Showing Posts For bai long.2085:
@Vinceman.4572
At this juncture I’ve given up on both the Devs actually ever restructuring the raids and on people on the forums agreeing on anything I have to say about said raids.
Personally, I don’t have the time in my day to seek out people who’re okay with me running my “garbage nomads gear”. I’m a pretty busy person and I find the other games I’ve been playing to have much less time-consuming methods of finding raid groups. FFXIV has a nice party finder that never takes more than about 10 minutes.
Even if I did have the time to seek them out, I don’t have the time to invest in participating in scheduled raids.
Even if I met both of those criteria I still wouldn’t want to feel like I was being dragged around the raid by my poor choice of gear. I’d want to feel like I was pulling my weight, which I wouldn’t be because Nomads doesn’t work well in the raids.
So, I won’t even bother making an argument for changing the raids. They’d never change them anyways.
Instead, I’m suggesting making legendary armor available via different content.
That’s my only argument. If they won’t at least do that I’d probably keep playing FFXIV. Honestly, I don’t really have time for that anymore, but for the sake of discussion I’ll say that a lot of people would appreciate legendary armors being more accessible.
Not that you are or have, but in a couple of my other suggestions posts people called me out as a bad player and seemed to like trying to put me down despite my only intention being making suggestions for changes.
At the end of the day, even if it were true and I were a bad player and sucked at GW2 what does it really matter? Games come and go and if someone thinks that GW2 is the only hobby someone has, the only hobby I have, they’re quite mistaken.
Take my suggestion or leave it. Agree or disagree. It’s all the same to me since I’m not playing.
@TexZero.7910
I’m all for being a team player. I cooperate and do what I’m expected to do in other game’s raid content. The difference is that in those games I don’t have to drastically change my setup because there is more-or-less no custom setup. Everyone, for the most part, are carbon copies of each other based on their class.
Since GW2 doesn’t work that way, when they’d first announced the raids I was expecting 10-man dungeon-style content, just more difficult.
@Sooloo.1364
Certainly every part of the game should be accessible to all players regardless of skill. I don’t think they should all be beatable by all players, but accessible…yes.
Everyone who plays paid for the game and deserves to see everything they release. Easy mode raids? Practice mode? I don’t know. I’m not a game developer so I don’t know what’s feasible, but I do feel that everyone should be able to witness every aspect of the game.
What an “elitist” would say here would be, “they can. just get good and play a good gear set and get a good guild that runs raid practice runs to learn.” But that doesn’t solve the problem. Their are really 2 problems at play: the raid design itself, and the mentality of the people who raid. Like I’d replied to others, the raid’s gameplay doesn’t match the rest of the game (not in difficulty but in design).
Players who aren’t very skilled shouldn’t be allowed to move forward and see more until they’ve improved, but they shouldn’t be forced to play builds they don’t enjoy. Getting better and unlocking the ability to see more of the game for yourself is enjoyable to achieve.
For the core content of the game, making your build is like putting together a remote controlled car. Maybe you want big fat wheels, a thin sleek chassis and a huge spoiler on the back. Maybe you want something completely different. The fact is that no matter what you make, it’s possible to run the track. Maybe your car isn’t the fastest, but it doesn’t have to be. It may not even be a race your participating in, it may be a demolition derby. Who knows? Depends on the content.
The point being, no matter what you made, you’re welcome to have fun and play with it in the core game. The raid should have been designed and should be redesigned to be: no matter what you came up with, you should be able to participate and win provided what you made works well with others and fulfills a role efficiently.
Right now there are like 3 or 4 pre-made “cars (builds)” you can choose (class aside):
-DPS with a small amount of toughness (tank)
-DPS with some DPS utility (DPS)
-DPS with heals (healer)
@thrag.9740
I understand how tanking in the raids works, but what I’m talking about is the fact that legendary armors are only available via raiding. Not all great players raid, but every great player should have the opportunity to acquire the legendary armor, even if through other means.
Raids in other games work pretty much like raids in every other game. In those other games everyone has an equal ability to participate because of the design of the content. Healers stack “piety” or “mind” or “mp” as high as they can get them. DPS stack “crit” or “attack” or “penetration” and Tanks stack “HP” or “vitality” or “armor” as high as they can go. That’s what I’m used to from other games and that’s what I enjoy.
HOWEVER
GW2 doesn’t work like that at its core, and that’s okay. That’s totally fine with me. There are no clear-cut roles for classes to play in GW2. You build your character however you prefer to play them and as long as you’re skilled enough you can complete all of the content using whatever build you want.
That’s been the main theme of GW2’s combat design since the beginning, and that’s something everyone has enjoyed.
-you can beat any content with any build as long as you’re good enough-
My question is…if they aren’t going to follow in the footsteps of other MMOs raids, why didn’t they follow even their own footsteps? Raids can’t be beaten with any build you want even if you’re a God playing with it. The raids require specific setups.
So, I’m not questioning how it is. I’m questioning how it was designed. They could easily redesign certain aspects. I’m not asking them to make it any easier either. I’m just asking them to consider making the legendary armors available through other means, my ability/inability/unwillingness to do the raids aside.
@lagrangewei.8516
Why would I use Nomads? Because I like playing as tanky a build as I can possibly make. That’s what I like to play in any MMO. The problem is that the raids don’t work at all like the rest of the game OR like any other MMOs raids.
I’d like to suggest something to the Devs, but first I’d like to explain something.
I quit playing some time after the raids came out. Day 1 my friend and I fought the Vale Guardian, him in Knights gear and me in my Nomads. After about 3 hours of learning him we beat him with our random PUG, which wasn’t using voice chat. All was well and good.
When I got into a group another day to try Gorseval, I realized that my Nomad’s gear was extremely unwelcome. When I hear “Raid” I think of WoW or FFXIV where you have characters of all different roles and stat combinations. In those games I enjoyed being the tank and touting as ridiculous an amount of defense as I could muster. It was fun. And, it didn’t seem to work too badly for the Vale Guardian I’d done. Gorseval was a different story though. He didn’t get harder after the timer ran out. He made you die.
That’s when I realized that there was no real need for all that defense, health and healing. To “tank” all I needed to do was hang some meat around my neck (1 or two trinkets with a small amount of toughness) and the boss would follow me around. I was pretty sad.
I understand that Nomad’s gear is like a bad running joke in GW2. In a game where if you’re good enough you can dodge roll everything while STILL doing thousands of DPS, there isn’t a lot of point in playing a set that offers defense (Ewww…). Still, what I want to play is a character that I’ve mounted as massive a defensive stat combination as I can. That’s just fun for me.
My friend recently told me that GW2 would be having an expansion. And he said so with a cautious look in his eye, because he knows how I feel about not being welcome in the raids and having given it up for that reason. He was wondering if I’d be willing to give it another look since an expansion was releasing.
I thought to myself, “I don’t want to feel like I’m not good enough to complete every piece of content I want to, because I know I am.” The problem is that to participate in the raids I’d have to get with the program and adopt a playstyle I didn’t enjoy playing. If I don’t enjoy it it’s not worth doing and I don’t get to do it I’d rather play something else that allows me to play how I’d prefer. I’m not complaining about that, I’m simply reasoning it out.
In lieu of not being able to participate in the raids unless it means not enjoying myself, I decided I’d bite the bullet with my pride and tell myself that it’s okay if I never get to do the raids. I’d just tell myself, “Oh well, I’d be good enough to do them if I didn’t care about having fun.”
The real kicker is when I’d asked someone about the legendary armor they were wearing, because I’m a completionist and really wanted to work towards some if I decided to come back to the game. Surprise! They’re only available to you if you raid…a lot.
That was it for me. I understand that legendary armor is meant to be a great achievement, but to restrict it to the raids feel unfair. Pretty much all raiders are top-tier players, but that doesn’t mean that people who don’t raid aren’t. My circumstance aside, what about people with amazing skill who don’t have time to devote to it? What about people who only play PVP?
My suggestion is to have the current raid armor then add in additional sets for different aspects of the game, like you have with the backpieces. There’s Fractal and there’s PVP. They should all be equally difficult to obtain and require a reasonably equal amount of effort and skill, but should be geared towards players who want to play the specific content they represent.
As it sits, there are a lot of deservingly skillful players who are going to completely miss out on getting the legendary armor (which I feel should signify a top-tier player, but not exclusively a top-tier raiding player).
Thanks. Just wanted to be sure.
I quit playing GW2 a while back when I realized that the stat set I enjoy running the most (full ascended Nomad’s) in fractals and dungeons wouldn’t cut it for the raids.
My question is, have they done anything to the raids that would allow me to participate in my favorite gear?
If it’s a matter of “switch to Sinister or Berserker, Magi, etc.” I’d rather just keep playing the MMO I’m currently playing.
Thanks.
Alright~
Time to be done with the forums, lol. Starts getting under my skin.
Have fun.
@Chaos.5072
You should invite me to the next raid you go into.
I’ll share with you some facts:
ArenaNet had a core philosophy. I don’t know how long you’ve been playing (maybe since launch like me) but it’s always been about having no class roles.
There is no healer, no tank, no clearly defined DPS. That means dungeons are doable with no “healer” as they don’t exist. They’re doable by whoever and whatever combination of classes want to try.
There was always only one criteria:
You have the play your build well.
That used to be the “core philosophy”.
Understanding that, we can apply it to the game’s content…
Dungeons? Check.
Fractals? Check.
Raid? No check.
Remember, their idea for the game was “allow any combination of classes to succeed, so long as they’re played well”.
Raids don’t fit that description.
You can’t beat it with everyone wearing Soldiers gear. It doesn’t matter how good you are, you won’t beat the timer.
That, in and of itself, defies the core concept.
For me it comes down to the timers and the mechanics revolving around doing it as quickly as you can.
Mai Trin 100 has no timer. Lots of people STILL get ripped out of their minds. Could they make it a little harder? I’d love that. I never die on Mai Trin 100.
A timer is a cheesy way to introduce difficulty because it doesn’t fit well certain activities.
A timer is important in competitive track and field. It’s all about speed.
A timer has no place in competitive weight lifting. It’s not about speed.
GW2 is not about speed. It’s not about any one thing.
If they introduced a solo challenge fight where a boss had 1000 health, you did 10 DPS (according to your build) and you have 60 seconds to beat him, you lose. You just lose. You’d do 600 damage by the time the timer had run out and the only way to beat him would be to change your character. Basically play a different way.
That goes against the core concept of the game; again, being that anyone can do anything as long as they’re good enough.
You see, there are 2 aspects to “your character”:
- there’s the numerical stat-based representation (your armor, traits, skills, weapons, runes, sigils, etc.).
- there’s the person sitting at their computer desk wielding #1
No matter what you choose as #1, you should be able to complete anything as long as #2 is good enough. Some people just don’t have the hand-eye coordination, mental sharpness, spatial intelligence, foresight and reflexes like others do.
This is why some people using beautiful META builds get ripped. #1 looks optimized, #2 is sub-par and severely lacking. They stand in the AOEs, they don’t dodge, the don’t plan a long-game strategy.
No matter what build you play, if you’re just not that skilled a player you’ll do poorly and won’t be able to complete some of the content.
It’s easy to call everyone else out when you’re playing a META build and can’t understand why anyone would want to play anything else.
It’s not at all laziness on my part that I’m not doing the raids. Post in the LFG that you’re full Nomad’s and watch what happens. You’ll be watching for a while because nothing will happen.
Oh wait, I have an idea. Let’s make our own raid. Oh wait, the second people figure out you’re wearing Nomad’s they’re going to leave your group.
It’s quite frustrating because I’m used to being welcome to participate in whatever people are doing, because I’m good at pretty much everything I do.
I don’t think any of my parties has ever wiped. I’m an ascended Nomad’s druid though. They can all be dead and I’ll still beat whatever it is.
I get a lot of hate though. Go figure.
Oh right, I’m Nomad’s.
Hahaha, just for laughs (I get them a lot) I’ll tell you what I am. I’m full ascended Nomad’s druid.
Here’s just some things I think about it:
PROS
-1st best survivability in the game.
-2nd best party heals in the game.
-Decent party buffs
-Party cannot wipe if I’m in the group.
CONS
-Garbage DPS
-No raids for me.
-Ridicule
But I can deal with that XD
I agree with the OP.
for EXAMPLE:
Tier 1 = crap or no rewards.
Tier 2 = some decent rewards.
Tier 3 = best rewards available only to the best players.
When a game is all about fun (which it should always be, otherwise…go outside or read a book) you play what you want to play.
If I told you what stat set I am you’d all laugh, so I won’t. But I’m good at playing the build I made around it. It’s probably the worst DPS in the game. But, I like it and that’s what I want to play.
As much as I’d like to do the raids, I’m not really welcome. I mean, no one really wants to bring dead-weight like me. I managed to tank for the Vale Guardian and beat him (I set that raid up myself), but haven’t been welcome to another group since.
There isn’t a need for anyone as tanky as I am. Not one slot someone wants to fill with a tanky guy? No. So, that kind of leaves me out in the rain unless I want to rebuild my character (which I don’t).
Hahaha, when I tanked the Vale Guardian they just about kicked me when I told them how much toughness I had. 2760. They told me (probably rightfully so) that I only needed like 1 trinket that had toughness and everything else could be berserkers or sinister or what have you.
Well, I’ve played a lot of MMOs and that doesn’t feel like a tank to me (which is what I like to play)(and is also totally unneeded in the raids).
I like the idea of a tiered system because I think it’d give more people a chance to get their foot in the door. Maybe I’m not welcome on a tier 3, but maybe someone will pick me up for a tier 1. Then, maybe they’ll see some value in me and give me a shot in a tier 2, etc.
Remember, right now people are beating the earlier raids with 6-8 people. I HAVE to be more useful than an empty slot.
It’s a good idea to solve a problem that’s actually turned me away from the game. I’m of a personality that has to be the best or nothing. Not being welcome in the raids based on what I like to play (which was the theme of the game since day one back in 2012) sours me.
@Sarrs.4831
You’ve answered my question and I have no more complaints or suggestions.
I’ve been enlightened to the true ways of Guild Wars 2 today by people who are probably more qualified than I am in any given subject. Math. Science. Politics.
Of course, if no one was able to gather, that was of the utmost sarcasm.
I’m not enjoying this post anymore, having to sift through snide remarks to discern what someone was trying to say.
I’m willing to debate points with people, but I don’t have the patience to listen to people who’re trying to berate my own opinion. That’s not a debate. That’s just poor people skills.
Join or die right? I cant possibly have anything correct to say, can I?
In the end, I’m not leaving upset. I’m leaving because this is obviously going nowhere and it does actually take quite a bit of time to write one of my long-winded responses, albeit to no real avail.
By all means, carry on without me but if you do try to refrain from boosting your own egos by beating up on me and add something useful to the discussion, as that was the whole point of this post (some of you have).
Take it easy.
@Sarrs.4831
Your logic makes no sense. I’m a caucasian American person but just because I don’t have to speak Chinese doesn’t mean I can’t. Just because I don’t have to do something doesn’t mean I can’t. I know full well how to do everything you’d specifically listed. Shame on you for assuming too much.
Your logic is “you don’t know how to do something until it’s too dangerous for you not to”. Nope.
My question is, if people can survive well enough as Berserker’s, Sinister, Viper…just in general…then why should other sets like Soldiers, Valkyries, Knights, etc even exist?
If your answer is “they shouldn’t” then ArenaNet has wasted a huge chunk of their time and they aren’t balancing the game very well, are they?
Maybe your answer would be “well you can mix them in with other more valuable sets”. Let’s face it…that’s a cop out. Nobody is wearing Knight’s and says, “we’ll I’d better have just one piece of Berserker’s equipped. Yeah that’d make me just right.” Nobody.
But I’m kind of over trying to give anyone any food for thought. If anyone wants to relay to me how foolish I am or how little I understand about the game, feel free.
Some of the responses are more along the line that I’m totally wrong in whatever I happen to say. That’s strange to me. More of them still aren’t exactly civil, which is also strange to me because I’ve been more than accommodating to people’s opinions even when sometimes they seem to just be “you don’t get it, son”.
With that being said, if I didn’t care about GW2 or whatever any of you had to say I’d simply stop checking back at this forum post I’d made. If I were here just for the sake of being difficult I’d just not be here. I type my long posts because I can think of a lot to say, about anything.
I’m by no means a game designer, but here are a couple of interesting ideas you could institute to make the raids more accessible (mind you, all of them include removing the timer):
-A mistake based punishment
Rather than having an enrage timer why not have a system where if players screw up a mechanic they’re all punished? For example, if you miss the green circle once on the VG, he gains a permanent X% attack bonus? It doesn’t have to be this specific, but why not have something similar? I think it allows any combination of builds to fight the bosses while ensuring that they’re required to perform the mechanics properly.
-Revivable players
Make players revivable from death. The mistake punishment system would keep things difficult by making players think twice about wasting time reviving someone, unless the person they were down was desperately needed. Who knows? Trying to revive someone from death might actually get the entire party killed. It’s risky, it’s difficult, it adds more variety to the combat.
-More difficult mechanics (at least requiring more people)
To keep people from selling off the raids the mechanics should require 100% of the participants to actively participate in the mechanics. It should take the entire group, minus nobody, to keep from wiping the group. I guess you could still sell a run, provided the person who was buying it knew exactly what to do at every portion of the fight. But at that point, why are they paying to be run through at all?
7 Berserker’s druids at my personal skill level could beat the raid. 10 Nomad’s druids at my skill level could not. The timer would run out. This shouldn’t be the case. If 10 of one type can do it, 10 of any type should be able to do it.
Am I trying to change the way raids work? Yes. Am I challenging the status quo? Yes. However, I’m not suggesting any of what I’m suggesting at ANYONE’S EXPENSE. I don’t want ArenaNet to give me what I want and take away what you like about it. I don’t want them to cater to just me.
I want them to consider the possibility that if they made some changes to the way the raids work they may keep more people playing in the long run and may even bring some people back who’d quit because they weren’t being challenged.
Are they going to change the raids because I made a forum post? No, absolutely not. But I want as many people as possible to weigh in (with civility, mind you) so that just maybe someone important will see it and at least take what I’m saying to mind.
I’ve played GW2 since launch and quit and rejoined multiple times for different reasons: lack of new content, lack of challenge, never any new fractals, never any new dungeons, etc. It’s a routine, to be honest. Fractals is a routine, raiding is a routine for many of those who do it. I log on and run a few fractals for some weapon or armor skins (that maybe I don’t even like) that don’t have any better stats than what I already have. Most people don’t play GW2 for the challenge anymore, they play it because that’s just what they’ve done for the longest time and they hate the idea of missing out on a daily chest.
I have 11k achievement points and I’ve played since launch. There are people with 28k+ achievement points running around just because (pardon the slight insult) they don’t have anything better to do than log in everyday and complete their dailies. That’s what they like to do.
I wish they kept their content fresh and released new (permanent) content regularly, like every other MMO out there, but they kinda don’t. So, as for me, the only source of fun I have playing the game is seeking out ridiculous benchmark challenges for the build I’ve made. The ONE build I’ve made. The ONE character who I ever play. I’m a very focused individual and I do one thing at a time.
I solo dungeon paths for fun (with the build I’d made)
I solo lupicus in Arah (with the build I’d made)
I roam around killing folks in WvW (with the build I’d made)
I wish I could say that I run the raids (with the build I’d made).
@Memories Lost.7634
I appreciate your analogy and think it illustrates the situation well.
In my opinion, I should be able to show up to play hockey with whatever I want. Back in 2012, when the game was released, that’s how it was and that’s what I’d appreciated about it. This is back before there was a well established meta and it was a time when the most difficult challenge in the game was Arah Path 4, where groups were spending 4+ hours trying to beat Simin. He’s/She’s nerfed now because people complained that it was too difficult for them to beat. There wasn’t a timer on it either. It was good old fashioned difficulty. Pure mechanics and staying alive. This is back when you had no idea what builds people were using just by looking at what they were using. People created their own builds and some of them were great, some of them sucked.
I loved the fact (and still love, in most content) that I could play ANY build I could think up and succeed with it. I’d solo run some dungeons naked, just to have some fun. But it’s not because I was wearing this or wearing that. It’s because I was good and I understood what I’d made even when other people didn’t.
I use this analogy a lot when talking to my buddy about Guild Wars 2:
It’s like putting together an RC car from scratch. The majority of the fun (for me, maybe for others too) is picking exactly what features you want and exactly how you’d like to race it. Maybe I want the big fat all-terrain wheels and this and that blah, blah, blah. The fun is in trying out what you’d made. Never in my life have I been interested in copying what someone else had done, just because that rips the fun right out of it. Maybe most people only enjoy racing the RC cars if they’re using the standard top of the line official models. Here I come with my homemade build that works for me.
For the longest time this is what made GW2 enjoyable to play. It’s still enjoyable to play, but I’m a completionist and not having the raid completed is bothersome to my pride, but not so much that I’m willing to trade in my homemade car for a pre-made one.
Then the raids. I have my little RC car all ready to go. However, the track I’m racing on is just a solid straight line. It’s just a drag-race and mine wasn’t built for that. I never wanted a dragster.
I could easily mystic forge all of my gear and find a group and have the raid beaten within a short time, but that would cheapen it for me. It would cheapen it for me because that’d mean admitting that the build I’d made and refined over the years just wasn’t up to snuff when it came to beating the raid.
To respond to Nike, though, I could get in with a group that was going to 6 or 7 man a boss and just kinda go along for the ride. Albeit, I’d probably have to pay them (maybe not). The fact would remain though, that I was receiving a handout or a service or a favor from somebody. Somebody took pity on poor Nomad’s wearing me and let me come along. That’s a punch in the pride. And I’m very prideful, to be honest.
It sounds like I’m coming here and complaining about how everything should conform to me because I just can’t seem to beat stuff. That’s not what I’m trying to do. All I’m trying to do is provide some creative criticism because more varied builds in raids has benefits for everyone.
I don’t try the raids anymore because I don’t appreciate people thinking they’re carrying me through, which they probably (more or less) ARE, according to what is required in the fights. Honestly I think I fought Gorseval twice and got people that just couldn’t for the life of them get into the updrafts. But the contempt I was receiving even asking to be invited just soured me on the whole experience. That being said, I don’t log on every night, try, fail then complain about it. I haven’t attempted a raid in 4 or 5 months. Partially because I don’t want to spend 2 hours listening to people tell me to reroll my gear whenever I ask if they need any more people.
If I never get to beat the raids it’s not a really big deal, since I have more important things to do than worry about that (like everyone else). I just thought I’d come here and share my constructive criticisms.
I take all the constructive criticism I can get to heart, provide people aren’t nasty about it. That’s all I’m trying to do here.
My question is, isn’t enrage is what you are asking for? I mean it’s not an insta kill mechanic, I think it just increases the boss’s damage by 300%. I’ve killed gorse with about 20 sec into enrage with a “normal” raid composition, I don’t see why wouldn’t it be possible to stay alive with 10 skilled nomad against VG forever.
That’s a good point. And I wouldn’t at all mind an enrage timer that worked for each of them how it does for the Vale Guardian. Gorseval though, you’ll just die when all of the updrafts are depleted.
The other thing you are asking for , which is to make more tanky builds a requirement for succeding , I just don’t see why. They could make unavoidable damage sources from the boss, meaning you need more than base health to just survive, but that would put other people in your shoes. People who don’t want to play tanky. There are spots for builds with higher survivability like healer druids & tanks, and as others pointed out, you can 6 man most of the bosses, so it’s not like being full zerker is a requirement.
I’m not saying I want tanky builds to be a requirement for succeeding. I’m saying I don’t want a party composition that consists of mostly tanky builds to be doomed from the start.
My value in dungeons and fractals usually comes in the form of keeping the more DPS oriented players alive and reviving them if they down. What everyone here is saying is that people who complete the raids are so good at avoiding the damage that they don’t need anyone looking out for them like that. That is completely true. Nobody needs me to do that for them. The flaw is in the fight’s design allowing players to avoid a large chunk of the damage if they’re skilled enough. It puts me out of a job. But most of the game is like that, to be honest.
In a world where nobody ever downs, the highest DPS character is king. I guess welcome to Guild Wars 2?
Why so early? Raids are still new and appreciated by many players. It’s not necessary to change anything or optimize something till it’s broken. Some things are good as they are. (Doesn’t mean there are things in current raid wings that have to be improved – but it’s not anything that has to do with nomads gear.)
Actually that’s incorrect. The first raid wing is, by now (by MMO standards) old. Many hardcore players have already left the game because they weren’t being challenged by the raids and there was nothing left for them. I think what you meant was that there are still people who haven’t beaten it.
GW2 was designed like this at headstart. But eaids are a relatively new thing in this game and Anet already said that it is a little step aside from the “PHIW”-style. This game is so big that raids are just a little percentage of the game. And they were designed for a different player community than the core game is offering. It’s not that I’m against you personally but I’m against that raids are content for everybody because then they wouldn’t be challenging one single second you play them. A very valuable player community would have left the game (many skill-oriented players already have left due to lack of challenging content before) so it was a well thought move of the company to implement raids like they are now.
I’ve NEVER said that raids are for everybody. What I’ve been saying this entire time is that everyone who’s skilled enough deserves the option to attempt it how they choose.
Sorry to say, but you are not skilled at all in that gear. Every blind crippled one-handed monkey could facetank fractals in nomads. Skill is the last thing involved here. (No offense to monkeys, they are cute and often funny animals.)
I don’t know how you could possibly make a statement like that. Can I not be a 5’2" person and still shoot a basketball well? Besides, you can’t know how I play, how well I dodge, etc. because you haven’t watched my screen while I play and I don’t have any videos up on youtube. You have to take what I say about myself at face value when you don’t have any way of knowing otherwise. I dodge, evade, block and perform fight mechanics as well as or better than other people (again, not to sound braggadocious).
Wrong. You won’t win if you don’t risk a thing. That’s a more realistic approach for the real life as well. You are safe on the way home.
I may be uniquely qualified to disagree with you (but I won’t say how as it would incite more uneducated responses from other people), so I’ll say that the best way to win is to minimize your risk. You’ve never heard the tale of the tortoise and the hare?
Who cares? Even full offensive groups with zerker/viper only live forever against Mai Trin 100. She hits like cotton wool. You have no point here.
This is also false. If you dodge every attack then sure, you live forever. But, that’s not what I’m talking about. I’m talking about being able to literally stand there and take the damage IF I WANT TO. Don’t get confused about that statement and think that’s what I actually do in combat. Just because I’m wearing defensive gear doesn’t mean I dodge, block, evade any less than anyone else. It simply means, I can afford not to if need be. If you face-tank Mai Trin with Berserker’s gear you will die. I won’t. That’s my point, though. That’s a terrible way to play.
I have to pick it up again: You are not (that) good. It’s the gear giving you false pretences.
At last: You were told to look for a group letting you play in your nomads gear. Maybe you will find like-minded people out there willing to take you with them.
Like Nike wrote before, the content can be low-manned so there is actually room for some (not all) players in “PHIW”-style. I also agree to him that your problems are located elsewhere probably (very probably).
Your tone makes it seem like maybe you have a degree in statistical analysis because I have no idea how you could know anything about how I play. Maybe you do have that degree. Though even if you did, you still wouldn’t be able to know.
Your post seemed to be more of a jab at me than anything else and I wish I could have pulled something more from it.
The responses here are ridiculous! It’s like I’m saying “Hey my friends and I want to play basketball with you guys.” and everyone says “You’re not tall enough, go play tennis!”.
Again, I’ll reiterate…
My only question is…Why not alter them in a way that would keep everyone who already plays happy while allowing more people to participate?
Whatever form that takes, I don’t care. I’d just appreciate them extending the options.
I’m assuming, then, that none of you have any ideas for improvements to the raids?
I say that the more people you can please the better. And if you can institute a change that doesn’t make the people who already enjoy raids not enjoy them any longer, why not do it?
Progressive change is healthy. Mind you, “progressive”.
In Word of Warcraft, Final Fantasy XIV, etc…I can’t take 10 of my Paladin buddies into a dungeon or raid and expect to stand a chance. Those games weren’t designed to allow for people playing like that.
Guild Wars 2 was designed to allow that. I can go into a dungeon or fractal with 5 Cleric’s guardians all wielding maces if I want to and stand a chance, just like people often (or used to anyway) go in with 5 Berserker’s greatsword warriors (which was actually a pretty fast way of getting it done).
I can’t go in to the raid with 10 Cleric’s guardians with maces and shields? If they allowed it to be beaten that way it would be too easy right?
Here’s an illustration of my point:
Any group that takes me into any fractal, can’t die. We can’t wipe. (sorry for tooting my own horn here, but its for the sake of my point) I’m too skilled and too defensive to be killed by anything that exists in any fractals. A group that takes me along takes slightly longer to beat the fractal, obviously because my damage is somewhere around 1,300 DPS (very low). Experienced players don’t always appreciate me because they want to win yesterday. Lesser experienced players love me because even when they’re all dead I can solo the bosses if need be.
If you want to win at something, play it safe right? Take as few chances as possible. If you want to get something done quickly, take chances and go for it.
Should I be allowed to live forever against Mai Trin 100? I don’t think so. It’s a little unfair honestly because I’m like an insurance policy. Since day 1 it’s been about either doing things quickly or doing things safely.
Most people like doing things quickly, because they can ALSO do it safely by dodging, blocking and evading. I’m fine with that. If you’re that good you deserve it.
But being that good doesn’t automatically mean you enjoy playing DPS builds. I know because I’m that good and I don’t. I have 28k health and it never drops below 24k.
In a world where you can win with a 1 HP healthpool max by dodging everything, the way I play is COMPLETELY obsolete. The fact is, we’re already in that world. My build is completely obsolete for the challenges in the raids.
My gripe was, that I wish it were designed so that you can’t have your cake and eat it too.
I’m not sure why everyone assumes that because I’m wearing Nomad’s gear I just stand around afk taking hits while auto-attacking.
I don’t think it’s selfish of me at all to want to be able to complete the raid in the gearset of my choice. Isn’t the entire game founded upon the idea of being able to choose?
For those who say I should just mystic forge all of my gear and roll another stat, I say that I don’t want to. It’s as simple a matter as me not enjoying playing DPS builds. It’s like if I joined up with a rec center and discovered that all they ever do is play basketball even though they have tennis courts, a baseball diamond and pool tables. So I ask if anyone would like to play some other games and everyone jumps on me for it. In the end, if I have to play basketball or nothing I’ll choose nothing (because I don’t like basketball).
I think I’m getting some rather closed-minded responses from people that obviously aren’t trying to put themselves in my shoes and understand what I’m getting at.
Forget that I’m wearing Nomad’s and forget all of my EXAMPLE suggestions (I’m not a game designer, but more than likely neither are you). Forget every piece of my original post that made it too personal for you and see if this these questions make sense to you:
Asking ArenaNet:
-Can we please find a way for all types of builds to viable in the raids?
-If so, can we please ensure that people using these builds are REQUIRED to have knowledge of the mechanics and high general skill?
People are selling runs and achievements for God’s sake…
Would any of you really~ have any problem with my suggestion of making it so that any TYPE of build could work for a raid if they (as professional designers) could do it in a way that did not affect how easy the bosses were to beat?
I don’t think my questions are unreasonable.
I’m sure there’s a reasonable compromise. Lengthen the timer and have him hit X times harder.
The meta should be as wide a playing field as possible with the only requirement for victory being playing the game and performing the mechanics really well. As professional game designers I’m sure they can find a way for tanky characters to compete.
Thank you, also, for your reasonable response.
I play with a fully ascended Druid in full Nomad’s gear. Yes, I know…terrible right?
I won’t be accepted by any raiding group who actually wants to beat the raid bosses, but I understand that. I wouldn’t even take me into the raid.
The raid isn’t designed to be doable by people who aren’t wearing DPS gear.
My belief is that it’s the timer that kills off any non-DPS player’s chances of getting into the raid. And here’s my suggestion:
-Take away the timer.
-Make the bosses hit 5x harder.
I fought the Vale Guardian and won but fought Gorseval and we didn’t have the DPS for the timer. With my Nomad’s gear I can stand in Gorseval’s face all day and never die, and that’s not very fair to Gorseval…poor guy.
If the raid bosses were actually difficult they’d 2-3 shot me EVEN IN MY NOMAD’S GEAR. That means they’d most likely 1 shot a full on Berserker or Sinister build, now THAT’S a real challenge.
As it stands, instead, I can go solo into an 8 minute long Vale Guardian fight and only be killed once the timer empties. I shouldn’t make it that far to begin with AND I shouldn’t magically get ripped after 8 minutes.
Rather than using artificial difficulty, like a timer you have to beat, why not use some organic difficulty and have the bosses hit like dump trucks so that even I~ can’t just stand there and let him punch me in the face?
Maybe it’s the nature of the internet and the anonymity of it all or maybe it’s a reflection of the player base, but I certainly wasn’t expecting such ridiculous “calling out”.
Suddenly I’m all sorts of stupid, all sorts of wrong…hahaha.
I’m just going to walk away from this post and continue doing what I’m doing right now, which really has nothing to do with Guild Wars 2 anyway.
A couple of you who’ve replied are just not the same kind of person I am, and you won’t know what that means either, so I’ll leave it at that.
Enjoy the game.
@Altair.8402
Your company and your game can always make more money, regardless of how good you’re doing at the moment. It’s a simple matter of figuring out how to tap into the untapped pockets of demand.
It’s crazy that people think because I posted some opinions and suggestions that I should believe I’m some kind of ultimate problem solver. I’m not. I’m here with suggestions and ideas and if people don’t like them…well hopefully they don’t respond with such foolish hostility like that one guy.
I don’t know how~ to make it work, if I did I’d be getting paid for it. What I do know is that someone who does know how…should figure that out.
@Marthkus.4615
I’m not sure how to respond to you other than letting you know that it’s, in fact, a legitimate post.
I think I get that the gist of what you’re saying is that you’re opinions are in complete opposition to mine.
Alright.
@Wasabi Kitty.8247
That might be the worst explanation of why something is the worst analogy I’ve ever seen.
Try to provide some value.
@Raizen.7981
I’d written out this whole long response but later decided that what you’d replied with didn’t really warrant legitimate consideration.
You didn’t read the full post, or didn’t understand it and it sounds like someone must have peed in your cornflakes this morning.
If you want to reword your reply to be a little less ignorant of what my original intention was, I’ll consider that and get back to you.
ArenaNet said themselves that they wanted to promote a sense of diversity. So the game is supposed~ to be about build diversity, but isn’t. That’s a failure on their part. They’ve given players all of the tools they need to turn the game into a DPS fest.
I’m not understanding how Nomad’s is a joke set. Whether or not players make jokes out of it is aside from the point. I’m not interested in what people on the forum think about certain stat sets. I’ll make up my own mind about each set because that’s what I do. If someone doesn’t like the shoes I’m wearing it really doesn’t make a difference as to whether or not I decide to wear them again. If I like them I’ll wear them.
https://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/Ventari%27s_Chisel
That’s a link to an ascended Nomad’s trinket. Just wanted to clear it up and let you know that their are, indeed, ascended Nomad’s trinkets for every slot. I’m wearing them.
ArenaNet needs to make an average of $10-15 per month from each player via micro transcactions to keep their game running. That’s around what other MMOs charge per month, but Guild Wars 2 has no monthly subscribtion fee. That being said, if you aren’t buying at least $10-15 worth of gems per month you aren’t monetarily supporting the game. If not, someone else is picking up the slack for you.
Now, no one can blame you if you don’t spend that much per month on gem store purchases. I don’t spend any. Not anymore.
The only one whose fault that is is ArenaNet’s for not offering something in the store you feel like you need to buy. Ergo, my examples for transactions for content (dungeons, mounts, blah blah blah). If they offered something you legitimately wanted you too could support the game.
Yes, the game is probably getting along fine without your money. But imagine how many of you there are, who don’t buy gem store items regularly. You + Me = 2 people plus probably hundreds of thousands of other people who just don’t see the point in buying meaningless baubles. Now imagine they started offering items we actually wanted to buy. They’d have so much more money coming in from people who otherwise wouldn’t be spending any money.
I’m not trying to argue how Guild Wars 2 is…I know exactly how it is.
I’m trying to offer suggestions for how it should be.
@assassin.7895
I’m not sure I understand exactly what you’re trying to say, but I’m not sure it has much value.
@Mortifer.2946
Nomad stats, like any other stat set, regardless of what the player base thinks, was not added as a joke or a troll or what-have-you. It’s just viewed that way because some content doesn’t allow for it.
As far as GW2 being all about DPS, it’s true. And if I can’t play a tanky character, of course this isn’t the game for me. I’m not arguing that. What I’m arguing is that in a game where build diversity is so important they’re alienating all but a handful of builds. That makes zero sense.
You may have fun as another build but I’ve played every class to 80 and spent countless hours working on various builds for those classes. I don’t want to play any others. Now, if that means I don’t play Guild Wars 2 anymore then so be it. I’ll go do something I actually enjoy.
The whole point of my post was to share my opinion about how I’d~ (keyword “I”) would like things to change. And no one can argue that I shouldn’t want certain things or feel a certain way. I’m entitled to want and feel any way I want.
If you don’t support micro transactions you support a monthly fee. If you don’t support either, you don’t support the game. They have to make money somehow or they can’t afford to keep the game running. If they’re going to make you pay for something, why not make it valuable content instead of skins skins skins?
Hi,
I’m Jesse and I wanted to talk a little about the current state of the game and some improvements that could be made.
Let me start out by saying that I’ve played dozens of MMOs over the years and there’s never been one I’d wanted~ to want to play more than Guild Wars 2. It has a great base structure and excellent combat system but there are some definite changes that need to take place. Why should you hear me out when there are so many people complaining/asking for things? Because several of these ideas stand to increase the revenue of your company.
—-Why I Play(ed) Guild Wars 2—-
Back when it was released, years ago, it was a new and exciting experience with a combat system unlike those I was used to. A couple of my real life friends and I bought the game and enjoyed roaming the world, completing jumping puzzles we’d never done every night, and going through the dungeons to get our “Dungeon Master” title and other similar activities.
—-Why I’ve Stopped Playing Guild Wars 2—-
There are 2 main reasons I’ve stopped playing Guild Wars 2 for now (and most certainly stopped spending any money in the gem store, which is what metric you really care about). There are many others, but here are the generalized 2 reasons:
1) There are no more challenges for my 2 buddies and I to complete. And, I don’t mean scavenger hunts. I mean challenges.
2) I feel extremely~ excluded from raid content solely based on the build I choose to play. (No, I don’t suck. I’ve actually become incredibly skilled over the 3+ years I’ve played)
—-What I’m Playing Now & Why—-
Right now I’m playing Final Fantasy XIV: ARR because it alleviates the two problems I’d listed above. There are innumerable challenges I have yet to face and more are added every 2 months or so in the form of new dungeons (something GW2 has not done once in 3+ years). Also, I do not feel excluded from any content based on the class I chose to play. I know GW2 uses a different system of “builds” but, nevertheless, I’m not excluded from anything.
Let’s get down to the meat of my post and talk about what needs to be changed.
RAIDS
I play a Druid in full Nomad’s gear. Why? Because that’s what I enjoy. I do crap for damage but I never die and that’s how I like playing every MMO I’ve ever played. No one wants~ a Nomad’s druid in the raid. It seems like a simple solution, right? Just change to a different gear set. That’s the problem. When I go to McDonald’s and order a cheeseburger they don’t refuse me service because I’m wearing a black t-shirt. They don’t only serve people in red t-shirts. The point is even if they did discriminate against my t-shirt color it’s totally within my right to tell them I don’t like wearing the color red. I just hate red. They still aren’t going to serve me though. And that’s wrong. That’s~ what Guild Wars 2 has going for me with the raid.
In essence, I don’t want to play a different build. I want to play the one I’d made myself, experimented with and improved over the years to get it to the point it is now. And that is 105% reasonable.
Can I complete the raid with my build? Of course! On the Vale Guardian (the only one I’ve cared to beat) I simultaneously tanked/healed because I’m in Nomad’s gear which is good for both. As was always the case in GW2 (and I love it this way) my skill overshadows my build 3-5x over. However, the way raids are built they’re timed so a team consisting of 3-4 builds similar to mine would find it literally impossible.
My play style with the build is an incredibly bulky tank/healer very good at keeping the people who do 5-10x more damage than I alive. I just don’t understand why that play style couldn’t have been accounted for when designing the raid.
(Suggestions)
-Remove the timer completely.
-Make the boss / enemies deal higher damage.
-Increase the organic difficulty (more AOEs, higher damage, etc.)
-Include a raid looking for group tool
-Tool the raid to be doable by 10 Berserker’s as well as by 10 Nomad’s
-Have the bosses drop static loot (such as minis) as well as tabled drops
You may see problems with my suggestions so let me address those:
-Removing the timer would make it so that 10 casuals could just spend an hour fighting a boss and cheese their way to victory.
No. If you remove the timer you dramatically increase the difficulty, ensuring only players of a sufficient skill level (not dps amount) can complete it.
-Making the boss deal higher damage will wipe our Berserker’s groups.
Exactly. It will be extremely hard for a group of all the same type of builds (dps) to complete. Bingo.
-Making the raid doable by 10 tanky builds will make it way too easy.
No. True, they’ll survive much more easily, but they’re turning a sprint event into a marathon. They’re both difficult. Spend 8 minutes fighting a boss at high intensity. Spend an hour fighting a boss at a lower intensity. It’s just different forms of difficult.
That’s my non-exhaustive list of changes I’d make to raids so let’s move on to something else.
DUNGEONS
Dungeons are dead and it’s so sad to see. I had so much fun running through the dungeons with my buddies, before they all got really old. Dungeons are the go-to content of an MMO game. They’re “content” itself. You have to have monsters to fight; you have to have bosses to beat. We have Fractals of the Mists, but I’ll get to that in a minute. I’m talking about dungeons.
It’s not at all the reduced dungeon rewards that bother me. It certainly doesn’t help…but it’s not what I’m taking aim at. What I’m taking aim at is the fact that there is no incentive to do any of the dungeons from an enjoyment standpoint. I’ve done every dungeon path in the game probably 80+ times. There needs to be a reason to participate in this content since I’m sure it took a long time to develop.
(Suggestions)
-Make a “hard mode” dungeon path system similar to hard mode from Guild Wars 1.
-Make a solo dungeon mode with lesser rewards for people who want to play alone for the time being.
-Introduce challenging achievements inside the dungeons.
-Make sure dungeon bosses all have their own unique models. (AC exp paths are all just 3 large gravelings…boooo…)
-Introduce new armor/weapon skins using unique tokens dropping from “Hard Mode”
I’ll cut the list short there for the sake of moving on.
FRACTALS OF THE MISTS
Fractals of the Mists has probably been the content I’ve enjoyed the most. It’s transactional and provides a quick and simple gameplay session to the end of my day, provided I don’t want to log on to play for hours at a time. One of the problems I have though, is the same problem I have with the dungeons. There isn’t enough incentive to do it (I’m not taking about monetary reward).
It would be nice to include a set of fractals armor skins and to use fractals as a gateway for other systems you could put into place, which I’ll talk about later on.
(Suggestions)
-Include a fractals armor set
-Include new fractals on regular~ basis (new fractal every 1-3 months or so)
OVERWORLD
The map in Guild Wars 2 is beautiful. It’s really something very special to me, partly because the areas are so open and large. A lot of work went into creating these zones and it’s a SHAME that no one ever visits them.
No one ever runs around the zones, at least not more than a few yards in any given direction because they don’t need to. They have waypoints located about every 300 yards in every direction and that completely destroys the need to traverse the landscape, which…is FUN! It’s so much more immersive to have to travel on foot to a location and so much more enthralling when you get aggro’d by some enemies on the way and hope you don’t get killed on the way there, sending you all the way back to where you came from. That makes something as simple as walking somewhere exciting.
I remember having tons of fun when I played WoW traversing the horde landscape with my friends (as alliance), constantly scrolling my camera in search of hidden dangers, knowing that if I died I’d be sent miles and mile away to try it again.
Mounts. You’ll make a ton of money selling us gem store mounts. I’d buy them. I’d buy them all. There’s no need for them, though, since everyone just uses the waypoints. So, here are my suggestions:
(Suggestions)
-Remove all waypoints in a zone except one. This way you can still actually get~ to that zone with relative ease.
-Add mounts to the game both unlockable and buyable.
-Add in a player housing area similar to Aion’s or Final Fantasy XIV’s (this is just my personal preference. I love decorating a house in a game and walking a neighborhood seeing how other people decorated theirs)
PROGRESSION & REPLAYABILITY
This is one of the largest drawbacks of playing Guild Wars 2. Everyone has full ascended. Everyone has already hit the ceiling and no we’re all wondering what we’re supposed to do now. This is when people leave the game. It’s kind of like when someone wins the lottery and has no idea what to do with all their money because their entire life’s worth of plans has revolved around actually making the money. Now they just have it all.
Changes to this system would be difficult because it makes up the core of how the game is played. But I think it’s necessary in order to keep people playing for as long as people have played WoW, for example. That game is so old, and still so populated.
(Suggestions)
-Include several higher tiers of gear above ascended, perhaps even above legendary. (carrots on sticks work wonders)
-Include a build saving interface, similar to how GW1 let you save and load your builds.
-Include a “vanquisher” (from GW1) style achievement system loading you and a group into your own instance of a zone to kill every enemy for the achievement. (tweak it to make it work right for GW2)
-Change the skillbar system to use a pool of weapon skills we can set 1-5, unlockable via achievements/challenges. (people loved skill hunting in GW1. Just use it on a much lesser scale)
HOW YOU CAN MAKE MORE MONEY
Without sounding presumptuous, I’d have to say that if I were creative director of ArenaNet, Guild Wars 2 would be giving World of Warcraft (in all of it’s popularity) a run for it’s money. I’d be listening, intently, on what my player base was saying and making the changes they~ wanted to see in a way that profited me~.
In essence, we really want A? Sell~ A to us.
We really want B? Sell~ B to us.
-Sell us mounts
-Sell us hard mode (for dungeons)
-Sell us new fractals you develop (600-800 gems a piece)
[don’t give that content away for free! Make us pay for it so you can afford to develop even more!]
-Sell us new overworld zones (600-800 gems a piece)
-Sell us additional gameplay modes
-Sell us whatever you think we’d want
Casual players who enjoy, more or less, using GW2 like a glorified chatroom (especially in Lions Arch) may be buying the gemstore outfits and gemstore gliders and that type of thing. Personally, whether I look stupid or amazing I still feel like I don’t have anything left to do so I won’t bother buying anything.
However, you still need to sell people like me something. People who play the game for the challenge of it. You just need to understand my demographic and cater what you’re offering for sale to that demographic. I want more things I can do with~ the character I’ve made. He doesn’t need to look any cooler.
Metaphorically speaking, I have this really nice RC car I built and made look really cool with stickers and decals but no where to drive it. The players need more “track” and they’re willing to pay for it. I’m not saying stop selling “stickers” and “decals” just because I don’t want them. I’m saying, while you’re selling those, please remember to offer me more track.
If you read this far, then I commend you on your commitment to read my post in it’s entirety. You may not agree with what I’d said, but I never asked you to. Hopefully this post made you think about what you~ would like to see in the game’s future and push the developer’s to realize its player’s needs.
Thanks!
As the raids currently stand, I can’t play with my friends who play tanky builds, since I’m tanky as well.
(please don’t say, “just get DPS gear”. That’s like me saying, “Hey! This basketball is deflated!” and you reply, “Then play golf.”)
I completely understand the argument of a full group of tanky players being able to have a much easier time, and that’s not good. The thing is, the mechanics are what you should be fighting against, not an arbitrary timer. I’m all for a mechanic that required your group to have a certain amount of DPS, but as it stands…1 tank…MAYBE on healer…8/9 DPS? That doesn’t include my friends.
We’re talking about game developers here. They’re creative. If they took the timer away or made the timer longer they have~ other~ ways~ of making the fights more challenging to compensate. Just because you can’t imagine them doesn’t mean a professional game designer can’t think up something.
All I want is to play the raids with my friends. We’re all great players, very skilled. But, it seems that’s not enough at the moment.
I have a question for, im legitimately curious, if your group is skilled, why not use dps gear, its not like you need the defence, and gear doesnt change the playstyle of a build, it simply changes the numbers that the build can put out, so why do you guys like playing tanky builds as oppossed to dps ones? you are all skilled players so you dont need it to survive.
Sure. I’ll tell you.
I don’t want to play in DPS gear because I prefer (in all the MMOs I’ve played) to have the highest defenses possible. It’s fun for me.
On a personal note, I’m a martial artist and I train to take hits just as much as I train to dish them out. I love the feeling of being kicked in the head and just brushing it off.
I’d say, for me, it’s my own personal ideals that affect how I like to play my games. I want to outlast and I want to be able to absorb as much damage as possible without being defeated.
To answer your question: It’s all about fun. And I don’t have fun playing a glass cannon.
As the raids currently stand, I can’t play with my friends who play tanky builds, since I’m tanky as well.
(please don’t say, “just get DPS gear”. That’s like me saying, “Hey! This basketball is deflated!” and you reply, “Then play golf.”)
I completely understand the argument of a full group of tanky players being able to have a much easier time, and that’s not good. The thing is, the mechanics are what you should be fighting against, not an arbitrary timer. I’m all for a mechanic that required your group to have a certain amount of DPS, but as it stands…1 tank…MAYBE on healer…8/9 DPS? That doesn’t include my friends.
We’re talking about game developers here. They’re creative. If they took the timer away or made the timer longer they have~ other~ ways~ of making the fights more challenging to compensate. Just because you can’t imagine them doesn’t mean a professional game designer can’t think up something.
All I want is to play the raids with my friends. We’re all great players, very skilled. But, it seems that’s not enough at the moment.
It seems like since people had read my original post they’ve begun trying to arguing with it for the sake of argument. Everything I said is 100% true. It’s not my opinion.
If you want to try to argue with something try to argue with this:
Firstly, what’s the real difference between DPS, hybrid and tanky classes?
DPS – They do extremely high damage
Hybrids – They carry a good bit of damage, a bit more survivability and perhaps a couple support skills.
Tankys – They’re built for survival at the cost of DPS.
I play only tanky builds. That’s what I enjoy playing. In WoW I played a Warrior and a Paladin. In FFXI I played a Paladin. In FFXIV I played a Paladin. In DAoC I played a Paladin. In Aion, I played a Templar and a Cleric.
What I love about GW2 is that there are no real hardset roles. I can make any class I want as tanky as I want to make it. I can make a thief that just refuses to die.
So you have some~ idea of where I’m coming from here and where I’m going with this:
I’ve been a martial artist for 18 years. I understand the need to deal damage and the need to be able to take it. In a video game you just pop back to life and everything is fine, but it’s obviously not the same as the real world. I prefer to play my games how I fight my fights. Never lose, never die, able to take hits well. Now, while you can take hits in the real world and still dish out heavy blows, things have to be balanced in a game. You can’t hit hard and take hits as well as everyone else. That wouldn’t be fair.
Full Nomad’s is what I run on my Druid. Before you say, “Ew gross.” please reread the above as to why I do that. Nomad’s and other tanking gear does NOT mean you never die. You still have to dodge, you still have to position yourself correctly, etc. Is it more forgiving? YES.
Someone running full Berserker’s, for example, is setup to deal as much damage as possible at the cost of their survivability. You can dodge out of most dangers if you’re good enough but you won’t be able to dodge every single attack.
In dungeons or fractals, when Berserker’s join my parties, I almost always find them dead half way through the boss fights and they remain dead the rest of the time. These people are used to running with Berserker’s only groups where you kill enemies before there’s any real threat to you. THAT is the problem a lot of people were having with the meta and that’s why ArenaNet decided to try to change it up.
It’s not because people just hate damage builds and scoff at them for some unknown reason. It’s because a group of all Berserker’s trivializes what would otherwise be a fun and exciting dungeon/fractals run. It’s just business.
Now we’re at the raid. Who am I going to invite to my group? Well I know a handful of people who are amazing players. They NEVER miss dodging at the perfect time and always use a great rotation of skills. They always pack the most useful situational utilities and several of them (not all) have a couple defensive stats on their armors, to make sure they can take the hits they’re forced to take when their endurance bars are spent.
It’s just too bad my band of really great players never stood a chance. I mean, sure, we could all change into different gear and screw up the builds we LIKE to play for the sake of standing a chance. But is that fun for us? Playing a build we obviously chose not to play? No. It’s not fun.
So many people’s arguments seem to be, “WELL~ If you’re not at 100% then raids aren’t meant for you. You must be ultimate uber top 0.1% players who all have teamspeak or raids aren’t meant for you.” I have news for those people. No one on Earth is ever 100% of what they ever could be. Therefore, it does not require you to be at 100% of your potential. Really really high? Yeah. Absolutely perfect? Impossible to be, therefore no.
I’d consider myself to be in the top very small percentile of really good players, which I attribute to what I said about myself earlier. I have good judgement and strategy skills and good coordination with my hands. But, even as a top-tier player, 10 of me couldn’t beat the raid (well we probably could because even after he enraged none of us would ever be touching any aoes anyway. but you get my point).
ArenaNet needed to make the raid ridiculously hard. I understand that. I WANTED that. I still want that and always will. But an enrage timer was not the way to do it. I keep looking at it like one of my fights and saying…it doesn’t matter how long you take to beat someone. As long as they’re beaten eventually, you win.
I’ll even toss our some friendly suggestions (albeit I’m not a game developer):
- Make his base attack much higher.
- Lower the time the green circles are on the field.
- Give him some extra attacks.
- Make him pulse a small amount of damage at his feet.
- Cause lighted floor panels to erupt periodically, killing anyone on them.
- Cause him to spawn a ton more blue AOEs.
But, for the love of God, please don’t time people. I’ll jump through as many flaming hoops as you’ve setup for me, but I want to jump through them as the build I enjoy playing. I don’t want to jump through them as something I don’t enjoy.
At the end of the day it’s all about fun. Are you having fun? Did you have fun? It’s a game and being a “hardcore” player doesn’t mean you spend 10 hours a day playing GW2. Being hardcore means you operate at a highly advanced level. I can be a hardcore Nomad Druid. Trust me, I am. I play for 2-3 hours a day in the evenings AT MOST.
With this raid, I have a lot of fun. A success for ArenaNet? Yeah! That is, until the timer reaches 00:00 and my fun is over because I chose to try to have fun playing the build I wanted to play in the first place. If I wen’t Berserker’s the fun would be over for me at 08:00.
The raid, to me, is a success because it’s fun and challenging up until the timer runs out and everyone but me dies instantly. Let’s do a little problem solving here. The exact time my fun ran out was the exact time the timer ran out and everyone died, thereby causing me not to be able to step into the green circles alone. It’s the timer.
It’s. The. Timer.
Listen to this, because they’re facts:
For the way the Vale Guardian (that’s all I’ve fought as of yet) is setup, the enrage timer disallows for build diversity among players in the raid.
You cannot have more than 1 person running a fully defensive or defensive support build. You will run out of time and die. Furthermore, you can’t even have people who want to go hybrid. Everyone is either maximum DPS or it’s a failed run. There’s a long list of players who won’t be able to beat this raid boss simply because their build doomed them from the start.
A team of Berserker’s, Knight’s, Nomad’s, Sinister, Clerics, etc is diverse. It will also never beat the raid, which is sad.
ArenaNet said they were attempting to promote more build diversity but this enrage timer does the exact opposite.
Now, I’m a fantastic player. I’m super great. But, I’m very limited in the raid groups I can even attempt to join. I play a tanky healing druid in full ascended Nomad’s gear. I don’t DO DPS. I never die, ever. I picked a stat set that played to my personal strengths and I’m very successful with it. But, I can’t join ANY groups that already have anyone else who’s in even the slightest amount of defensive gear because the timer will go out and we’ll all die.
Me, with my 26k HP, 2700 toughness, near infinite heals and ridiculous hand eye coordination; destroyed because everyone else instantly died because an arbitrary timer reached 00:00.
Roll Berserker’s or Sinister or Viper’s, right? The problem I have with that is…that I don’t enjoy playing that type of character. If I were forced to pick between 1-3 preset builds that have a chance of completing content I’d just uninstall the game and start reading more books. I enjoy what I built and what I built, provided I’m really good at it, should have a decent shot at completing any form on content.
I’ve never complained about about something being too difficult in my life, because I know that if I can’t do it I’m just not good enough yet. The thing with this raid is, I’m more than good enough. I’m just not allowed.
In my opinion, the timer needs to be gotten rid of entirely. I should be able to put 10 people in Nomad’s gear in a raid and have a chance at winning. It’ll take all day but it should still be possible.
I see the raid as the great homogenizer. It’s the great machine that makes people give up every stat set except the few that stand a chance in the raid. That’s poor design. A homogenizer is the exact opposite of a diversifier.
Sure I could say, “what the heck, I’ll just go full glass and invite only full glass and play like that”. But, I don’t want to. So, if I have to, I won’t play anymore.
I’ll continue to attempt it with the groups I go with, but I don’t see any real hope for beating it until the timer is either increased or removed all together.
Maybe you’re results and experiences are different. But I’m talking about mine.
Had to remove like 3/4 of what I had to say for length purposes (up to 5001 characters), so niceties aside, here are changes I’d like to see.
<><><>Living Story Updates/2-Week Content<><><>
Since the game first came out almost 2 years ago we haven’t received any substantial new content. If I bring a friend into playing GW2 for the first time, what can I show him that’s new that wasn’t around when I started? Dry Top, Fractals of the Mist, a handful of weapon and armor skins, a burnt Lion’s Arch and a living story he wouldn’t understand. Most new content has been put up for 2 weeks, then brought down again at the end of the two weeks, leaving the game with nothing more than it had before. I can’t go back to the big toxic tower in Kessex Hills. I can’t even go back into the Super Adventure Box.
I don’t pay a monthly fee. None of us do. But, that doesn’t relieve ArenaNet of the obligation of providing a fun and interesting gameplay experience. If it did, no one would buy Gems and the game would run out of money and fail. New and interesting content is the key to keeping people interested enough to pay for Gems, which fund the game. With that in mind, what can I spend my Gems on? Some skins, some infinite gathering tools, maybe some mini pets, some boosters, etc. Why not create a brand new zone and charge me Gems for access to this new exclusive zone? That wouldn’t exclude anyone from parts of the game because Gems can be obtained via gold in-game which anyone can get. Why not throw up a new dungeon and charge me Gems for that? ArenaNet, you need money and I understand that. Let me give you my money by offering me something I would legitimately pay for. I completed The Dragon’s Reach: Part 1 in about 3 hours. What am I supposed to do for the next 14 days?
<><><>Legendary Weapon Acquisition<><><>
I’ve been playing the game, as I said, for almost 2 years. I have around 9400 achievement points yet I have no legendary weapons. Why? Because I don’t feel like grinding for hours on the same content for enough gold to buy either the legendary outright or the materials needed to craft one, when I know there are people who simply bought a few hundred dollars worth of Gems and instantly bought theirs off of the trading post.
A legendary weapon never meant too much aside from that you spent the time grinding out the gold or that you have a well-enough paying job to where you can afford to drop a few hundred bucks on Gems. Where is the prestige? Nowadays, I’ll see people with 3k achievement points running around with multiple legendary weapons and it makes the status of a legendary weapon that much less when everyone already has one. When you see someone with a legendary weapon in a dungeon, they aren’t guaranteed to be any good at the game, and that’s a shame.
I suggest making the legendary weapon requiring little to no actual gold input and instead require a TON of special items obtained through various game activities. Make them require a special token from each of the dungeons costing 1000 dungeon tokens each, in addition to 5000 Badges of Honor, in addition to…so on and so on. Make them prestigious. Metaphorically speaking, don’t make them Ferrari’s (speaking only of your ability to afford it) but more like Nobel Peace Prizes (speaking of your ability to earn it).
<><><>Berserker’s Meta<><><>
I’m not picking on anyone, I’m simply stating what needs changing. Berserker’s armor has become the gold standard for dungeons builds because of its ability to allow players to blindly run through the dungeons, stacking and blowing away bosses before they even have a chance to use their mechanics. A lot of players who use Berserker’s armor are terrible (again, not all). Why? Because they’ve been told in map chat that it’s the best thing to use regardless of the situation but no one has told them how or why to use it. They discover, on their own, that Berserker’s armor allows you to party with other Berserker’s armor players and steamroll a dungeon, illegitimizing the mechanics of the bosses. These players never actually learn how the bosses were meant to be fought or even what they’re capable of, in some instances.
My suggestion is to get to the root of the problem and fix how the bosses react to players stacking. Make them move, make them use more powerful moves or knockback, etc when players are stacking. Make the bosses’ AI smart enough to realize when players are stacked and attempt to move away or something.