Showing Posts For Thrognar.4186:
What’s worse than a fractal run where a player disconnects and can’t get back in? Having a party-member disconnect during the last third of the run, log back in, go to the gate, try to enter, and then EVERYBODY IN THE GROUP gets yanked back to LION’S ARCH. Happened twice today, first time was during part 1, second time was during part 3. This is more than frustrating.
Act 3 Scene 1:
<Just seconds ago, players defeated the second fractals boss after a 5th player suddenly abandoned the group . The party, though weary, were optimistic about their chances in the third fractal. They grab their chest and hit “ready,” to have only 3 of them teleported to the harpy area.>
Player 1 notices blacked out portrait for player 4, whose character is also missing on his screen (location reads… Lion’s Arch)…
Player 1: “Hey where’d <Insert Misspelled Character Name> go?”
Player 2: “DC prolly”
Player 1: “Grrrr, I don’t want to 3-man this, you guys think we can do it?”
Player 2: “It’s harpies, piece of cake. Last one, anyway. Not quitting now.”
Player 4: “Sorry guys, crashed out. OMW.”
5 seconds later, portrait appears (location reads… fractals of the mists)
3 seconds later, dungeon replaced with LION’S ARCH LOADING SCREEN.
20 seconds later, entire party ranting outside the fractals portal.
FIN
What gives?
ONE-TIME EVENTS
Personally, I hate the idea of these one-time events because I really like this game and would like to participate in all the events, but I can’t. Many players have commitments that prevent them from logging in. I know many people, hardcore and casual alike, would like to enjoy all the content that Guild Wars 2 has to offer. But these one-time events, due to their time restrictions, are highly exclusionary.
ONE-TIME EVENT SUGGESTIONS
Allow players to enter a portal into an instance, available once every 2 hours for a day, that will allow them to relive the one-time event on their own schedule. If there aren’t enough players, combine them with players from other servers. I also don’t want to be able to walk up to a vendor and just ask for the reward. I want to experience the full content with the rest Guild Wars 2 community.
GHOST TOWNS IN SUB-80 AREAS
Speaking of communities, the game had a vibrant population that has since tapered off and dwindled a bit. This is especially noticeable on low-population servers, when looking for a dungeon party, and in sub-80 areas. There really is no incentive for level 80’s to enter a sub-80 area. Something must be done because casuals who have lagged behind in leveling their characters are finding it harder to complete many events solo. Some events are very tough to solo even while downscaled with full exotics and ample playing experience, so what do we expect of a casual with only greens and blues? Will he be able to defend a circle by himself? Slay a champion alone? How about guarding two spawn points simultaneously? That said, we need more players in the sub-80 areas. It’s good for the community, otherwise it will be harder to level ALTS, and especially difficult for newer players to enjoy the game. Many casual players I know have not even finished leveling their first character, which is very difficult when adventuring alone. I mean, how much fun would it be if you were level 1, entered Queensdale, and nobody was nearby to help you defeat the centaurs or kill the rogue bull? How long would you stick around in a desolate wasteland? My first character breathed MMO, my alt’s experience reeks of single player.
SUGGESTIONS FOR INCENTIVIZING SUB-80 EXPLORATION
There are not enough low level Dynamic Events for people to run to and from, so more event chains would incentivize players to stick with each other for longer periods of time. This develops a sense of community and camaraderie among players –albeit anonymously. Meanwhile, implementing a larger event notification radius helps players, particularly in sparsely populated areas. In fact, event notifications and timers could spawn on the world map for adjacent areas. This should be coupled with increased event rewards for participants and a decrease in low-level area waypoint traveling fees. Make it worth our while to join a low level event while I’m doing my world exploration or harvesting. Sometimes, I find myself not compelled to help at an event because killing a nearby pack of monsters or gathering some nodes is more profitable than running toward an event for a meager reward.
Why not incentivize 80’s to return to sub-80 areas by giving them loot drops that are equivalent to Orr or Frostgorge Sound? Make this an option in the options menu. If a level 80 player wants to farm for tiny scales in a level 10 area, he may. But he may also select to farm T5 and T6 scales from the same monsters, albeit with a lower drop rate –he does kill them faster while downscaled compared to a level 80 drake, after all. This mode also downlevels characters to level -1 instead of level +1, for the added challenge of course.
Allow players to reset their world completion to 0%, while introducing new points of interest and vistas to those areas. Make certain boss monsters on each map a mandatory objective to achieve map completion. Make the reward for a second world completion worthy of the 40-hour investment.
Raise the event completion rewards of doing lower level events to be higher than doing level 80 events, from experience to karma to silver. Spread out the resource nodes for various high level crafting materials to be available for harvest (only by level 80’s) in low level areas. Change the chests to give out only level 80 equipment when opened by a level 80 character. Place level 80 storyline instances in low level areas. Allow players to see where other players are on the map so that they can cluster together. Start scavenger hunts in low level areas. Just give high level players a reason to leave Orr and help repopulate low level areas.
IN CLOSING
I really like this game, and would like to continue playing it for a long time. While I am not a casual player, I can see that Guild Wars 2 is becoming less and less welcoming for them. ANET, please don’t let this continue.
CRAFTING MATERIAL PRICES
The high prices of crafting materials hurt casual players the most. They don’t have stacks of resources that can hedge against price hikes or inflation. They played casually and have not acquired the materials needed to craft their items yet. They don’t earn gold easily either. Many of them will take weeks just to get the orichalcum alone, especially if they don’t search for maps of spawn points online. I’m not saying that we make things easier necessarily, but purchasing these crafting materials off the trading post is no longer an option for these players, especially if they haven’t already leveled their crafting up. As a semi-casual or hardcore player, money is relatively easy to acquire because of farming and trading post transactions. Casuals don’t farm and they don’t play the TP. But before you start saying that they’re stupid for not doing so, or that they should, or that it’s easy, let’s remind everyone of ArenaNet’s original vision of making the game fun without requiring massive amounts of farming. Now, let’s see if that still holds true.
After I respecced for farming runs, dressed in full exotics and sporting 70% magic find, I went to Frostgorge Sound to farm some snow trolls, ice drakes, and grawl. I did several runs over several days, separated by other activity to diminish the effect of diminishing returns. It was exceptionally boring, but that was beside the point. In each half-hour, after two-hundred dead grawl each time, I averaged 3 rare drops, 12 Intricate Totems, and 2 Elaborate totems per run. Let’s compare that to the average casual who can’t engage 6 grawl at once, doesn’t have any magic find, doesn’t have a decent build, and doesn’t have exotic equipment? What do think his haul is going to be? Comparing your 10g per hour playing the TP or 2G per hour farming Shelter’s Gate is an unfair comparison because you’ve already got the capital and the gear. How many hours will it take a casual player to farm the T5’s and T6’s required to level to 400 and craft his first exotics? The casuals are being forced to farm to be competitive. On top of this, farming gear is pretty expensive and they probably aren’t too excited to be buying gear to participate in an activity they despise doing in the first place. Imagine paying for the privilege of cleaning someone’s toilet. That’s what farming feels like for casuals. It stinks and they’re not buying it.
Some will say that the casuals don’t deserve to have good equipment if they’re not willing to work for it. I’d agree, except that ANET promised them a relatively grind-free experience, and high crafting materials prices inadvertently force players to farm. Others will dismiss the plight of the economic plight of the casuals altogether by suggesting they can sell their found materials on the trading post. This ignores the fact that most casuals will likely keep their crafting materials and not will sell them. They don’t have income other than from events and occasional loot from kills. They don’t already have a stack of 250 powerful bloods, and they haven’t experienced enough of the game to decide on a “final build”. So they’re going to save their crafting materials. A hardcore player might have 2-3 sets of equipment to fit every occasion, but a casual will most likely end their game with just one set, and they’ll have to think about what to make. These prices make it more difficult for these casual players to reach their “optimum” state, thus affecting performance in say… Dungeon PUGs.
CRAFTING MATERIAL SUGGESTIONS
I suggest that we increase drop rates for crafting materials. Yes, crafting mats will be worth much less with increased supply, but more supply leads to greater access. It doesn’t hurt anybody to double drop rates because legendaries will still be hard to obtain even if Earth Elementals drop 2 Lodestones per hour of farming, but casuals will be way better off because of this change. (If it’s such a big deal among current legendary holders, then refund some materials through the mystic forge. Old legendary = New legendary + materials.) Besides, if precursors are going to be easier to obtain, then demand for legendary component materials will increase, which will decrease supply, which will further increase prices. Supply issues are not good for anybody in the long run.
The powergamers and semi-casuals have been vocal about their concerns, but the voices of the casual players are still under-represented in the forums. These players would rather play the game than express their thoughts here, but their opinions are still important. I’ve taken on their perspective of the game through my own gaming experience and through conversations with other casual players. I’m not pretending to speak for all, or even most casual players, just a few who don’t read or visit the forums much. Here is how a portion of us feel about:
DUNGEONS
Completing dungeons in a PUG full of casuals is tough. My last group collected a total of 4 rares for a collective 10 hours of dungeoneering. Yes, dungeons aren’t about loot, but that is precisely why we took half an hour form a group -nobody wanted to run it. Hardcore players either have their tokens or already have dedicated speed-farming groups, while many casuals don’t find dungeons to be rewarding enough for the effort. Couple this with a low-population server, dwindling player base, newer exciting dungeons, and the greater need to farm for gold, older dungeons won’t see much action.
In addition to the lack of incentives to enter a dungeon, something must be said about the difficulty of dungeons in Explorable Mode for casual players. PUGS don’t focus fire, rotate disables, or coordinate combos. PUGS just play, and these dungeons are too hard for casual PUGS to enjoy. Telling casuals to not do dungeons until they “L2P” is unconstructive and damages the community. It is exclusionary, and we get the kind of dungeon participation that we have now: power groups that blaze through everything and PUGS that barely make it and won’t try it again.
DUNGEON SUGGESTIONS
Since everything is scaled in the game anyway, from loot to monsters, I would suggest a CASUAL/SCALABLE MODE, that scales the difficulty of monsters to be proportional to the group’s equipment score or specific dungeon completions. Obviously, the rewards would be much less than Explorable mode, but this would make for a much more enjoyable casual playing experience, all without lessening the challenge and rewards the hardcore players in the normal dungeons. Furthermore, the lack of dungeoneers can be solved by increasing the incentives for doing dungeons through better chest and completion rewards. There are already daily achievements, so how about a weekly dungeon achievement that is not tied to the monthly or daily achievement?
Some very good points and reasonable suggestions have already been made above. The bots provided the supply to meet the demand from max-leveled characters, whether they be garbage rares for the mystic forge or crafting materials for exotics. With this supply gone, prices have already gone up and will continue to rise as demand builds. This is great news for people who like to farm, as their profits will be greater for now, but this is just the tip of the iceberg. The math says that if 12S garbage rares result in 150-300G precursors, 17S garbage rares will soon cause an proportional adjustment in precursor prices as well. And it doesn’t stop there either, as other commodities will also catch up in price as well. If I have to pay more for an item, I have to sell my own items for more. It’s all relative.
I can understand if players want to farm for a Legendary Skin, because they are truly optional and don’t affect gameplay. Yes, the cost to build one is excessive, but it’s still a personal choice to pursue that particular endgame objective. On the other hand, I feel that a full set of exotics for a level 80 character is absolutely essential. It is required to stay competitive in WvW, dungeons, and improve overall playability. Throw in a full set of superior runes and sigils as well, and you could be running into a significant financial barrier for many players. The price increases of crafting materials directly influence the cost of obtaining end-game exotic gear. Fewer garbage rares, lodestones, and fine crafting materials will result in decreased supply of ectoplasm, runes, sigils, and exotics. This obviously doesn’t affect the hardcore players as much, since they will farm items to sell at inflated prices if they have to, but hits the casuals the hardest since they are on a fixed income of event rewards and vendor trash. I mean, seriously, who does higher prices hurt more, the Cursed Shore farmer who sells his proportionally priced rares at the TP, or the casual player who earns 1S 98C from selling the green item to the game vendor?
In the end, Mr. Smith indicates that we get one result from the loss of bots: the rise of more player farmers, hardcore and casual alike. Veterans will need to farm for their ambitious legendaries, and newly minted 80’s will need to farm for their competitive gear. Really? ANET wants more farmers? Are we are simply replacing bot farmers with player farmers, and all the while the price hikes will be felt across every aspect of the game, from eggs to ectoplasm? At least the bots didn’t increase demand. Is this a reversal in ideology, where farming is now definitely required of any player who wants to be competitive. I thought we could be competitive without grinding too much, if at all –wasn’t that what was originally advertised?
Despite what I just read, I still believe this is a supply problem, amplified by the ambitious and taxing requirements needed for building end-game gear (legendary or othewise), that was once alleviated by bots. Without increasing greater supply, or reducing demand, prices will continue to rise, and a vicious inflationary cycle continues. But, are people going to stop throwing rares into the mystic forge? No, but when they pull out a garbage exotic, they’ll sell it at a price proportional to how much the ingredients cost. Therefore, you can’t limit demand and the only other option is to fix the supply issue. While the idea to lessen the effect of diminishing returns or delay the effect of diminishing returns would help, that just further encourages grinding and farming. Even better would be a revamped loot table to allow for increased fine material and rare/exotic drops, such that casuals and semi-hardcore players would not have to rely so much on the trading post to get their materials. Having higher priced materials on the trading post doesn’t address the fundamental issue of low supply, it just makes everything, and I mean EVERYTHING, cost more. This doesn’t hurt player farmers, it hurts everyone else, especially the casuals, newly-minted 80’s, and especially the people who bought gems with real money. Their cash/gems/gold now has less buying power.
C’mon ANET, we’re happy you got rid of the bots, but please fix the supply problem too.