Guild Wars 2

Survivor is present in GW2, you have to get the required amount of experience (200,000 or 500,000, I think… It’s listed under the Hero tab in the achievements) without leaving the map (You can’t leave Gendarran Fields, for example) or else it resets the progress. I am not sure if waypoints count as map-travel or not. You can die, you just have to earn the XP BETWEEN deaths, like the modified form is in Guild Wars.

We already have a broom you can fly, so ArenaNet is coming up with differnt cosmetics for travelling. I do like the idea of achievements getting tied to dynamic events. Gives a meta-game reason to do them.

@CattivoUomo: Not necessarily. Let’s say you finished the defense of Falias Thorpe and routed the Nightmare troops. I arrived just after you finished that event. Now the next event in the chain is triggered, while I did not help with the attack, I can help building palisades and bulwarks to make the next attack harder, or I can infiltrate the nearby Nightmare Court outpost, or if the game has “Carebear” options for players I could be a merchant and establish better supply lines to Falias Thorpe, or tend to the wounded, and so on. That’s what I meant with the longer chains. Have gradual rebuilding activities that go on for a while, where one can see the landscape change. This way even if you beat the major attack before I get there, it’s not a non-event for me, just a different event. This would be closer to the immersion ArenaNet claimed they were going for when they designed the game.

As I said before: PvP already has it in limited fashion where you build siege weaponry or repair walls and so forth. I have no problem with the content changing and thus my experience changing. If I fought the Champion Troll and defended the outlying farms in Shaemoor while you defended the Garrison, I did something different. I would like to see a game where there are no fixed quests that EVERYONE does the same thing, but where they change. Have it on a loop, reset after a week or a month, then if I come back with a different character or the same one, the event chain could unfold differently for me. I know that this is much work to design the flow-chart for these quest trees. Much of it is already there in basic form/proof of concept form already with Guild Wars 2.

I hope this clarifies what I was getting at in my previous post.

At this point I just can’t be bothered to do any of them any more. Same with Living World stuff. I just don’t care. Champs are supposed to be tough, I get it, but when you can’t even beat them solo with appropriate level anymore? Or what was the whole point of defeating the bandit raid on the resevoire when the same bandits try the same thing 15 mins later because a timer said so? This was supposed to be a game that is different from World of Warcraft. Right now the only thing to reccommend GW2 over WoW is the fact that you don’t pay monthly subscription fees.

If I beat back a bandit raid, the same event shouldn’t spawn 15 mins later. The chains need to be longer, or the respawns longer. I get that designing long branching chains is a challenge and time consuming, but I’d rather see that and have living world events last like Flame and Frost did. I don’t mind waiting a month or two between Living world updates if it means that my actions make a difference in the game and that the living world events are more intricate. Right now it’s find X hideouts, kill Y of Z and blah blah blah…

I’d love to see it where an event could be started by finding plans to attack the resevoire, so what happens if you go and clear out the cave? The attack doesn’t happen, but instead, survivors now infiltrated the local constabulary and start sabotaging the town. Now you have to track them down… or you build defenses or you have to scout for outposts or massing centaur attacks or whatever. Anything, even if the event chains were on a weekly cycle and much longer, it would make the game interesting to play, or even make the non-pvp elements more player driven. Let players establish businesses and trade routes, give the option of doing “carebear” stuff like in EVE Online. Instead of dealing with regular bandit attacks, blow up one of the back cave entrances, and establish something else in there.

Much of this is already around in PVP where you can build fortifications, repair walls, build seige machines, disrupt caravans and so forth. I understand the balance concerns for PVP, but GW1 actually had PVE and PVP specific versions of skills, so when you enter WvWvW your skills are switched to the more controlled PvP forms maintaining balance, while you don’t have to worry as much about that in PvE.

I liked how Flame and Frost was set up. It was the only LS that I actually made an effort to complete. Since then I just don’t care. It’s all the same grindy-fetch quest over and over again. The dungeons are annoying to say the least even when you’re scaled up to level 80 for them, and with no solo mode I just don’t want to bother with them because spending 3 hours and dying over and over again isn’t my idea of fun. I don’t necessarily mind the idea that I won’t complete everything, but then at least have elements for all levels where the activities contribute to the overall evolution of the world.

It really doesn’t feel like a living world, it feels like a bunch of Burning Crusade intros every two weeks from World of WarCraft, and anyone who joins late is frozen out. At the very least allow the events to be replayed through Fractals and add a solo-mode option for the Dungeons. Challenging is one thing, but getting TPKed because the pick up group you’re with bites is something else. Making it easier to communicate with players would be another plus.

As it stands, it really doesn’t feel like the Hero of Shaemoor’s actions mean a single kittening thing to the evolution of Tyria or even Kryta or Shaemoor. I’ve killed a bazillion bandits and yet every X mins they over-run the reservoire again. How stupid are the Seraph that they can’t even build better defenses or collapse the cave access routes or something… I mean that could be part of dynamic events. I’d rather see longer more intricate chains of events in the world and fewer LS updates with the attentant cosmetic swag… it doesn’t feel very immersive to me as it is.

@DrProfessor: agreed, I’d also like the living story to be less fetch-questy. Have the achievements actually mean something, not “You found all the kibbles Snuffles the Warthog spilled!” Another nice touch would be the option for challenging solo-dungeons, because, right now, it’s hard to get through any of the dungeons, not the least cause of which is the current insanity that the game doesn’t let you use terrain and strategy to dispose of targets. You cannot clear enemies by knocking them off cliffs, but they can do that to you, and you can get rid of annoying gankers in PvP by using a knock-back skill on them and clearing them off the cliff or platform.

If you don’t want champs to be too easy, just give them immunity or resistance to knockback effects (many already have this anyway). In GW a huge part of combat was placing your Rangers and Elementalists on the high ground to reign destruction down, but frequently in GW2 enemies are simply immune to your attacks if you attack from a strategic position. They also have this thing about “Sorry, you’re not allowed to target the leader with your ranger from the bridge above, because we require you to go through the gauntlet.” This is as annoying and immersion-breaking as Left 4 Dead 2 or other FPS that don’t let you climb fences at all or prevent you from climbing over fences until you purchase the fence-climbing-augment (Deus Ex: Human Revolution).

Guild Wars 2 was supposed to be the MMO for people who don’t like MMOs and it was supposed to be immersive and your actions matter, instead it’s everyone running around killing the same champ again and again, and the fact I did it or worked hard to do it matters no one whit right now… nor does any of the living story really seem to matter, everyone’s going through the same instanced event, except that there are some rare item drops that you have to grind the dungeon/event for…

Something else I’d like to see, that is much easier to implement: stop having coyotes drop weapons and armour. There is no reason they’d have weapons or money or armour. Let us use their pelts for crafting and so on, but have the drops make sense for the target that had them. Let me salvage bits from bandits or make use of their lockpicks and repair them…

Slate, I sent an email to ANet as well outlining much of this. Based on their manifesto video I thought I was getting something more living and immersive. Dragon Bash did lead to Aetherblade and Cutthroat Politics, but since I don’t have any high-level characters I cannot really participate much in it, and pick-up groups for the dungeons are usually crap. You spend 2+ hours trying to complete a dungeon and most of that is dying because no one is coordinated and PUGS don’t listen to chat strategy.

ANet doesn’t help by pulling stunts like making targets invulnerable to rangers or elementalists raining arrows or fire down on them from a bridge or across a chasm.

I was thinking that for dynamic events and longer chains one could even go to monthly cycle-resets. Say a group defends Shaemoor or locations in Kessex and totally routs the centaurs. A bunch of centaurs retreat, now the DEs are scouting, building fortifications. Elements from WvW and bases need to be added to PvE. But it’s makes it feel like such a chore when every. single. mob. in the densly populated forest is hostile. Come on. Single Coyotes are not going to go after a fire-slinging mage. Get stalked by packs of them sure, but I find exploring to be such a chore when it’s kill for less that 1% of my experience needed to level every 15s, and then when I need to retreat I get a bajillion spawns dropped on me. It’s like all critters breed like E. coli.

It’d be fine if it was just ghosts, elementals and shades. That would make that something unique about them. Give players the option to drive off an attack by forcing the bandits and centaurs to retreat or they could persue and massacre them all, but then the consequence would be the more you massacre the more hordes of undead prowl around for the next X time intervals…

I would rather have slower Living Story updates and more immersive elements to GW2 than faster but everyone does the same thing.

Right now GW2 is such that it doesn’t feel like my hero had any real impact on the world. I don’t mind not having completed a champion fight with the troll this month because I was defending the resevoir instead, but I don’t like that after all the high-concept talk in ANet’s MMO manifesto, the bandits I put down defending Shaemoor pop back up again in 15min and ruin the resevoire anyway, or that the Champ troll is back 20mins later. This is EXACTLY what Ree Soesbee said they didn’t consider cool in the manifesto video. It’s also what makes GW2 a polished MMORPG that solved many of the annoyances that traditionally plagued persistent world MMOs but it doesn’t really come across as something I could reccommend to a person who hates MMOs. They’re going to dislike this as well.

Flame & Frost went in the right direction… Dragon Bash less so, though the Sky Pirates got back into a good direction with investigation and so forth… The thing is, these feel like the instanced versions of Guild Wars, rather than a truly living, evolving world where what I do matters. It doesn’t… at least not until the next update and even then the same bandits keep trashing the resevoire on a regular basis, and Shaemoor doesn’t even bother adding patrols.

I’d love to see living story where I might not have been there for the epic first fight, but I can come along and help build fortifications or fend off patrols, conduct espionage missions. I would love to see the environment change and evolve depending on if Shaemoor Garrison successfully repelled the last centaur attack and at what cost?

I haven’t even been bothering with most of the living story events after Flame & Frost. That was interesting (though the pick-up group for the dungeon elements was freaking frustrating… but then again pick-up groups are hit and miss most of the time anyway).

The issue with Guild Wars 2 is that I expected something different based on their MMO manifesto. But as it’s designed right now, it’s less like the player-driven universe of EVE Online and more like World of WarCraft. It’s a well-designed game, and I do enjoy playing it but I get tired of all the needle-in-a-haystack-metagamey-100%-completion-hunting type goals. The more recent one with the investigation was interesting, but the Aetherblade hideouts were freakishly annoying with the pick-up groups. I didn’t even finish them. A challenge is one thing, but when I die as often as you do in a quarter-guzzling arcade game like Gauntlet, I don’t even want to bother any more.

The Living Story model is good, but it would be more unique and immersive if my actions actually had an impact… saving a refugee caravan ticks off some achievement counter, but really is irrelevant, because the monsters attacking them are back 15mins later and the caravan is down anyway… rinse and repeat. Good way to level, but doesn’t feel very immersive…

Targeting mechanics: the “Next Target” goes to either neutral or hostile target depending on which is closer. Given the pace of the battles I think it would be better to give target priority to hostile targets in range of the character when hitting “nearest target”.

When there are downed players and lootable bodies around, it would be nice if when approaching the downed player, the game would give the revive prompt priority over loot. I’ve had to frequently try to select the player manually among the pile of over-lapping bodies to revive them because all I get is the search body prompt. The body will still be there after I revive the player, and even if it wasn’t the drops are usually mediocre or junk anyway, so it’s not like I lose much by not looting bodies.

Mikecoby.8143:

Look, I know this HAS already been talked about in the forums, but I don’t want to sit around, find it and then see they still haven’t done anything about it so I’m going to post a NEW forum! Sorry, but don’t troll about that. I’m bringing it to their attention, again. The squeaky wheel gets the grease.

I get it, you don’t want a healer classes to be needed so EVERYONE can enjoy the game solo or form parties where certain classes aren’t needed. This way everybody can just get all these dps classes together, smash and click buttons, and have a mindless good ol’ time. ^ (The reason you grds and wars have no voke and there is no healing mage and or weapon whatsoever, if you don’t already know that.) Understandable. But, did you know, you’re leaving out players that enjoy that class the MOST?

Probably, which is why I may not be playing this game much longer. Shame too, because other than these two failures, I could see myself playing this game the most, buying a LOT of gem and you would be sure to make a lot more money off me.

Yours Truly,
ALL mmo main healers and tanks <3

P.S
I attached a picture of content similar to what I’m asking for. Please make something like it. Hey, maybe even just a little weapon?

Healer/Tank/DPS trinity is Healer/Control/Damage in Guild Wars 2. If you have a look at the classes the Guardian is pretty much the Monk from Guild Wars or the Priest in World of WarCraft.

I run a Guardian, for Healing/Boon I have the following weapons: Staff and Mace/Focus to switch between. Most of the Utility skills have a healing or boon effect for allies as do many of the weapon based skills for Staff, Mace and Focus.

Just a quick look at the weapon skills for a Healing primary role: Mace chain: True Strike-Pure Strike-Faithful Strike (the last heals nearby allies) this is the first attack chain you get equipping a mace the first time. Symbol of Faith: Damage enemies and regenerate allies in the area. Protector’s Strike: Shiled allies, deals damage to foes that strike protected allies, grants protection boon to allies if you’re not struck.

Focus: Ray of Judgement grants regeneration and cures a condition on allies that it’s cast on.

Shield off-hand: Shield of Judgement grants protection to you and 5 allies, Shield of Absorbtion protects against projectiles over an area and can be detonated to heal allies.

Torch’s Cleansing Flame cures conditions on Allies.

Healing breeze: AoE for yourself and Allies.

Trident has 4 of its 5 skills buff or heal allies.

Utility Skills that grant boons or heal: Hallowed Ground, Purging Flames, Merciful Intervention, Hold the Line, Retreat, Save Yourself, Stand Your Ground, Signet of Judgement, Signet of Mercy (active function), Bow of Truth

Two of your three Elites are Healing and support function for allies. Tome of Courage is grants boons and heals, Tome of Wrath grants boons and increases allies’ damage output.

So, I’m not really sure what you’re meaning when you say there’s no Healer class in Guild Wars 2. Nor am I sure what you’re talking about when you say that it’s just a button-mashing mindless DPS-fest, either. I’d say you haven’t tried taking on Champion Bosses, or WvWvW PvP… You don’t last very long with no Control and Healing support from allies and button-mashing there. It’s possible to run Dungeons with Damage-only parties, but again you need to employ strategy or you get dead very very fast…

Collision detection, invisible walls in the jumping puzzles are making things frustrating. I’ve had many falls because I did land on the target platform, but slid off some invisible wall. Fix the cursed camera. Forcing the camera through the back of my head because a wall or stalactite is nearby and then vibrating it so I can’t even effectively orient isn’t helping in challenging jumping puzzles. I don’t mind challenge, but I don’t need the difficulty increased by lousy game engine invisible walls or fences on environment objects and outright camera-screw.

Mad King’s Clocktower is another good expample of the problems with the invisible walls and camera in the game. It’s challenging enough with the time-constraint without making me miss jumps because I hit a pixel that caused me to slide off the target platform, or where I can’t see where I’m going because the camera is run through the back of my head…

I used “casual player” as a general short-hand to cover a very broad group of players who have difficulties with the current challenge level of the Story missions for whatever reason. You can substitute “Players-who-have-difficulty-with-current-challenge-level” for “casual player” if that helps clear it up. I am lazy and don’t want to type the former out each time.

My selectable difficulty solution may be more complex to implement than a global nerf to Personal Story instances. As it stands in the game, while a global nerf to story would be sub-optimal, I would accept it, as there are plenty of other places to find challenges in GW2: I can try doing personal story missions under-levelled, or using only white level one gear. Or only using utility skills… or whatever. The players asking for a difficulty reduction in Story missions are not going to be also asking for it in PvE (the shared world means other players help out, which doesn’t happen in story, unless you bring a friend along), nor are they going to play PvP, WvW or the Dungeons, so there is plenty of challenge for the rest of us.

If a global nerf to Story difficulty while the other option is coded is what it takes, I’d have no problem with that. So, I have one area that becomes trivial for me, and it makes the game enjoyable for a bunch of other players who might otherwise quit and go for something else… that’s a price I’m quite willing to pay.

Story is for the player, it’s instanced and kept separate.

There are plenty of other places to find hard challenges (WvW, PvP, soloing dungeons), getting snarky with casual players because they don’t want the arcady try-die-try-die cycle isn’t helpful and just glib. Great if you don’t have problems with the story as is. Good for you. Perhaps an option to choose your difficulty for story as we had for missions in GW1? Have Heroic, Normal, Easy. Those who like their games hardcore, can have the grindy, arcady challenge they want, those who want to complete the story without the hassle can choose Easy. It’s instanced specifically for the player, so no skin of anyone else’s nose if one player chooses Easy and the other Heroic.

I’ve had one in the Kodan mission for the Norn, where I have to take down the Overminer, and as proof I defeated the Overminer I pick up the “Boomstick”. My problem is the game turns around and FORCES the weapon on me with a really cruddy fire-rate, low damage, and limited skills. I cannot switch away from it either. What in the name of Snow Leopard and Wolf is my character thinking? I’m a freaking Guardian, I’m not trained to use a rifle, and why would I use a crappy rifle compared to my better weapons and skills? Take the trophy, fine, but the kodan never said I had to make my way out using the Overminer’s rifle and not my own skills and weapons.

In the charr Iron Legion case where I have to test out the ghost-bore prototype it at least makes sense. We’re testing the weapon, but did it really have to have that Zhaitan kitten slow fire-rate on the basic shot skill? Yeah, so it incorporates knock back, but that doesn’t help me when my medium-armoured tail gets mobbed by 5 other ghosts. Great, I have to wait 1s between each shot and it takes as many shots to down a ghost as my regular rifle does. What gives? I thought the Ghostbore-tech was supposed to shred ghosts? It ain’t really doing that… it’s about as effective as it was against the dummies in the Tribune’s office.

I have found some major issues with the charr and how the operate for jumping. I was exploring the Pale Tree and there were some major probles getting to the vista near the ramp down from the entry level of the Asura gate. Even worse is the Sylvari starting area spiral jumping puzzle. The charr too repeatedly hits the ceiling and bounces off, or comes up too short. The size of the toon also means that it’s hard to get a decent view from the camera because the camera gets physically knocked around by the environment and stutters back and forth making it very hard to judge edges and jump distances.