Guild Wars 2

Unfortunately not many do. I talk satirical crap at my screen when I see this jive. But I’m used to MMOs being “living worlds” back before they had prettier graphics. Others however… Like perhaps 96% of everyone plays the game for the farming “yay stuff” factor don’t care it’s supposed to be an RPG.

I mean the riots in Southsun Cove awhile back (Linving Story event) consisted of fighting settlers. Helpless refugees that is. It had a nice realistic feel to it. Almost like the game had lore for a moment… Until a Champion Settler walked out… I mean really? So a champion HOBO in all his/her funky rags is killing all these fully armored heros solo? Yeah… And an undead baby champion spider. Trust me. the game is what it is. But unfortunately NOT what it isn’t and should be. But I’m mostly alone in my views these days.

I just play it. I do hope the writers of the lore that gets trashed by those who implement it in to the game still have their fun, and maybe someday find a dev team that takes their ideas seriously…

(edit: Fixed incomplete sentences. Very exhausted.)

Iki.4062:

[…]Does anyone at anet even play this game anymore?

Besides the one I killed in WvW a week or two ago (I think they were upacaled. Or had no traits) I’d say maybe not as much as they used to. Other then that, I see them standing around in town a lot. But I guess that hardly counts. It’d explain a lot though. Not counting them out yet despite the trait and town-clothing change. But it is gettin’ scary. The game seems to be doing rather well. Income through a revolving door. Extreme playerbase turn around is still an income. In fact, it might help in this case, because new players will buy gems, unknowing of any ‘bad’ changes. Maybe that’s what they’re going for…? who knows…

Heh. If I had the chance to replace Mortar or even Supply Crate for an extra gadget or elixir, I’d jump at that chance. xD

UnitedChaos.8364:

This is a great alternative!

This is why I created this topic.

But it seems I have merely offended half of the topic participants, ha.

Well, the only thing I find offensive isn’t your opinion or sentiment exactly.

What bothers me, is most of these types of threads want the addition/subtraction of content viewed through the lens of mechanical game-play function, and almost NEVER through the lens of immersion, lore, or justification of existence in a ‘virtual world’.

It marks in my mind the all but death of the RPG genre.

I can actually illustrate that better by reminding you that this is a world with imaginary sentient beings. Imaginary plant life and environments. Imaginary lives. Why would you wanna remove the ability to eat food in a world?

As it is, food as implemented is a another weak-paper-thin way to express a “living world” already since it’s just a crappy little icon, in an unimmersive inventory pane. It has no visual representation in world. You can’t see the character eating it. No home to cook it in. These are things most will read here and go “Um… it’s a game. Why would you put that stuff in anyway?” —again, this shows the RPG genre is all but dead.

What also bothers me is the whole “Living World! Tyria lives!” but feels more ‘plastic’ then older MMOs that felt more alive. When I watch the live streams, it breaks my heart see the faces of the developers, see age groups of those that create this rather solid but flawed game, and how respectfully hard-working they are with all odds against them on all sides, but how horribly and almost childishly naive they are when they actually think this game fits the ‘living world’ schematic, just because of the temporary-content storybook they call a ‘living story’ where everyone don’t exist in a persistent world, but a grand protagonist in their own copied-facet of the universe.

Sorry to say it, but if they removed food for gameplay mechanical reasons, It’d not surprise me in the least. It’s disappointing.

If you feel this is a tangent, then my on topic view is that food buffs don’t give enough of an advantage to be removed, but enough to add variety and help. Your reasoning isn’t as invalid as some here’d like to think, but close to it. It’s just an extra part of the lack of variety a class-based RPG has to offer in this case. I say it should stay. I hardly use the stuff myself, and win in 1v1 fights 70-80% of the time regardless of their class, whether they’re buffed or not. Eat food, and still not know how to move and fight…

Two of the same class/level/spec/skill level? One has food buff? Both are subject to the same margin of error and misstep. Food won’t always save you… … …

KorbanDallas.7389:

A noble attempt, but I have some issues with […]

Yeah, it seems overall the patch was successful, but somethings badly implemented (thus the community dev initiatives ( for whatever reason didn’t take place for these things)).

Megaservers is still being honed and will be more exciting as we go.

Town clothes while really needing to be removed for the outfit system, retiring the articles of clothes was NOT needed, and proof of laziness. Town clothing should have ideally been part of that system in a per-piece-basis, because otherwise, they’re for whatever reason proud of an implementation of a not-new system, presented in a way that’s inferior to other MMOs (some free to play) who’ve done this outfit system for a few years or so now. The models wouldn’t be in the wardrobe armor wheight indexes (if not done wrong), as the one-piece “outfits” shouldn’t be (if done right). they’re a visual toggle based on a boolean (yes, the protocol would be more complicated then that I’m sure, but doable, while being able to remove the older clothing system). One wouldn’t necessarily need to know their code personally to know they could have done it better, in order to—at the very least—implement this un-original idea in par with other games rather then cheesier/inferior.

Town clothing being ‘cloth’ instead of medium or heavy isn’t a reason. The existing ones look like different types of ‘mages’ clothes yet deemed “acceptable” with the only difference is they’re all one-piece.

As for the modeling. The outfits in their entirety are different articles of clothing (or at least the equiv work-energy wise) until used in game , shipped as one piece.

As for transmutation, I see 2 things wrong. shock of difference to how it functioned before, and expense to players who play lowbie characters. It’s to expensive under a level threshold making it seem almost like a money scam rather then a fun cosmetic feature. No, they should make money, as they need to float the servers. The former problem will correct itself. As for the latter, it’s up to ArenaNet. If they have some dynamics in the pipeline, or something else we don’t know of, then we’ll wait and see.

The patch is a nice start. I hope they aren’t going to stop there. In my view, the outfit system is a nice sentiment, but a bust if they think they can add that system in a way—as I’ve said before—inferior to other games doing the same thing. Let’s hope ANet isn’t disconnected from the industry too. You think that if they stubbornly keep it this way, and this blows over, the extra effort will need to be taken anyway when new players just learning of the game, say “Huh. this is so cool! but… Entire outfits? It’d be cool if it were separate pieces” then file the feature request (it’s inevitable). Will ANet be stubborn on the subject again? is it simpl;y incomplete? Because the whole “collect all 8” jive makes it look for keeps as is, with exception of new models (skins) later.

As we go, I’m sure Megaservers and transmutation can be honed so that new players aren’t turned away. Outfits will catch on eventually, but they’ll need to start with the elbow grease on that front eventually. Until then, outfits’re lame in comparison to the competitors, and essentially a good idea badly presented… … All this could have been said before they coded so far into it, so they could have had it in consideration had they spoke up sooner.

Good patch, let’s see where it leads?

Luranni.9470:

You are forgetting that the only reliable access to extra heals and condition removal for thieves are -on stealth-, terrible design but there we are.

If you nerf stealth without adjusting that with say, I dunno.. some form of GM trait in acro that deals with conditions, maybe? You’re just stripping the thief of its ability to defend itself.

Yeah, as it is, stealth in combat shouldn’t even be there if there’s no way to force visibility. The counter-play to stealth is more through technicality then actual function. In my view, thieves need to be stealth-countered better in general (well, any stealth actually), with more natural resilience added to compensate. As you say, survivability through stealth to the degree it exist is shoddy design. You can’t take away the stealth from a thief without killing it as a class without compensation. I think a higher HP pool could be a start. It might also be that with all there is on ArenaNet’s plate right now, the amount of re balancing thieves would need if stealth were globally changed—not nerfed—would be to much for ’em at this time.

There’s a lot of “QQ” and “Counter-QQ” (as equally annoying to me), but at the end of the day both are still legit player community point-of-view, but one thing I feel is more objective, that there’s some mechanics in this game kinda run amok, because while they were originally sane and sensible choices for any class’ builds, as time goes on, most of the playerbase gravitate to those certain things in a way that can wildy change the very core of the game’s gameplay, making those aspects show themselves for what they are. Then the game becomes one big wad of “press these buttons NOW and hope the attacks along side others cause every condition at 15-25 stacks, and stunlock the entire enemy to oblivion while the exact same thing happens to your side”.

In summery, the combat system has proven overly-convoluted in general, and any changes to global functions as stealth will cause rewrites to the code of certain classes that would chain-change the gameplay itself to wildly. The game has it’s balance in some way, and setting the ‘infamous Dev-favoritism’ aside, the effort to almost redoing the combat with changes leading to more changes, don’t count on STEALTH (not thieves in particular) to be rebalanced any day soon…

Be angry and disgruntled by the game as I, play it when in the mood, don’t play it when not in the mood. While I dislike ANet’s judgement a lot of the time, they DO have more to worry abut them most seem to think… Guess it’s a matter of time. These things in these games take years… …

Allaraina.8614:

Constantine.7582:

Elaborate further on specific changes. IE saying town clothing is being converted to “tonics” was rather general and didn’t tell us much

As a short closing statement, I would like to remind ArenaNet that the only reason why there are so many upset people from this is because they really enjoy your game and that they care about it.

This and this. I’m getting annoyed with other players defending Anet on this issue in the forums (and in game). “Rpers gotta stop QQing!” etc (which is hilarious cause of a lot of people who have complained have stated they are not rpers). I wouldn’t be so upset about it if I didn’t care about the game. And I love it enough that I made a decision to support Anet with my wallet.

Yeah, I haven’t roleplayed in over a dacade and a half, but you have to excuse them. They don’t seem to realize the game genre they’re playing in. They don’t know what “RPG” stands for. While MMORPGs are open to all walks f life so to speak, they don’t realize how silly they look when they talk trash to/about roleplayers in their own game made specially for that. It seems ArenaNet really want this to be a roleplay game, I dunno that they quite know what that means because their last game seemed to be made for the PvP itself, the PvE stories and lore added just to justify the setting in which it took place.

Guess in summery, I no longer being a roleplayer myself, still require some backlore or character story to my main characters. I still strive to keep their themes without the in-chat RP. I further more don’t bother people who are doing it. RPG… Role Playing Game. It’s the playground for RPers over “I-play-for-item-drops-only” crowd. They’re a welcome walk of life, the game is also made for that too obviously, but… They forget they’re not the original spirit and sentiment of what a true living world RPG is.

Did you read that too ArenaNet? Goooood…

Gwen.7981:

Nerf the individual Town Clothes?

https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/info/updates/Game-Update-Notes-April-15-2014/first#post3896029

Town clothes have been replaced by the wardrobe and outfits as a way to customize characters in and out of combat.

Some single-piece town clothes that are no longer available have been converted to endless tonics that transform the player into a complete casual look, including that single piece of clothing.

The single-piece town clothes were nerfed?

The Town Clothes section has been removed. The single-piece clothing has been converted into potions. The potions last 15 minutes. Those potions choose the rest of your outfit for you. And those outfits can’t be dyed…

Why not just convert all of the single-piece town clothes into their own individual armor skins? If someone bought a Striped Silk Vest with Shirt, why not stick it in the new Wardrobe under ‘Chest’? If someone bought the Khaki Cargo Shorts, why not put it in the new Wardrobe under ‘Leggings’? Do one of the programmer’s think there would be some sort of exploit in doing this?

The way this was handled seems so lazy. Every shirt gets matched up to the same Riding Gloves, Riding Boots, and Riding Pants. The Khaki Shorts get paired with a fitted casual shirt that gives the impression that it’s really cold out here, but it’s summer from the waist down.

Also, I’ve heard that you can apply for a refund on your town clothes, but you only get your money back in Gems. That’s not a refund. That’s trading in your cosmetic clothing for something else in the online store. :/

The million-dollar question is this, what was the point of dropping the old town clothes system? I know the full costumes have been moved to the new Outfit section, but the single-piece town clothes are not part of the new wardrobe system (like I expected) and are a potion instead. All of the old limitations are still there. If you attack anything your town clothes wear off. If a mob hits you your town clothes wear off. So what was the purpose of converting town clothes into tonics? Surely someone at ArenaNet can give us a reason for this?

Unless this gets fixed in a future patch I will never spend cash on GW2 Gems ever again. I know a lot of other people feel the same way, and I doubt the goal of selling micro-transaction fluff is to drive business away. When you troll your own consumer base, you begin your own death spiral.

PS – I am not a roleplayer, this effects everyone who buys fluff.

I held A button, and pressed Start…

Alas however,

…The patch was to strong…

Belzebu.3912:

Try to use logic with rage quitters usually doesn’t work, but the idea is good.

Quitting a game because in your mind it’s no longer enjoyable isn’t always rage quitting anyway. Try using logic with simpletons usually doesn’t work but the idea’s good.

I don’t care about the critical hit nerf myself, but the fact that one of my characters I loved playing as a themed character to escape the norm was broken with town clothes, coupled with the fact that from PvP on down to even cosmetic potions, they can’t seem to balance their gameplay. To argue that the game is to new to be balanced yet would be applicable if they would break the same pattern as if they’re not learning from their blunders, and show better judgement. Having “dev initiatives” with the community in one facet, then failing to do so in other ways (like town clothes or other ‘ninja nerfs’ that seem to surface) shows they won’t learn. So when I quit for Wildstar, it won’t be rage, but as simple as just stepping away from what I feel may never improve without certain patterns breaking.

I’ll remain here until the other game. No one can have my hundreds of gold, no one can have my no longer obtainable items that aren’t account/soulbound, because I might check in on the game later to see if it still leaves a bitter taste in my mouth. I might even help float their servers again by paying for gems.

According to the Wiki (if it hasn’t been changed since i last read it over a year ago), while they don’t consider themselves male/female in the same way as other races, they are born with 90+ percent the features of the two genders, and confirmed they can and do have sex in relationships, despite not being able reproduce that way.

I’d assume myself that the Pale Tree would give them any opportunity to mingle with society of the world (if she’s able to control certain things). If so, while unable to allow them the reproductive ability of other races, wouldn’t want to deny them other fundamental experiences and pleasures despite being plants.

Who’s to say that their evolution on down the road won’t allow them that final stage of being a part of the world at large: Caring for children of their own. Heck. Realistically plants reproductive morphology is oddly both male/female anyway. :P

Lobo Dela Noche.5127:

I’ll leave you with a link to an article I read earlier which I think pvpers in any game should read before posting about nerfs of any kind.

http://www.sirlin.net/articles/playing-to-win-part-1.html

Hm. I guess I could head mine with irrelevancy too:
That’s quite the article. A very long page of the same logic said over and over. In summery, an expert player will exploit anything the game has to offer within the legitimate rules to win. Very sensible logic. The scrub plays within constraint, and thus not playing to win in comparison to the former. Very sensible logic also.

However…

Those who explore the greatest advantages ARE playing to win, but those who play within their own rules and constraints and still own face are more skilled. Some like to mix it up. Make it more challenging when they beat the ‘advantage exploiting press #1 to win experts’. Simply playing and exploiting a section of the game for an advantage to win in itself isn’t as skilled, nor expertise (though could lead to such in it’s own right). It’s just for those who play to win, but want it to go easier/faster. An alternate definition of ‘scrub’ to some, but a valid play-style. I do therefore agree that nerfing because of someone’s over-advantage isn’t always necessary. I simply… you know… practice. I just play the game ‘for fun’, which eventually leads me to winning.

I think the writer of that article—while logical and valid in one line of thinking—is a ‘scrub’ in disguise. So it contributes little to the thread.

On topic:
I believe that they can’t remove the excessive AOE/conditions/control effects that pepper the gameplay, because it’s to far into it. The gameplay (classes/monsters/explorable-areas) would be to impacted as has been already said. I don’t agree the excess in those areas, but I don’t agree with the AOE caps either, because it’s I like the possibilty for some lowly nobody with years of tricky gaming under their belt being able to use them in a tricky manner to either beat, or escape an absurdly huge group of fumbling oafs pressing one button over and over. :P I also like how scary it is when that group would be downing a smaller group with the same restriction removed. Friendly fire would disable a big portion of the game (combos), causing the need for a new combo system altogether (i.e: new game basically), rebalance of classes and dungeons, re structuring perhaps even. Body blocking would have some nice gameplay advantages of holding small entrances or mountain passes, while blocking friendly players in large groups would be a downside.

Posted tired and half asleep. Please excuse any convoluted areas of the post. I read through it, but… tired proof reading tired, is well… … tired… :P

The tragic thing is that this sort of thing is immediately attributed to botting (yes we know it is) instead of immersion and living world variation. The idea of ‘nodes’ themselves detract from the living world aspect that is advertised, but continues it’s struggle to make a true debut in this game in comparison to some older games (Not WoW). Having them move around makes it feel more ‘organic’ rather then chopping down the same tree, mining the same ore deposit, and picking the same carrot day by day.

I say ‘tragic’ not to attack or call out any player/community type, no, but tragic because this game has fallen far from it’s original intended audience, despite Arena Net’s vehement attempts to add content for that original audience.

Either way, before I become to irreverent, I think that the mixing positions is a plus for immersible variation first, and taking care of bots second. Both in my opinion are very important. The maps are already to small, so any little thing to give them fresh variation over time is a good thing… Not for everyone however…

EDIT: changed “variation of time” to “variation over time”

Guanglai Kangyi.4318:

tigirius.9014:

Rezzet.3614:

tattoohead.3217:

I’ll be honest, I skimmed the post but I think I got the point. And no… Just no, engi is one of the strongest classes pvp right now and they are just fine in pve. Sure the CoF war, guard, mes combo still reigns on high but realistic engi does very well in dungeons.

suppose i should ve specified more yeah in pvp as engi all it takes is to go bunker engi and faceroll with bombs

or counter bunkers with hgh

but outside of pvp engineer is extremely underwhelming just because a class is good in pvp does not mean it should suck in pve or wvw

That’s been my point all along. Not only did they place things in weird places (like where they put the bonuses from talents) but they also made a series of early nerfs to the class long before kit refinement was completely destroyed that this class has yet to recover from. I’ve been watching the patch notes, at NO time has any of these balance guys gone back to the early days before they separated the patch actions between PVE/PVP and corrected what they did back then which was to nerf condi damage across the board in PVE and lower the damage output of the kits on engineers, they said they upped it a bit but it’s still nowhere near where it should be to be on par with the damage output of warriors but we’re supposed to believe that it’s equal footing in combat according to the front page.

Guys this has been going on for over a year now it’s time for them to fixit it really is getting old. 5 years down the line people will still be talking about this and they still won’t have fixed the problems with this class.

Is this a serious post? If there’s any class that needs to be nerfhammered in PvE it’s probably the engineer. And maybe also the elementalist. And if there’s any class that needs a serious PvE buff it’s the necro, then the warrior.

Makes me wonder what browser you’re using, as all your wild int3rw3bz button clicking has somehow landed you on the forum to a completely different game then you’re obvious playing. Most warriors I see can take on crowds of enemies in PvP, while necromancers hiding behind stanky meat-wads to avoid damage. As an engineer, even with good crowd control really have to ‘dance’ to survive the same situation the warrior’s in but just standing taking most of the damage wildly spinning or swinging, really gouging those life bars. As engineer, I can out perfrorm them, but with a bit more obvious strain.

Warriors’ cool downs are absurd, but watching them stand there in the middle of a crowd not avoiding damage much is rather comical to watch, if of course… you’re not eating the terrain trying to survive the same situation actually having to do the unthinkable. You know, play the game. :P

The advantage I have on a warrior in PvE without even needing to try is liberating when I’m taking a break plying an engineer, despite the fact that I actually yes do a lot more with an engineer… But that comes from 2 years of straight practice. Next thing you’ll be saying is to nerf Engineer’s grenades because of their ‘damage’ when the caveat is having to aim with them manually, while warrior’s damage is based on hitting a button, or thief going “toaster-cat-toaster-ca-cat-cat-cat”. :P

Seriously. Engineer’s an acrobat’s class. Just because you get killed by them because they’re practiced, or watch them out perform you in PvE because of the same reason, isn’t cause for trolling. Anyhoo, I’m out. one up me, get the last word in, whatever… Just gets old when complainers and trolls strive to make things more difficult for skill gamers to have a little fun sometimes over the BIS-BS monsters (not in game ‘skills’, but player’s manual-dexterity-Super Mario Bros-Sonic the Hedgehog-Halo, action game play “SKILL”), so I figured I’d get in my own opinion in there. Kinda make sure it’s out in the world despite trolls set my post aflame. Have a good one Chip…

Also to OP: Engineer’s not thieves. They’re not warriors, mesmers… They’re Engineers. They’re SUPPOSED to be hard to master. They always have been, and always will be. The ‘love’ for the engineer comes from the player behind the mouse. Outside of some nameless trick-cheese builds, we’re survivors in a world of giants. Get used to it. It’s part of the fun…

Jski.6180:

The counter to cc is to cc the person doing them the problem is the ability to simply not deal with thoughts cc such as stun daze knock down. As for the other cc that fall into the other side covers every thing else including bleeds burn or the dmg cc to put these on a diminishing return would kill any type of condition dmg in this game.

In a way its stability that is the problem. But at the end of the day the counter to every thing in GW2 is to dodges out of the way this will stop all effects. A bit of skill in timing goes a long way. I think L2D apply here.

Posts like this always look good in text form. It is actually valid, albeit situationally. The problem is, events like this Nightmare Tower, not knowing Orr’s layout at first and taking a bad shortcut, and the like is just small example to a huge problem, is that dodging in the most fast-pace fights become more novelty then a tool; a prolong to the ol’ inevitable. Traited and geared to about 4 dodges? Great. you’ve gained 3 more seconds of life. there are more then dodges to avoid control effects. Great you just won 4 more seconds on top of that of life. In many situations, it’s not L2D, but L2OG… (Learn to over group). Huge groups = win… Unfortunately MMOs used to be about immersion in a fantasy world with others, now it’s “be a part of a 50+ player group, or you’re a waste of server space”.

For all the inevitable ‘L2P’ replies of those who can solo the entire Nightmare Tower, or solo all dungeons on all professions, good for you. You found a way to make your pigs fly, if you catch my drift. :P And to those who can take 3 dodges into large groups and live, that’s also great. I’m talking more about the common player, not the elite minority that post on the forums as if it’s appalling that the rest of the world can’t play to their standard (not talking to the one I’m quoting mind you).

Having said all that that jive, yes, as posted, dodges can and do help.

Well, hopefully it does get a fix. As it is right now, waiting a half hour for another 5 small minutes? Presently the item for all those achievements is a huge disappointment. If a rep could explain why a cosmetic item has a time restriction, I think we’re all ears. 5 minutes isn’t exactly fun for much of anything, like a bite size piece of chocolate isn’t realy ‘fun sized’ either. And a half hour cooldown? How about “lasts until downed”, with a 10 minute cooldown, if a cooldown is necessary for an item with possibly no exploit ability, or advantage or boosts of any kind… Purely cosmetic.

At first I was thinking “Well, to bad I’m not a male version.” then 5 minutes later “Wait… what happened… Previously transformed? 29 minute—waaaaait, really?” It’s now a paper weight taking up inventory space. At the very least, I wish there was a collectables pane for infinite tonics. But i’d rather an hour transformation (or as I say “until downed”). As for the cooldown… It has an icon debuff, carefully typed description and everything, so it’s very obviously not a mistake. To prevent potential lag by using it again after transformed maybe? xD

As said, an explanation would be nice. We’re all ears. <: )

I used to use it (via Elixir X) to make my way into tower doors. The HP boost and stability got my in 98% of the time in absurdly large groups of enemies (I’m Anvil Rock, for any who know we’re outmanned ~95% of the time). Ever since the oh so glorious trait patch, It’s next to useless, as stun-locking now effects it. Used to watch pull cords, nets, all that jive just melt off as I went, taking damage only (scary HP melting damage, but damage only). Now instead, I watch the ~40k HP drain at high speed with a few invaders and their buddies and cousins stop you in your tracks like you’re nothing, despite the previous experience.

If anyone’s having problem with it’s Stability like me, then I know it’s, well… Not just me… First and foremost improvement would therefore be fixing control effects on it’s stability boon, if I’m not somehow just missing the point of stability (yup. getting redundant with the word, sorry). The next, is blindness really shouldn’t effect it’s attack. It seriously makes no sense. I can hang with the dodging, but… The blindness is a bit dumb.

As for projectiles, I haven’t had much problem there since most other times it’s just there to troll the melee classes for me, and usually use it only when around them. <: ) but it’s usually a crowd of melee that do me in Using Tornado… So I’ll have to agree with it working on more then just 5 at a time… : P

If that jazz means raising the cool-down, then… Well, I’m used to absurd cool-downs really… But. If the cool-down was unaffected, I’d be golden.

A bit strange for an Engineer to post here about this skill, but we can use it. The problem I’m getting is the stability it grants isn’t stopping control effects. Seems it does in PvE, but in WvW, it seems a crowd of players seem to have no problem stun-locking, and interupting a big swirl of wind… :P As for blindness, Yeah… In real life, if you wanna survive a tornado, all you have to do is use a dagger, or shoot a cloud of smoke… Blind the “eye of the storm”! Yup… … Note how the wind is still there, but we see all the trees suddenly stop blowing in the wind for 3 seconds… … yeah… (yes, that was sarcasm for the slow, heh. I seriously don’t know how you stop wind and explosions from dealing damage with a blind. But game ballance, yadda, yadda…) Anyhoo, I see no problem with stability when It’s me using control effects on others. But Tornado and Rampage stability seem to be imaginary…

Gotta comment on the walking turrets. The idea of having some kind of steam pet’d make a lot of us feel more like an engineer. Dunno how the balance’d go, but it’s not really my job to balance the game, of course. But i do dig the whole idea.

+Net turret looks like a steam spider.

+Flame turret looks like a steam drake.

Not all need to look like a steam creature of course.

+Thumper turret a mini cannon on tank tread

+Blah blah, et cetra.

Oh, and our class is the class made for creative thinking and dancing around like an action hero to survive. That’s not underpowered, that’s bacon. I always liked the idea that only a select few can handle the Engineer.

Andele.1306:

If the dungeon gave you the jetpack each time you soloed the bosses, by now id have 10 for each of my characters…

And if this were true, you’d very well deserve them.

Josip.8267:

I don’t get what is the point of playing mmorpg if you don’t want to play with random people. If you want to play singleplayer game there is witcher, skyrim etc. And if you want to play only with your close friend there is bunch of coop games. Noone forces you to play this game.

(Pulls Josip’s foot out of their mouth) There we go… Just helpin’ ya’ out.

So, yeah. pretty much everything in this game is playing with others. Save of course crafting… You have an idea where crafting should be co-op, instead of just you and a window? I think if you’re gonna craft, you should go play a singleplayer crafting game! … …Heh…

In all seriousness, dungeons are as co-op as the rest of the game. Difference is, you’re playing with less people at a time, and have to work together more in a trikier situation. THAT is also another reason this dungeon should have been optional, rather then required for completion. Because more often then not, people are using Pick Up Groups. Which can make or break a run. Some love that, others do not. Since it’s an ‘MMO’, it’s about what people like/dislike as a whole. They didn’t name the game “World Of Josip” for a reason.

Now maybe I’m wrong, but i couldda swore I’ve already seen swimwear on some NPCs as soon as the Karka event ended.

Not saying that they won’t add swimwear town clothes or somethin’.

Aziff.3248:

First of all i think it’s time for exotic aquabreathers

You know what? I think that’s long overdue. Until I read this post, I’d always shrugged my green one off is just “I’ll probably find an exotic one eventually. No biggie…” Never considered they didn’t exist… And I just looked it up. Never put two and two together… Howddia like that? xD

BrunoBRS.5178:

please don’t let the norn buy speedos.

(shudders) Uh oh… Here we go. It’s out in the world now. (O_O)

StriderShinryu.6923:

Ryu.1368:

Looking at this ending story arc. More people running that dungeon seemed to be doing it for a rare item drop (The jet pack and some recipes, more then for the story that mattered mostly the first time, becoming irrelevant to the item-grind thereafter).

To be fair, though, most of the content in the game is like that. From DEs to Dungeons to World Bosses, players will generally experience them once for the content and then every subsequent run will be for the XP and/or loot. In fact, one could argue that because dungeons require some level of repetition and learning, they provide a pretty decent time/rewarding content ratio compared to, say, your average DE chain.

And this is due to the fact that the Dynamic Events should also be worked on. They present a very plastic view on what the world should be structured as. Events like Shatterer and Maw are example of events that should have been ‘one-time’ experiences (time extended in the Living Story manner), as they’re structured in the same way, but with little time between them, and no real return.

And to be as fair, the world itself is where all the real lore and lag is. It should be their focus first and foremost, despite the fact that dungeons are easier to work with. The Dynamic Events are also a rushed version of what was originally promised. More often then not, dungeons are where most good gear and drops can be had. Most people run dungeons for the drops more then people play Dynamic Events for their missing immersiveness.

Evolving the world where lag is is more ideal, but evolving dungeons would be easier, and therefore possibly more practical. So it becomes a ‘choose a poison and go’.

Where what you say is sound and true, one part is more subjective, however:

“one could argue that because dungeons require some level of repetition and learning, they provide a pretty decent time/rewarding content ratio compared to, say, your average DE chain.”

Subjective only because it’s a matter of time able to be spent versus one’s tolerance to said repitition. You’d be very surprised how many ‘end-gamers’ simple log on to just unwind. Walk around. Explore pretty scenes. Chat. Whatever they procure during that, is simple happenstance. Therefore the game being structured as a ‘grind after story’ is more with the individual. Yes you could say that about dungeons, but they’re far more linear even with ‘paths’ then an open world, making ‘basic social interaction’ more casual with more possibly little to no strain. The original philosophy before commercialism to MMOs was not ‘forced group’ and ‘farm-grind’ but ‘escape from reality. Life in an alternate world/universe’ where goals are self-defined and organic rather then linear and pre-set.

You did say “One can argue” however, so it does respectfully imply margin of error. Just like anything I post. Just ideas. Because quite frankly, I believe structuring stories in an MMO as singleplayer stories implies ALL citizens are the ONE PERSON driving force to the world’s moving evolution. Every individual in the world is given their own alternate universe protagonist role. A very un-organic take on a Living World. But until someone comes up with an amazing idea to ‘fix’ that, we take what we get and enjoy it… Thusly an example of my ‘subjective view’.

TriiX.2614:

to group up with other players is kinda the whole idea behind mmos

No.

Dungeons are more of an ‘non-social’ setting. Keep up the small talk in a dungeon, and you’ll probably get you or your mates killed.

Logically, most of the social interaction happens on the world. And no, MMOs are ‘virtual worlds’ not ‘forced group play’. It’s your line of thinking (not you specifically) that has soured good games and turned them into multi-play cliches.

But, moving on…

I vote for dungeons parallel to other events during this in this story.

Oh, and if a 5-man runner is added, It’d be cool to see one that uses the over-world map, with the little red instance confines. It’d be a use of two mechanics that have otherwise been separate (personal story map instance, but with the difficulty ruleset of internal dungeons). Like a little path that leads around the beach, into whatever area, add some story dialog… Probably the stat-inflated trash mobs instead of tricky AIs.

The last statement seems sarcastic, yeah, but it’s basically most of what we have for dungeon gameplay challenge until they can use their tools in a manner that produces ‘interesting challenge’ rather then ‘easy to produce pseudo challenge’ redundancy (which is obviously alright with some of the dungeon community).

So yeah… an internal dungeon, and one with a confined path using the overworld map… Mix it up, kids.

And to reiterate: Possibly make sure the dungeon is more for grind/drops, over achievement and lore requirement. I believe they should be PART of canon, not be the MAIN canon experience.

Looking at this ending story arc. More people running that dungeon seemed to be doing it for a rare item drop (The jet pack and some recipes, more then for the story that mattered mostly the first time, becoming irrelevant to the item-grind thereafter).

By now many know my view here, as even the posts here so far back up the idea that random pick up groups can make or brake it. But if you really want a tidbit from me, the only real ‘bad challenges’ you need to worry about, is the champion slimeball, and his little cousins, not because they “to powerful” but they’re obnoxious to fight with the airwaves that pull you constantly following up with an explosion. It’ll ride you up the wall until you find out they can be easily avoided by just walking back and forth.

The other, is the final boss. I believe most people just cheese-strategy the final part of that one anyway, but the best thing to know, is just have at least a full party at that point. The amount of HP is enough to make only two or so people not enough. You have to hold out a long time without downing really. With a full party, you have enough damage output and rezzers. In between all that is kinda smooth sailing. Don’t worry about dying, of course. Just be careful, avoid damage, and repair equipment. xD

Soulstar.7812:

People beat it everyday.
Yesterday a lowbie team crash through it and beat it.

So what does that say about you?

That they’re a different set of people with a different set of builds.

Scumbag Mawile.6384:

The trash is only troublesome with particularly bad pugs.

Which brings us all back to square one on how the dungeon as a finale wasn’t the best idea, as the part of the game mechanics reliant on mostly requiring pick up groups, setting aside playstyle.

When broken down, it’s not a social issue, but a scaling issue. If they insist on using this mechanic for a requirement in the future, I hope they’ve improved on the framework i KNOW they have, and have a good idea on how to use it.

Once they hammer out better methods to dungeon mechanics, i dare say, many who hate dungeons now, might not complain as happened this time if/when they do this again… Instead we might actually like them as the rest do.

difficult yet solo play, 10% drop rate to the limited-edition items we don’t need. Everyone gets a +10% added per player involved along side a big difficulty curve. drop rates calculated ONCE when the instance is first created to stop cheesing (with magin of error). This is not a feature request. It’s a small example of many things to be thought of… Then better AIs instead of 50-story house-cats mobbing you. could really go a long way in both tech/game-play and immersion consistency.

Don’t tell me stats and AI difficulty can’t change depending on factors. This is in the game, and defining it needs time and testing. Strategy and ‘tricky’ builds will always be a factor not everyone can expect to ever factor right. But it’d always be better then the base we now have. Talking to the devs here; time to get creative.

Idea of collecting prisoners in this way is different, but… Nothing wrong with the ‘bring me 10 spider legs’ jive. The only thing that makes that bad, is when games that rely on it for 90% of their quests is when the game becomes garbage. Beside the guild mechanics, that sort of thing is why i didn’t like Atlantica Online. Should have been “Collect 10 Units Online”.

But yeah. saving 10 prisoners as said was good for making sure you didn’t just run past stuff. Otherwise… When WE completed it, only one sole prisoner made it out with us when the place went down… …

I know, that part’s off the subject, but funny. “Save everyone! … … … Oops. Only one of the freed lived. And a random human at that… Eh… I have a bug, you have red hair, players did all the work, we like swords and stuff… We’re fine. It’s all that counts.”

panzer.6034:

Overall, they need to work on finding ways to make encounters interesting without falling back on hp inflation. Its just far, far easier to do it in a dungeon since you can for the group to split and do different things in order to overcome a single challenge (dredge fractals, cliffside fractals, ghosterbuster AC path, etc…). I’d like to see them come up with some stuff like that outside of the dungeons, but i don’t have a whole lot of faith that it will and it’s far more likely we’ll see those types of innovations in dungeons sooner.

I agree with people who would like to see multiple ways to get through the story since it supports the “play your way” dogma, i just don’t want to see scaled dungeons be the answer since they have yet to show they can get scaling right at all.

That has extreme validity. From everything I’ve seen so far, they do have that framework. Guess it’s a matter of ‘seeing how they can use those tools’ before we see improv on world and dungeon. Because the current problems with dungeons is what made good ideas even in this dungeon un climatic and somewhat frustrating.

So anyhoo. I hold to my view, agreeing with what you’re saying. Again, not wrong. Just hope that these kids are actually reading this… Even with any bickering goin’ on in these threads, there’s a looootta thought to work with here for their future content… Or rather OUR future content.

panzer.6034:

[… cut for posting room …]
But as you say, big numbers = challenge is a phenomenon you see through out the game anyway, so regardless of whether you advocate for scaling, dungeons or open world events, it is in no way a knock against including 5-man dungeon runs. In fact, you need to rely on “OMG huge numbers!” more in solo content and zerg bosses because they can’t rely on sophisticated coordination between individuals the way a small group can.

I’m gonna reply this roughly as a whole. Your post isn’t wrong. But it does kinda show what I mean on the “Your post almost implies there’s no hope for the game” statement in another post, when 100+ events produce lag, and the inflation of HP being a gameplay issue more then a ‘challenge’. I basically feel that if they go about things as they are, the removing of hp inflation won’t help, as it really does outshine the rest of the mechanics involved in promoting teamwork within the dungeons, making it an unfortunate core factor of where most the challenge is coming from.

In my view, the dungeons having a complicated AI to replace stupid levels of HP would be a better fix to ALL game content, but might bog the server down in a fast-pace situation within dungeons. And I don’t wanna know what it’d do to the outer world. As it is, ALL more intelligent enemies (ie: ones using language) should ‘know’ not to stand in AOE (Like in the original game, where AOE fields will just cause mobs to move). They need to use their skills more efficiently.

Most basic attack skills the NPCs use that are badly throttled to a 4 second cool-down removed. ranged (bow or gunner) enemies need to therefore shoot as fast player, and move, rather then remaining stationary (Yeah. Imagine bandits still having basic HP, but using the exact same skills as us instead of “Heh-heh! You’re kidding right!?” then follow up with a useless dodge and shooting a pea at you once every two seconds).

There’s a lot of things that could be done to make the game more ‘interesting’ at any level of challenge. But HP/ATT inflation and constant pulls makes it more frustrating, even if you ace the event with or without other’s help, which unfortunately is an infallible truth about what dungeon game-play is mostly based, with a side of extra legit challenges. Also, they have the code to dynamically scale even HP inflation to accommodate 1-5 players. They just for—either their own reasons of for lazy reasons—refuse to use it.

The ultimate point I really do think however, is making an event for polar opposite play-styles without any heads up in a ‘boolean’ manner for lack of a better word, instead of same achievements (Prize or otherwise) in event parallels, so that you have to ‘pick the poison and go’, then know ahead of time that whatever one you complete first gives said prize, before the next story episode. Doing the other would be purely lore-aesthetic. Then fore-knowledge would have been a better way then ending in a 5-man after slightly misleading the general public on both ends into expectancy of something else, like what it was or otherwise. Following the story left a lot of potential content that could have been that parallel event, nothing more then readable text (Yes, I’m KEENLY aware of the amount of energy/work that’d entail. It’s why devs are paid for that work).

As I say in another thread. I reverence the fact that they have their work cut out for them, but… Well, It seems when they learn a lesson, sometimes some present aren’t in attendance that day perhaps, then become the lead to future content.

To reiterate; stat-inflation for challenge, and bad scaling as a reason that ending this event with a 5-man dungeon being bad idea was outside of my point. My point was that they mislead both dungeon lovers and otherwise into believing the Living Story was one thing, when it was clearly another. It amounted to alienating a player-base, while it was misleadingly for that base by default.

It should have had the energy put into it more for both without forced cross over. It WAS and IS possible, as most of their energy was put into scavenge hunt, and NPC ‘press F’ interaction as it’s bulk… …

panzer.6034:

[…] They serve a purpose, but they’re a poor replacement for challenging content that requires multiplayer coordination.

Now this is a good point. It also plays outside of MMO sociality when being social in a heart-racing situation can get your party killed. Which is also a reason for the quiet i mentioned in my last post.

Now as it is, setting aside ‘numerical challenge’, and basic MMO sociality, the basic problem, is that the living story started out with lame mechanics, had a good tween, but was essentially as mentioned by another ‘bait and switch’, which isn’t the best way to execute an otherwise good idea. I’ve already completed the dungeon. Me and my wife as an Engineer and Ranger aced it up to the end boss. The odds were so stacked against us, she just handed me a cold beer and goes: “We’re using lfg.com”.

The dungeon two-man wasn’t as much as a challenge as people made it out to be… But the boss wasn’t beatable… The problem was, that the gameplay itself was the crux. It stank…

So the party shows up almost imediately, By that time i was numb and wanted the garbage overwith… So I died, and they killed the boss while i watched. Escaping the darn place was the most fun it produced. It was a light at the end of the tunnel.

I know challenge first hand.. My Engineer can solo heart-racing group-events in mid-level areas, where all agrro’s on just me (which is something i don’t do a lot, because it’s a tensity i don’t like in the game, but helps me keep sharp for when in a party). It’s all just basic MMORPG numerical mechanics with ‘manual skill’ being only there to ‘give you better odds of win to a mathematically arbitrary situation’… Nothing more…

panzer.6034:

This is part of the problem with the demands for stuff that isn’t a 5 man dungeon. The Maw is a joke. Jormag is a joke. The Shatter is a joke. All of the soloable mission are a joke. Anet has shown a distinct lack of ability to make epic, challenging and tactical experiences other than in 5 man dungeons. If you have an idea for something epic that they haven’t already tried and failed at, that would be great.

Your argument is two-way. So it really don’t produce much. Map events are a joke for repetition, they’re a joke in the way of ‘challenge’ as you say, but bring more people in once place then the dungeons do.

Most say pick up groups are loud and rude, but they forget some of them are quiet and anti-social, bordering on awkward when trying to break the ice with being social. You can get that in the map events as well. The point about ‘failing in epic challenge in all but 5-man dungeons’ in itself is a joke. It inadvertently implies that adding absurd statistics to dungeon mobs is the catalyst to a true challenge (seeing as that’s the core method to the challenges of 5-man dungeons in question). If they made the map events challenging in the same way as the dungeons (or even basic adventuring), you can watch the population drop at heart-racing levels.

The ‘QQ’ and ‘thread hijacking’ as people say, would sky rocket. Because as it is, challenges like these dungeons AREN’T rare in these games. It’s that over-partying and over-gearing is what takes away challenges. Dunno that I’d play a game where i start out with 800 HP, but bats and giant rats are dealing 789 hp a hit in basic zones, or I’m dealing 10 hp to the same mobs, but they have 1,000 hp. Then watch them agro me in droves. The basic ‘style of challenge’ that’s praised in dungeons would capture the game as a whole, but be nothing more then absurd numbers keeping the player base as a whole on their toes rather then ‘creative challenge’. The game’d not be the best thing to come home and unwind on.

Your post almost implies no real hope for the game in general when you consider these things a long side their counter-points.

Kusa.6438:

Also those who are complaining about the drop rate really need to stop QQing.
The idea behind it was to be a unique item that only a few people have. If everyone could get the jetpack, then everyone would be wearing it and no one would like it because it is not unique. I really like the idea behind limited extremely rare items in the game. I personally was able to buy mine for 60g the day of the patch. I knew the price would double, so I sold everything in my bank just to get one. I don’t think ANET should cater to everyone baby out there who wants everything handed to them.

This is true. Especially on an immersible level, the item itself is Horribly Lame. As an Engineer, I’d be pretty demeaned to walk around with a heavy clod of useless un-functional metal on my back. It’s bad enough there’s no real engineering theme in the game outside of dropping turrets for said immersibility. So walking around with some rusted junk i scavenged like a brain-dead Skritt in their weapons facility? Naw. Bad for the ol’ image.

If i put that on, all my Engineer friends’d go “Hey Jei! What’s with the twisted metal? Fix that thing’s function or toss it in the junk pile!”

As it is, all classes can fix broken machinery. All classes are war-machine technicians in World versus World.

So anything I could have to feel more “engineery” is a plus in my book. Crappy rusted metal on my back is a minus. Now I’d have to say, if engineers had steam pets, I’d jump all over it in a heartbeat on McDonald’s double cheese-burgers… … …

(EDIT: fixed “enineery” to “engineery”. Despite not being a real word, the typo made no sense at all)

Gill Halendt.2038:

So, after reading through this whole thread, I think I can safely assume that the “Multiplayer” part in MMO actually means “strictly a group of 5 or GTFO”.

Mkay…. Good to know, I thought I was playing a multiplayer game for just grouping with a couple of friends and interacting with people I met online…

Guess friends + random people in the open world doesn’t qualify as “multiplayer” anymore.

Short and sweet.

The truth in a nutshell. The original Guild Wars 2 premise we anticipated a few years before release is long lost. So has the true spirit of online RPGs. Thanks Everquest. Thanks World of Warcraft. Thanks Guild Wars 2. And most of all, I’d like to thank the fans who think confined dungeon cliches are the core of online game interaction. Couldn’t of been possible without you.

So yeah. Dunno any of this is going to help anymore. It’s just thread bumping now I think.

Varonica.8307:

Personally I am getting quite tired of the putdowns on here for anyone who doesn’t “love” dungeons, for the people who claim to be in an MMO for the social side of dungeongrouping it’s a rather hard claim to reconcile. Forced group dungeons are old school MMO[…]

Now this being true, can possibly date at the start of the third or so year of Ultima Online. In it’s first year mostly, it was marketed as a freestyle living world. The ‘MMO’ there meant “A game with living souls as ambiance”. traveling with others was part of the experience as well as that lone bounty-hunter having a cold one at the bar. It was a play-style that was an option not frowned upon. Then BOOM! all of a sudden “If you’re playing alone in our online game, you’re a waste of server space”. Playing with players AT LEISURE is what these games are about for me. Anyhoo, good post. I agree with ya’. (Heh. UO was funny in the beta. Hostile animals usually attacking you only when their hunger level dropped to far. Then they’d dismember your corpse. But that’s a bit extreme for all these hardcore gamers. Might give ‘em nightmares or somepin’…) Oh well… I’m possibly gettin’ off topic, sooo… Anyhoo…

It’s okay everyone. The only thing you’re missing is the limited edition items. The dungeon, which is pretty, has a lot of cool ideas, shows dev philosophy of one who just graduated, and landed their first job. I got to the ‘Beavis & Butthead/Laural & Hardy’ type end boss… So we have a boss fight that seem to be structured after later 3D Super Mario/Zelda games, but with enough hit points to make all that ‘exciting’ dodging more frustrating. It can take some time to weaken them both, only to have the boss completely restart on a wrong move. Your party has to resurrect you ‘fast’ like, standing in mass fields of fire. So no one get downed! Oh. And they’re steampunk, no apperent teleport mechenism installed, but… even if you stun them, they’ll teleport aaaaaall the way to the other side of the arena, so that you have to go on tiny happy little mini quest across flame ridden board to attack them again. But at least they made them say adorably silly things. Yup. didn’t make the battle more insulting at all! … … very charming…

Either way, this entire thing was a miss. The story was okay, the dungeon beautiful, but making it more like ‘singleplayer’ styled story end requiring a party seemed like a gameplay conflict. Essentially though, if you hate dungeons for their repetition of waves of trash drones, bosses with enough HP to make you lose simply because you went over twenty minutes of mindless fighting to make those life-bars hit 0 then yeah, if you try it, more power to ya’. But i don’t recommend it. Some love the hacking away at a mob for a ‘twenty minute eternity’… Some love running dungeons for a few hours a run… Some like doing those runs times ‘X’ amount of times… Some simply have a lot of time to burn. This is what this game seems to be about now.

Anyhoo, I very much doubt that they’re reading this thread anymore guys. They made it obvious in their post on what kind of feedback they want. Just let it go. Suck up the time you wasted on the event, and move on.

DoctorOverlord.8620:

The difference is that you don’t need to be a hardcore to simply log on to MMOs anymore. MMO players can now share the online experience with a much wider variety of players and far more of them. Frankly, I think that is being far truer to the term ‘Massively Multiplayer Online Game’ than past products which only appealed to a small, very niche segment of gamers.

Very true. And what’s also something for many to consider, is partying up is fun. But do you want a further challenge? Find a huge army-based group event in an area less populated… Solo it… Then you’ll know who the REAL hardcore player is. Anyone can party up and ace an event with teamwork, but how do you fare in a group event army alone as a class without portable punching bags to lessen the agro on your character. How about being tricky and soloing the 5-man dungeons. Most of you dungeon crawlers have a weak definition of ‘hardcore’ anyway. But setting that aside, there’s a diverse set of reasons this lifeless Instance is a killer to the entire living-story premise.

Did ya’ catch that Medina? I’ve been in their alone, to see if it was playable by just me and my wife. It might very well be if I can get her in at the right time. I soloed the first room pretty nicely, and then left. So far it seems like a creative piece of work… But for repetitive “Groundhog Day” experience to be what lessens the ‘force’ of the Molten Alliance the world over is not immersive nor living… It’s silly. Now if the facility was say a 100-player instance without party formality, as an on going melee as a small but full subterranean map, then the little world bar on the side’d be justified. And if the instance capped at 100 people and created another instance, then maybe it’d make more sense: A mass group event… But there’s a whole gaggle of problems that’d be attached to that too. Lag being the main. And not as much more creative about a 4-day onslaught, just like the one-time event happening over and over and over to determine the power of an enemy isn’t a living story.

What you need is a living story that uses the map without all this sign fixing garbage leading up to an event dungeon that has no effect on the world what-so-ever… But… Uh oh… More issues arise there too, because now the world CAN’T change much without contradiction to personal story. If anything, the Personal Story will stifle any real attempt to make your world live in the long term. Heck… I’m quite frankly tired of seeing no resolution to the waves of Risen… It’ll always be new to the newbie, but eventually they too will see the cleansing of Orr and stopping of Zaitan pointless, having no impact on the world…

So your living events will continue to be one-time happenings along side epic final battles that happen over and over every 2 hours like the movie groundhog day, stuck in a time warp years before any ‘current’ events… We fight waves of Molten Alliance, so we can run them out of the world permanently, on the same map we’re running the Brothers of Svanir out of the world over and over and over, or Separatists opposing a treaty that’ll never get signed. These conflicts are bigger then you think. It’s more then just ending with a 5-man dungeon run… It’s the fact you’ve deviated away from the original plan to make this plastic barbie world breath. And forcing people to party up for story resolution, or the like, kills the point of “lets add something for everyone” and kills the chance of true community diversity.

By the way: Making the story lead up to being overrun by tunnle machines on the map, and a homestead being ransacked, only to end in a confined dungeon in some crevice in the world is VERY unclimactic. Holbrak and/or Black Citadel being overrun leaving a lasting mark on the world would be a lot more fun. But it’d have to be instanced again to be ‘newbie friendly’, and, well… These past few months show that a real living story is to much to ask. You’re better off just adding lengthy event chains to existing dynamic events, while adding more lengthy dynamic event chains that move throughout the world allowing people to see the world by following events… Oh, but wait, you can’t because all maps are walled off from each other. I will reverence the obvious work you kids have cut out for you for sure… But setting all that aside, congrats on the dungeon structure itself. Very creative…

MrTastix.6842:

Congratulations! You’ve successfully discovered the multiplayer portion of this Massively Multiplayer Online Game! What’s your reward? More snark from yours truly!
[…]
It’s not a singleplayer game, for Christ’s sake. MMOs become nothing without at least a little social interaction. Why bother playing an MMO if you can get similar combat (and better, in most cases) from a singleplayer game that’ll offer you the solo-experience you so desire?

The problem with this shallow thinking, is that you imply that because they don’t like a 5-man dungeon cliche at the end of a non-dungeon event, you assume they don’t interact with the public, and thus ‘discovered the Multiplayer portion’ of the game, when in fact that I’m sure they understood that portion started by hitting ‘log in’. It means they interact with people in ‘MMO mode’ all the time, and enjoy it, or they’d not be playing. But they decide that 5-man dungeon runs of any kind isn’t fun to them. Uh oh. Now you think they’re anti social, because they belong to a guild, and help more then just 5 people on the field all the time, but avoid 5-man dungeon runs… Can’t assume they’re throwing out multi- interaction because they dislike 5-man dungeons… … Here’s some advice for ya’, Kid: “Elephants are grey. But not all grey things are elephants.” Can you understand what I just told you? Did you read this post successfully? Can you see how that advice is relevant to your line of thinking? … … …Didn’t think so.

So consider the following: “Bacon is tasty, and it is food. Therefore all food to me is tasty!” That last statement would be false, correct? It’s fine that you may like and agree with this dungeon. But others do not, and are just as valid as you. It’s good to come up with counter points that don’t rely on weak and rough generalization. Yes they solo, yes, they played the personal story. If they really are anti-social, then know that MMOs aren’t living worlds without living personalities. A true online community needs social as well as anti-social behavior, or it’s artificial. As for me, I’m both. Out going, but quiet. I party up one moment, then unwind by soloing another moment. If i played a single for that moment, then the fun of running into someone new in some way or another would be forfeit.

Tawa.3180:

Since when is a 5 man party considered a raid? WoW went from about 40 man raids to 15. Those numbers are higher than 5 and are made of multiple 5 man parties.
5 people is just a party, not a raid.

Yeah yeah, I know you hate partying and stuff so much but at least get your terms right when it comes to the difference between a party and a raid even if you don’t participate in either.

Alternatively, you could read more before posting. Setting aside the idea of the dungeon structure of Guildwars 2 dungeons being pretty much a raid-style due to house-cat sized drone baddies individually dealing the damage and having the durability of twenty-story ogre beasts (which is a disconsistency to the rest of Tyria strangely enough DOES contradict the ‘Living Wold’ factor they seem to almost live on when explaining the game in PR), many have outlined their reasons for disliking dungeons. Many of them irrelevant to partying up, and basic sociality (assuming that is/or works as an English word). Many of them not only party up on the field, but socialize in large groups and guilds possibly more then you do, for all I know. It’s very possible to have real reasons to disliking 5-man dungeon runs, due to the game-play style of those dungeons, while setting aside 5-man partying. To carefully reiterate for you: Some are saying ‘solo-friendly’, but others have other distinct reasons. And quite frankly, any of them more legit then most of the simpletons here will admit to, since they play the game socially already, and are allowed to not be your clone in interest. You and others already have a ton of lengthy dungeons to run. It’s not like they’re implying all your content should be removed. If you decide to read the posts rather then quick skimming, you’ll see that.

Slither Shade.4782:

Just make the dungeon gears free and whatever else is desired from the dungeons free. Problem now solved and no need to run the tedious terrible dungeons. Kidding but really why are you even in there?

Because the prizes in the achievements are a must to those who don’t have your apparent time to play. They fall behind when unable to get said rewards. They force people to do dungeons by offering the carrot on a stick. You get the reward along with the others more reachable. Then others fall behind because of unreachable goals for them. I mean, congrats on you achieving max gear, and having the time and patience to run these dungeons in over coordinated groups, but some of us have real life responsibilities in between game time, and can’t have that luxury. This person is entering the dungeon because it’s required to receive the same candy you’re getting Kid. In all seriousness, not handing out anything for free as you satirically say, but removing social-class specific activities from the monthly achievement.

Well, welcome to Guildwars 2. It is fun, but dungeons require a lot of tip-toe precision. As i see it, their difficulty is only realistic for advanced rewards and the like. As it is, you’re allowed to do personal stories alone, with a possibly normal amount of difficulty for occasional close calls that make them exciting. Where that difficulty is realistic for advanced play, it’s not so much for consistency to the main personal story. When i do the personal story, it’s enjoyable, until i reach the dungeons. feeling like a hero in the mainstream, then in side-canon being kicked around by drone-enemies who have boss-strength individually , finishing the dungeon with no shred of armor and dignity left is a real ‘living story’ killer. As said, the difficulty is good for advanced play. But for those new, doing an exciting personal story sometimes want a more fundamental reward: Experiencing lore. I see no problem allowing people experiencing said stories getting a preview of these dungeons by giving a moderate and realistic difficulty to start. If we have no problem letting people barely solo a personal story, or with one other friend at the end of a hard long day at work to unwind, then what’s the problem with letting them see side canon under the same conditions, with minimal rewards like the story mode? But i think this has been under discussion all over the forums for two months or so. If they were to be more realistic in the way i layed out, bugs and exploits have to be fixed first. But if they can’t “embrace simplicity” at the end of this, then all we can do is just accept that starting new and being un-practiced at the game simply means… No side stories for you… An alternative for those wanting to see the side stories you intitialy miss, there’s always Youtube. Or… Just wait untill you’ve achieved good upper-level armor, know your way around the combat system, and team up with others under the same conditions. Don’t sound to ideal for a simple fundamental goal of ‘experiencing the game’, but… There it is…