen EQ2’s armor. They’re the pinnacle of ugly, not to mention plasticy. This is one of the few games where I like almost all of the armor and I’m damed picky.
No kidding. Those ugly EQ2 graphics drove me out of the game in about 1 month.
My Asura ranger has been through about 3 different looks and is only level 31, and I loved each look. My Human thief is level 11 and I’m thinking about saving his current set and using it for the graphical template for higher level gear. It’s exactly as I envisioned him.
EQ2 armor used to be incredible looking, until the last 2 or 3 xpacs where the greedy company put 99.9% of the cool looking armors on the cash shop. The cash shop armors are still extremely cool looking, but the ones you “earn” in game are terrible, often the same armor as the tier before with only a palette change to an already ugly armor.
The other thing in GW2 there doesn’t seem to be much variety. Some of the stuff is cool, although a bit too steampunk or final fantasyish huge swords for me, I just wish there were more variety. I’m not talking about the 100+ gold stuff you have to grind for that most will not have, but simply just leveling thru PVE and dungeons.
The other HUGE annoyance which will probably take away a lot of interest I have in GW2 is not having appearance slots. I know it’s a move by Anet to make more money via the cash shop, but it’s kind of a crappy move IMO and I wish they figured another way to make money. I’d rather see appearance slots for free, but appearance armor on the cash shop which I’d gladly spend money for.
Fully agree. Close to 200 levels here between all toons and I’ve looked at the quest log literally twice.
Forum bug: Why don't quotes/edit appear at times?
in Account & Technical Support
Posted by: Rick.1378
Not sure if there is a thread for this already, please merge if there is, but I don’t think we even have a forum for, well forum issues.
Why is it that half the time when I’m inside a thread there is only a link to a permalink, and you can’t quote, edit, or even report a post? Is this something that is being worked on at least? It’s just severely annoying.
@ Viro, nobody is forcing you to use the waypoints, I’m not sure why they are an issue. If I’ve already seen the content I don’t have much of a desire to see it again and again, but if you do then feel free to run through it without using the waypoint as often as you like. Don’t get me wrong, I absolutely loved running thru the zones the first time, GW2 is such a cool game to do that with. I can’t argue with you on WvW, although I have mixed feelings about that. On one hand I think less waypoints are better because there should always be a danger you will get ambushed or not make it to your team, but at the same time playing WvW it seems like at times there is absolutely nobody around and I’m running across a very large map, tedious and annoying.
@UndeadRufus Yeah I agree, money sinks for the waypoints are annoying, but I would think that having them be a moneysink would appease the people who don’t want them. If you need to travel so badly then you are going to spend the money.
I just remember on the times when Dragons landed in certain zones and the waypoints helped to ensure I was there, with an event that only happens a few times a day it’s kind of important that I don’t get stuck running all day.
Depends on my mood, I’ll usually watch about half thru then I get impatient. On a side note while the vista puzzles get a bad rap I find them quite awesome and really appreciate the originality. I love the harder ones, like the ones in dredgehaunt cliffs, tons of fun especially when you find a veteran and a shiny chest at the top.
Why do people like time sinks? If there were no waypoints the game wouldn’t feel bigger, just more tedious and annoying. What’s fun about running across a zone full of mobs? I never really understood this way of thinking.
There are sooooooooo many threads on changes: What should change? What shouldn’t change but is getting changed? What could be changed but probably shouldn’t be changed? Etc etc
How many of you just say “meh” when you see an update and deal with it passively… like you don’t care either way even if it forces a slight change in your play style.
I feel I have a pretty good idea of how many people are bothered by build updates from reading threads on this forum. How many of you guys are just apathetic kittens like myself?
It’s a video game. Every time people get their panties in a bunch it’s funny that it’s over something as unimportant. It’s an election year, there are homeless in the street, corporations are taking over, so many things in life to get anxiety about other than a video game that you can pick up or put down any time you feel like it.
If this was your first MMO, what would you think?
So an MMO is just a single player game where I can see other people playing too?
Just this one.
Please don’t add more disables/stun/fear/kb, etc. Man I HATE those, you just sit there for several seconds staring at your screen, and especially in pvp there are times you get constantly disabled, much quicker than your stunbreaker/condition breaker cooldowns. I’ve always felt that stuns and such disables were just lazy programming and kind of a “combat sink” where it extended combat but at the expense of boredom and frustration.
Op has an excellent point IMO, why bother with levels? I think something unique may be that a particular dungeon needs a special skill set which is earned through finishing a zone. For example you can have a dungeon that requires an undead skill set, and you earn that skill set by finishing an undead solo and/or group zone.
I was hoping we would be done with levels one day, but Anet is not the company to do it. Off topic, but one day I’d love to not have mobs aimlessly wandering in the wild waiting for you to step into their “aggro radius” before chasing you a certain distance then magically leashing.
Jade quarry/fireheart rise here also. Massive lag, you can swing your weapon once for every 5-10 seconds of lag where you are frozen. Game is very much unplayable. It was going on this morning but it was tolerable, it’s gotten MUCH worse.
Jade quarry, fireheart rise here also. MASSIVE massive lag, contant spiking where I can only swing my weapon once, then 5-10 seconds of lag, another swing, another lag, etc etc. I’ve never seen it this bad, not even in BWE.
I actually see more Guardians then warriors. I did a dungeon and it was primarily Guardians. However, while leveling out in the world I don’t think I’ve seen a dominat class.
Same, I see more guardians, but I still see plenty of warriors. Rarely a thief or engineer, I can understand why my main at 80 is an engineer and I love him in PVE, but otherwise I didn’t feel like just being support all the time.
My guardian and warrior are tied for my next level 80, I will switch back and forth between them and can’t decide which one to keep, so I just play both.
My 5 classes in order of enjoyability are Engineer, Guardian, Warrior, Ranger, Mesmer
Engineer (80): super fun, indestructable, complex to master
Guardian(55): fun, can be defensive or offensive, interesting fights with moderate complexity
Warrior (72): Kind of fun, nice to steamroll stuff but can get boring
Ranger (45): Kind of boring, just send pet and hit a couple of bow skills, still playing around with this one to see if I can get some complexity out of it.
Mesmer (8): Hmm, I’m not sure about casters, they are so incredibly weak, glass cannons by nature but Anet did not seem to compensate them, they aren’t balanced in having higher dps than other classes since they are weak. Mesmer is fun though, I just need to get the hang of it and I have a feeling they will become much more fun.
I don’t mind hard work, but I thought before GW2 was released the hype was that gear would be a reward from running dungeons. Not grinding for gold, but doing the dungeons. I know they have the token system for stat gear, but I was under the impression that appearance gear was going to be earned through dungeon runs.
This is a huge issue underwater, happens all the time.
I don’t agree. It’s not the difficulty in the sense of how hard the mob hits, or how much hp it has for example. What PVE needs is strategy, a reason for players to band together and communicate a strategy to take down a mob or DE, not just simply zerg it. The concept of DE’s is awesome, but they quickly become super boring and unfulfilling if players just zerg them. Same thing can be said for dungeons.
One of the quests in Mount Maelstrom gives you a Risen disguise temporarily. This is pretty awesome looking, anyone else enjoy it? Any chance of Anet throwing it up on the cash shop? I don’t spend money much on MMO’s, but I think I’d spring for that disguise.
I am “unsociable” because I get very little out of being social. I am here to enjoy the game and atmosphere. I also enjoy helping and playing along side other people. However, I loathe small talk. I have no interest in hearing about peoples’ pets, classes, their jobs, their children, or their partners. I play these games to get away from real life; not have it constantly injected into my playtime.
When I see people jump on their cellphones (or cellular babysitters as I call them) every spare second they have, I wonder if they even like themselves a little bit. They can’t seem to be alone with themselves for even a millisecond.
You say that “combat and personal story don’t need a MMO at all”, but neither does socializing, which was my point. IRC can get you all the socializing you need; so can a VOIP program with a guild. Why must everyone at a DE stop and tell each other their feelings, and what they are eating for dinner in a combat-oriented online game?
Wow I’m sorry I asked, lol. I don’t “need” to socialize while playing a MMO, I just simply find it satisfying as opposed to a single player game. Why don’t I socialize outside an MMO? I do, at work, at parties, with my family, etc etc, but I like to socialize while slaying dragons and conquering dungeons as well. =)
But I’m not talking about idle chit chat about another players pet class or their feelings, if you think that then you missed my entire point. What satisfies me is strategizing a difficult encounter with others in our efforts to defeat it, maybe it’s just me but it makes it much more interesting than just sitting there with other players pressing my 1 button until it’s dead.
But I understand where you are coming from. It’s easier socially to just go about your business without having to talk or socialize with others, I understand that’s how the current generation of MMOers feel. I’m an older MMOer so maybe I see things differently, I find the major satisfaction in MMO’s is socializing with others, I hate barren wasteland MMO’s. I know it’s a cliche by now, but if players prefer to do content with no socialization then why do they bother with a MMO instead of a single player video game? Sure it’s because occasionally they do want to be social, but that’s what chat programs are for which you can run side by side with your single player video game.
This goes both ways. If you want to get online and socialize, go play games designed for that. Try the Sims.
GW2 was designed around combat, personal stories, and public grouping. The grouping system is one of the primary reasons I am here, and I started MMO gaming in the UO/EQ days myself. We have always been here. It is not a new phenomenon.
I’m not sure when the Sims become more of a social game than any MMO, but I can’t comment I’ve never played it.
But you took my comment to mean GW2 players in particular, and that’s really not where it was meant specifically. I meant it over the entire genre of MMO’s, possibly encompassing the Sims as well. Certainly it’s not a new phenomena, I remember people in EQ1 playing necromancers and enchanters purely because they could solo content that was not meant to be soloed. It’s just that it has become so pronounced that it makes me wonder why people like to be so unsociable. Please don’t take “unsociable” as an insult, it’s just an observation which I’m curious about.
“combat and personal story” don’t need a MMO at all, a single player video game and a chat box would suffice. Public questing is a good thing and I applaud Anet for taking what other MMO’s already started to invent and taking it to the next level, but at times it feels as if they took it too far IMO. Maybe it’s just the simple fact that any and all these public events can be zerged that bothers me, leaving little inspiration for socialization between players. I’m not sure, that’s why we are discussing it as of course we each have our own points of view and preferred playstyle.
But it seems that even “public questing” have a much less important need for other players and in GW2 it’s bordering on just playing a single player game anyway, if you don’t socialize how do you know the other players are real people or if they are NPC’s? Wouldn’t it serve the same function if they were just NPCs? I apologize for being devils advocate, but it’s an interesting subject.
Oh BTW, it goes both ways too. Someone mentioned PUG’s and the fear of rejection, especially with groups who want to “speed run” a dungeon. This is another player invented mechanic that ruins being social, so I understand how this may be nice to avoid for some players. IMO when they invented grinds for tokens in MMO’s is when we started to see “speed runs”, it’s a horrid grind mechanic and I can’t wait to see when a MMO finally reinvents this.
Right now there is just no reason to communicate with your fellow player, zero, zilch.
To me GW2 is like a party and games with forced grouping are more like speed dating. Speed dating requires you to interact with people, a party gives you a setting to socialize but only requires interaction if they start rolling out the party games (dungeons). The problem with forced grouping is that unlike speed dating, most of the people in the room aren’t there to meet someone, they’re there to get the group content done.
Group content doesn’t automatically require a lot of interaction, especially if most of the folks participating have done it before. I ran into that problem in DDO – loved the quests in that game, but the pugs rushed through the group content so fast I had no idea what was going on. I didn’t meet anyone to put on my friends list that way. I still had to go out to chat and ask around for like-minded folks.
I’ve found plenty of opportunities to interact with folks in GW2 – helping them find things, admiring their name or their dye choices, helping with champs et. al. There’s no game mechanic that will let you connect with someone else without the risk that they will “reject” you. Whether you’re in a group or not, you have to initiate a conversation at some point that is more than “who’s the main tank and who’s the off tank?”.
Maybe we should start a thread in Players Helping Players with a list of suggestions on how to meet folks.
If you compare GW2 to a party then I see a heck of a lot of people just sitting against the wall not talking to anyone at all, lol. I’d think a party you would be socializing non stop and meeting new people, getting phone numbers, making friends, etc.
But I understand where you are coming from. It’s easier socially to just go about your business without having to talk or socialize with others, I understand that’s how the current generation of MMOers feel. I’m an older MMOer so maybe I see things differently, I find the major satisfaction in MMO’s is socializing with others, I hate barren wasteland MMO’s. I know it’s a cliche by now, but if players prefer to do content with no socialization then why do they bother with a MMO instead of a single player video game? Sure it’s because occasionally they do want to be social, but that’s what chat programs are for which you can run side by side with your single player video game.
I’m being a bit sarcastic and I apologize for that, I just can’t fathom why so many like to be unsocial in what is largely a social genre. I truly would like to understand, but as a generally social person in life it just kind of boggles me. It’s not just GW2, but something that has pretty much pervaded all MMO’s.
I don’t have the solution, but I certainly do miss those days of forced grouping for the social aspect.
I don’t like that forced grouping at all. It would mean I can’t play according to my own schedule. What if I only have 30 minutes to play and have to spend 20 minutes of those to search for a group and then 10 minutes to decide what to do?
I think the problem is that some folks equate being in a group with being social. Forced grouping doesn’t make folks more social, it just makes it harder for folks like LadyR and I to play. I’ve rarely found friends through forced grouping. Almost every single friend I made in game was from me saying something goofy in general chat, or helping/getting helped with some task.
If you want to make the game more social from a grouping aspect, you’d have to add voice comms for groups. The role players are very social, but they don’t have fighting getting in the way of their typing. This is the advantage of joining a good sized guild – they often have a team speak/vent/mumble server.
Couple of years ago I’d disagree with you quite a bit, I have met a lot of people I kept in touch with for years from forced grouping, for me it was Everquest.
But, fast forward to today, married, self employed, 6 month old daughter. Now I’m on the other side of the coin and I can only play for short bursts, or a rare weekend and I see the difficulty of forced grouping for the busy player. I still think most people would make MUCH better social connections with forced grouping rather than the completely unsocial system in GW2, BUT… forced grouping is totally impractical for anyone but a college/high school student with time on their hands and even though I speak about it wistfully I would never want to see it come back.
The solution IMO is to make dynamic events and dungeons and such more social thru the use of tactics and such. Right now they are complete zerg fests which require ZERO communication, DE’s more so than dungeons, but dungeons are mostly zerg fests as well, especially with the absence of tanking and healing and such. Now making them more strategy intensive may backfire if not enough players are in DE’s and they are too hard strategically.
This is kind of what happened in Everquest 2, they made public events very similar to DE’s (yeah it’s not as original an idea as Anet thinks they are) and they were a LOT of fun. For example one public quest involved a giant with 3 adds, you also periodically had a supply merchant run through the zone with several potions which ranged from damage potions to weakness potions and more. The public raid had to coordinate which potion to use when and on who, what order to pick up the adds, how to fight each add and who would offtank the giant while the adds were killed, etc etc. It worked really well and it scaled down to a few players as well, although with only a few players it really started to be too difficult. But it made for a lot of communication between players and you could not zerg down the event, there had to be communication and strategy.
Right now there is just no reason to communicate with your fellow player, zero, zilch.
Yawn. The game isn’t social enough to pimp legendary gear to anyone, that satisfaction you get on parading around your very hard won gear just doesn’t exist in this game. There also are not any raids to functionally utilize that new gear, so that’s out, even if they didn’t mainly concentrate on looks.
What MMO’s are missing these days are truly unique and “hard” to get gear that not everyone has. I miss those days of standing on the docks in a MMO and seeing that guy walk by with the flaming sword on a horse and being completely flabbergasted and inspired to one day have them. Yeah it sounds funny to some of you guys who didn’t play MMO’s when they were first released, but it was one of the most incredible cool moments in playing MMO’s.
Not too much swapping in PVE since it’s so easy to faceroll through the PVE game. My warrior GS/rifle not much need to swap since GS is so dominant, but at times I’ll GS 1hb then right to dual axe #5 aoe, pretty nasty for taking groups down. I switch a ton with engineer, but mostly kits, I’ll go between bombs and grenades depending on the situation, even during some fights. Ranger I rarely switch out of shortbow as I find it’s plenty damage to kill a mob very quickly.
The only time I really find myself swapping a lot in PVE is if I’m trying to solo a champion and really trying to do a certain condition or CC, otherwise I don’t find much of a need for it.
My question to you is: What keeps people there (the other MMO) after they have gotten leveled up, got the gear and skins they like and grow tired of PvP/PvE?
Community. That sense that you are not doing things alone, but with a group of like minded real people. I think that’s mainly what keeps people playing.
Of course you also have the satisfaction of dopamine receptors, the “ding” that players get addicted to. A new level…ding. A new alternate skill point…ding. A new piece of raid armor…ding. This is the treadmill all MMO’s are based on, even GW2. Except GW2 doesn’t have a great rewards system in place IMO and doesn’t draw you in as strongly at endgame as other MMO’s. I think many players just feel kind of unfulfilled towards the end.
Orr is terrible, just wall to wall mobs which do nothing but cripple and poison you. After all the incredibly cool zones in this game, to get to Orr really brings you down and shows you that instead of quality over quantity Anet preferred to just throw a lot of mobs against you with a high respawn rate as a challenge. The DE’s are ok, but like most other DE’s are just marathon zergfests.