Showing Posts For ltkAlpha.4136:
sheer stubbornness. I have 4 lvl 80s and 2 lvl 22s and the plan was to have 1 lvl 80 per profession. plus, it’s still fun enough to log in every once in a while.
I’m not quitting yet, I recently came back after a long break, but I’ll list some things that I feel are problematic and may (and probably will) cause me to leave for good.
Poor to very poor execution of large parts of the personal story; writing, voice acting, direction – you name it; it’s just not AAA level content, even after some of the bugs have been eliminated.
Server and area population is essential for some of the PvE content to be fun (events with champions), mid level zones are scarcely populated and the hardcore (read reliably online) players are concentrated in high level areas or hunting events (“event whack-a-mole”… a sad state of affairs…).
Quality of life improvements – from the top of my head…
- TP functionality still leaves a lot to be desired
- party system for dungeons
- client optimization – I have an enthusiast class rig, but I still often experience performance drops without any visible cause, while my both my CPU and GPU are underutilized.
Profession imbalance in high-end PvE and PvP appears to be very pronounced from what I read, which has to do with the fact that the core mechanics of some professions are simply not viable and/or needed in those scenarios.
Built-in grind (I include Dailies in this category – if I’m forced to do it, it’s grind); I’m not doing the same content 40+(!) times for skins, no matter how pretty they are or how engaging the dungeons are; since that appears to be expected and there are many people in PvE who have a corresponding income (dungeon runners, farmers)…
… Prices rise. For a casual, who nevertheless expects to eventually be able to have 8 level 80s in exotic gear, this can be rather problematic, especially since we’re talking about 50+ gold for more popular builds and you simply aren’t making that kind of money from 1 to 80 by exploring and doing your story.
So, what’s most likely going to happen in my specific case is that I’ll level the remaining 4 professions to lvl 80 by completing the maps, at which point I will have seen the entire map 8 times and will need to grind for cosmetics and, unless I have the option to make gold in PvP, I’ll probably leave the game.
If I had to point to an underlying theme with all of the perceived problems listed above – there doesn’t seem to be an effective feedback loop within ANet aimed at constantly raising the quality of the game or at least not a visible one. Someone needs to be play the game on their end and re-evaluate the content with one mantra in mind – “is this polished? is this fun?” and I don’t get the feeling that that’s happening or if it is – it’s happening at an insufficient pace (I can’t imagine why the TP would be in its current state if quality was a priority). Perhaps I’m in a minority in thinking so, but I find it would be much more beneficial for the longevity of the game if ANet were to aggressively focus on a “GW2 Enhanced edition” type of project for a while, instead of focusing on the Living Story and then trying to placate the most vocal among us with whatever resources remain. Here some people would say “But they are fixing bugs and improving the game, constantly!” and “They’re a small company! They’re doing their best with what they have!”. To that I’d reply “Constantly doing something and doing enough are two very different things” and “Great, but results speak for themselves and you can’t expect players to wait forever”.
Perhaps it’s just me being impatient, who knows, perhaps ANet are doing enough, we don’t have the figures. I really hope that’s the case, because their heart is in the right place and GW2 has a ton of potential.
I understand the OP. I dislike the game play of sword for the reasons he stated, I feel axe is practically redundant when having SB in your arsenal. GS, in my opinion, simply doesn’t belong on a Ranger thematically. The feeling that I get from reading discussions on the forums (the main theme in my mind, so to speak) is that, in the context of end game PvE and WvW, we’re trying to adapt the Ranger to a roles other professions are meant to play better. In addition to that, part of our output depends on an AI, which is a disadvantage that doesn’t appear to be compensated by absolutely anything (that I can think of at least).
The problem I have is that the role it appears to have been designed to play thematically (something like a wilderness protector who’d dominate in prolonged 1v1 in a nature setting using mobility, conditions and his pet) doesn’t seem to be needed anywhere (outside of perhaps sPvP). I guess a group of rangers with complementary builds would be really scary in small skirmishes in WvW (which I don’t play, btw), but that’s not an aspect of that mode that gets any attention from what I’ve seen, everyone’s talking about the zerg action.
I guess what I’d really like to see is a game designer explaining what role we are meant to play in their mind, what Ranger’s strengths were supposed to be, and what they are planning to do with the profession from now on.
I’ve just no desire to play melee,. and I won’t have any desire to do so until mmos have combat as fluid as Zelda or Devil May Cry. If even then…
If Ranger isn’t the class for me, then by all means, I’d welcome it if they’d add one. But it’s apparent that’s not gonna’ happen. :-\Alright, elementalist staff or scepter for you I suppose? I don’t know what to tell you.
Even an elementalist and the other caster classes will be required to move into melee range now and again, so… I guess you just don’t like this game?
Like it or not, you will need to come to terms with melee in this game or you will always be mediocre.
You can specialize in range and still rock melee, there’s no reason to have this aversion to it.
Ranger more then any other class can effortlessly go from range to melee and melee to range with unmatched skill chemistry for the occasion.
There are a dozen combos among the various weapon sets we can use. You should be able to figure it out.
I’m not sure what we’re discussing here anymore.
Ranger’s need to L2P, rangers need to go melee or GTFO, but why? Is there a shortage of warriors? Speed runs as somehow the highest form of play in GW2? Who pronounced damage as the only metric that matters? Now I find I’m “required” to move to melee range. Am I? I didn’t get the memo.
Or are we talking about the preconceptions of a limited circle of hardcore farmers trying to shave off the last second off a run time, by making sure everyone is clear on the “rules” and has maximal practice with the “acceptable builds”. Cause if it’s the latter I’m pretty sure I’ll somehow survive without their approval.
My first char was a ranger, my second a warrior, and so on…
I leveled my ranger using only bows. Push, cripple and burst on the LB, stack conditions and, again, cripple with the SB. With my trusty bear in their face or my spider immobilizing them mobs rarely even touched me, while I (slowly?) needled them to death. It felt good, somehow well rounded and DPS wasn’t an issue.
Greatsword felt like a pointless departure from the play style (why would I wanna get close?!).
Sword was downright goofy (ok… now I’m not just close, I’m rooted to the effin ground with the enemy in my face!).
At the time axe felt, well, redundant – a bit more AoE perhaps, but nothing that LB/SB didn’t offer, with the latter being somehow more sound conceptually. Now, returning to my ranger and trying to come up with a sound end game build that fits me, I see how axe/torch might be useful, as axe benefits from condition damage and offers said AoE, so I will be replacing LB with it as a main combo.
Having played a GS warrior to lvl 80 and 95% map completion (but, admittedly, with very little experience in dungeons), the only reason I would ever be playing a melee ranger in PvE, ever, would be if something happens to remove warriors from the game and my guild asks me to. I’ve seen all of Strife’s speed runs on youtube – not one melee ranger in sight (or any other ranger for that matter). Warrior DPS is much higher and they don’t have to rely on or babysit an AI. At best my ranger would be a second tier replacement.
I know people play BM rangers in sPvP and the melee damage is higher than the ranged one. I know damage rules in late game PvE. I don’t care. I choose to play my ranger as I like. If I wanted to swing a sword at stuff I would not be playing a ranger to begin with.
Who knows, perhaps someday ANet will decide what they want us to be or they’ll make condition builds more effective… Here’s hoping.
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When the only way to attain that content is either through very low odds random chance and/or through attaining a gigantic laundry list of rare items, you’re forced to grind the game – regardless of how you do it.
I guess that the precise problem you (and many others) have with the game – you don’t seem to grasp an idea of acumulating these thing, through months/years of a normal playing. When mats and gold just drops in by accident, when you’re doing something that is fun to you. And the legendary is not to be focused, it’s something to be earned after a long long time of playing, aside from the fun you take from a game.
You might of course not agree to this philosophy, and most likely you won’t, but it’s not a game design’s problem. It’s you and your attitude. Apparently, you chose a wrong game to play.
EDIT: Focusing-too-much seems to be a problem in general gaming nowadays. Is there anyone who play their games purely for fun yet?
I disagree. People want to be adequate, people want to belong. In a game where people are allowed to make 7g/hour (CoF1), where a significant core of people play full time and work the TP to a degree where hundreds of gold per precursor is a sensible market price, there will be expectations. I play on an EU server and this weekend my guild was assembling for guild activities in Lions Arch. There were about a dozen guildies there and there were 3 legendaries on display, and it’s is not even a hardcore guild. People do (and always will) take the path of least resisitance towards their goal.
Again, this sets expectations. I myself am as casual as they get (I hate grind in any form with a passion), but I’m left with the impression that exotics are a base requirement – profession and build aside, you don’t want to slow people down, they don’t want you to slow them down. So, exotic gear is a minimal requirement if you want dungeon skins. And for that you need gold – a full exotic set of popular gear can starts around 50 gold . You need gold to make gold (it’s effing absurd). I mean, FFS, people in my guild are looking for people for FotM lvl 45+ (!). I’ve had the game since release (admittedly, with a long break) and I haven’t been to the place even once yet.
There’s nothing complicated to grasp, we’re not discussing a mathematical theorem. I do my best to have fun, I level alts and roam the maps doing everything, but guild chat is not about that, people obviously set themselves loftier goals and every time I look up prices on the TP I realize that my style of play just isn’t competitive in that regard. Playing like that and looking around at the skins people wear I realize I’m essentially the GW2 equivalent of a bum. There’s the status quo, there’s inflation and there’s a perception of expectation. And the fact that you can’t acknowledge that can stem only from ignorance, lack of empathy, arrogance or all of those combined.
edit:
tl; dr: You can’t disregard human nature when discussing game design. You might as well disregard human physiology.
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There’s a pretty simple solution to this that would make both camps happy.
Just make it so each player has the OPTION of using normalized models for other players. This would work the same way that the “Show Team Colors” option currently does:
If I check the “normalize models” option, then everyone else’s character will always appear to me as a regular-sized human. BUT, each player will still see his own character as he originally designed it. So if you play an Asura, you will always view your character as an Asuran. You can play in all the tournaments, etc., and on your screen your character will look exactly the way you designed him/her. However, on my screen, your character will look like a regular-sized human.
This solution let’s people keep their character customization, but let’s the hypercompetitive players maintain and even playing field. As far as tournaments go, it would be up to the Caster to decide whether to check the “normalize models” option or not.
I’ve seen other people suggest this solution before, and I don’t claim to have originated it. In fact, it’s already been implemeneted with respect to team colors. I could deck my character out completely in pink, but if you have “Show Team Colors” selected, then my character will look either “Red” or “Blue” to you depending on my team. It is only logical to apply this same idea to the character-race problem.
Brilliant! I was pushing for a “tournament mode” – locking easily distinguishable models for each profession for “serious” play, and it never occurred to me “normalization” can be done client side. If that happens, nothing stops ANet from going one step further and allowing players and casters to set customized models for each profession, additionally enhancing visibility. Tip of the hat to you, good sir!
Sheesh this thread. Some people don’t get that this is an mmoRPG I guess.
Oh, I do, believe me, I’m still exclusively a PvE player, if anything I’d like to see the transition to PvP incentivized and, to be honest, I am not a particularly big optimist when it comes to the whole e-sports thing. There is a subset of the community, however, that actively tries to push for e-sports and I’m just trying to offer ideas as a spectator. This being the sPvP forum, I expected people to be more open to the notion, frankly.
While the champions in MOBAs have different skins, they have the same size, silhouette and movement animations. As things currently stand in GW2 you can have almost anything – two mechanically identical chars running at you from the distance, one of which is a huge pink norn and the other a minuscule azura in armor of a color you’ve never seen before, wearing a plush backpack. That may not bother high level players, as they’ve spent a thousand hours looking at the GUI, but as a viewer on 720p it doesn’t help me one bit, especially if there aren’t clones (etc.) to identify the mesmer or the mentioned burning trail to help me spot the ele.
It’s a basic rule of human-computer interaction – information that’s important should be as visible as possible. Basically, what we’re discussing is, at least in the context of PvP, bad design.
Having some standard for tournament play / broadcast matches is one of many measures that could contribute to making the game easier to watch, commentate and take seriously, all of which are important to potentially make GW2 PvP (in some form) a mainstay on the e-sports scene, which in turn (if the business case is right) can result in NCSoft / ANet allocating additional resources to it.
Now, Harrier may not like all of these measures, but I’m pretty sure if that happens the results would benefit him directly.
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@ Harrier
My idea was meant to apply to serious tournament play, i.e. e-Sports aspect of things; two threads down GW2 PvP is being described as a “visual cluster****” and I completely agree. For a number of reasons (that I’m sure you can think of on your own… probably) that’s not a good state of affairs.
Honestly, if an idea benefits the quality and future of the game and the entire community (and it would – see hero models in LoL, Dota 2, TF2, etc. – there’s a reason you don’t have hundreds of models per hero/class), I think you puking and leaving the game will be something… we’ll just have to try and live with, I guess?
What if we have two or three a “tournament mode” options with the same silhouette with buttons/check boxes that organizers can ask players to use or people can decide to use by convention.
I mean when we’re talking about serious competition and e-sports I’m not sure that player customization is a respectable priority.
P.S. didn’t mean to draw attention away from Tumri’s thread on Normalized Character Models, I honestly hadn’t noticed it before my OP; in essence it’s the same topic
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After watching a PvP tournament online and reading through a couple of threads touching on the subject of the interface and the importance of visuals for both viewers and casters I remembered how Valve placed importance on the players being able to quickly distinguish between classes in Team Fortress 2 (see here: http://bit.ly/TMzL0).
Given that GW2 PvP can already be quite a challenge visually, I suggest a tournament convention or an outright lock by ANet to improve profession identification in PvP. For example, something along the lines of:
Ele – azura / female / Devout armor / medium sized body
Warrior – norn / male / Cultural Tier One armor / larger body
Guardian – human / male / Ascalonian Catacombs armor / medium sized body
Engineer – charr / male / Riveted armor / larger sized body
Thief – sylvari / female / Noble armor / smaller body
Mesmer – human / female / Magician armor / medium sized body
Necro – charr / female / Dry bones / smaller body
Ranger – sylvari / male / Riveted armor/ larger body
The combinations don’t have to be these exact ones , of course, or ANet can even choose to design new ones with this guiding principle in mind.
I would also suggest locking hair types and armor colors to enhance the effect. So, for example, you could have a big bronze-ish norn warrior with horned helmet and a beard, a silvery human guardian without one, a smaller slender thief in darker leather with more pronounced leafy hair vs a slightly taller human female mesmer with a less pronounced hair, but a more feminine silhouette and a violet dress, etc.
I’m sure you see where I’m going with this, so what do you think?
I watched an hour or so recently (was it this Sat? I had a long weekend and it all kinda blurs together, to be honest), so I know what the OP means. I definitely expected more from the commentary. I haven’t PvPed in GW2 yet and I had taken a long leave from the game, so I wanted to see how things are in terms of builds, profs being used (apparently rangers are useful these days), tactics, etc. There wasn’t much of that at all, at least while I was watching.
Given that GW2 is very confusing to the uninitiated (team fights especially are a visual soup of effects and jumping figures that I can’t even begin to decipher despite having spent 500 hrs playing the game) the casters have to compensate, so they will have to be effin amazing.
At the same time I understand that these are first steps for most of the people involved, so I’m willing to be patient. I’m worried however that the format may turn out to be inherently problematic (as Blu himself admitted), as the action is split between locations and some plays may be too fast to be spotted. Time will tell, I guess.
I think they should have a click-able option to show the last 5 moves a character does so if something of note pops up, you can easily switch your camera or a map indication of where battles are going if you toggle it on.
Good idea. I can also imagine being able to view the bar of the person you’re following (not sure if we have that now) and having a visual elements to the side that show the people in proximity of each important point, so if to people are battling each other over a cap point for 5 minutes you’ll now that’s happening no matter where on the map the action is (lol, just read the 2nd part of your post; great minds… ^^)
I watched an hour or so recently (was it this Sat? I had a long weekend and it all kinda blurs together, to be honest), so I know what the OP means. I definitely expected more from the commentary. I haven’t PvPed in GW2 yet and I had taken a long leave from the game, so I wanted to see how things are in terms of builds, profs being used (apparently rangers are useful these days), tactics, etc. There wasn’t much of that at all, at least while I was watching.
Given that GW2 is very confusing to the uninitiated (team fights especially are a visual soup of effects and jumping figures that I can’t even begin to decipher despite having spent 500 hrs playing the game) the casters have to compensate, so they will have to be effin amazing.
At the same time I understand that these are first steps for most of the people involved, so I’m willing to be patient. I’m worried however that the format may turn out to be inherently problematic (as Blu himself admitted), as the action is split between locations and some plays may be too fast to be spotted. Time will tell, I guess.
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I think it’d really help at least.
You’re far too optimistic of forum etiquette. I remember, during the Curse tournie stream, someone talked about the forum (this forum) being a kitten hole… I don’t think I saw a single person disagree. I wouldn’t be surprised if many, many people are simply turned off from this forum because of the caustic nature of many posters and the threads that fly around in here. Heck, I rarely post because I find this forum mostly unbearable a lot of the time and I only stop by, usually, for some info on upcoming events/streams.
Moreover, how many of the actual top players (of this game, not the paragons of GW1 who post here regularly) do we ever see posting in here? Who’s opinion are you going to tabulate?
Speaking of the “caustic nature of many posters” – does the fact that someone’s is or is not currently a top GW2 player invalidate their opinion on the game or eSports? Should being a top player boost the validity of your arguments on this particular topic for example? Careful with the blanket statements…
Riot seized an opportunity and did well. GW2, on the other hand, was released in the post-LoL era. If they want a successful eSport they know what needs to be done. The fact that they’re not dedicating the necessary resources speaks volumes. I think the community investing time and effort into competitive GW2 PvP at this point is naive and sends out the wrong message (“See? See what we accomplished with what little (sh*y) tools you gave us? Just imagine what we could accomplish if you, the developer, actually cared!”)
I have access to more than enough eSports content already and the icons of a dozen AAA titles waiting on my desktop for me to find the time to play them. The way I see it if ANet want me to play their PvP, if they want my time and attention, if they want me to watch their streams, care about and speak of their content and provide them with additional revenue they will have to proactively compete with the existing players in the market. Put the infrastructure in place and polish it to a shine, make proper PvP more accessible and ensure influx of players through tie-ins to PvE; create regional scenes, make the modes possible to comment (Blu also had some eye-opening commentary on reddit on how difficult it is to commentate PvP matches currently), etc.
If I’m coming off as rather unsympathetic towards the woes of ANet it’s because I am. We’ve been paying to beta test their game. It’s their turn. And they’re on a clock.
tl; dr: It’s a buyers market. I don’t think it’ our role to convince ANet GW2 as an eSport could work. It is theirs to demonstrate to us that that’s the case.
Thanks! Very nice look (albeit a tad too spiky for my taste)!
@Orion: mind posting a screenshot? I’m curious (despite the fact that I don’t have the time or the guild to go for dungeon armor).
You’ve heard this all before I’m sure, just needed to share.
For whatever reason there are very few armor skins in GW2 that I truly wish I had . Light has some great looks on human females, I admit, but I recently started a human guardian, my 4th character, and looking at the skins online there’s one (!) that I feel fits the character and it’s the tier 3 cultural, which is prohibitively expensive. Had a similar problem with my Asura ele (thankfully, there’s the Named skin) and an even more pronounced one with my Sylvari ranger, where there were virtually no skins I really liked.
Aesthetics are to a large extent the PvE end game and I’ve seen similar threads before, so I know I’m not alone. Can we have a little more choice, please? I know it’s nigh impossible to please every taste, but can we have a couple more skins for the ones among us, who like things a little less spiky and just a tiny bit more realistic perhaps?
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Excellent OP!
I would add that a significant subset of the stat-cap community can be characterized by allergy to grind. I, for one, can tolerate only minimal grind. For example if in GW1 it would take me, say, 100 hours (don’t remember the exact number) to level a PvE character and collect the skills relevant for PvP I’d tolerate several hours on top of that in order to get the armor second tier armor I wanted. I spent a total of 4500 hours playing GW1 over the years, probably half of it in PvP.
In GW2 you have built-in, obvious and unashamed grind. Dungeon armors, karma sets, legendaries, FOTM – I will never go through that content more than once or twice for fun. (On top of that you don’t have a viable way to reliably make in-game money in small portions suitable for people with lives; and, on top of that again, albeit without relevance for this discussion – PvP doesn’t work.)
What ANet (or perhaps NCSoft) are missing is that they will NOT succeed in forcing PvE grind on this type of player. I like the gameplay, I’m planning to make one char per profession, but the moment you try force me to repeat the same content more than a couple of time – I’m out. There are half a dozen excellent games waiting to be played in my Steam library.
Perhaps we’re a minority, but players are content. Time will tell.
oi, ANet, look at what people are forced to do… what year is it?
Agreed; my spontaneous suggestions:
- 4v4 small random arenas to teach you the basics; 3 ELO based tiers with increasing rewards and access to armor and weapon skins; a limited (4-5) number of highly polished maps; 10 min rounds; reaching, say, glad lvl 3 unlocks…
- 6v6 medium sized team arenas; 20 min rounds; you get access to instanced practice matches and 2 teams per guild (<Guild Name> 1 & 2); the teams rating is the average of the members’ ratings; another 3 average ELO based tiers of competition with more complex maps with separate glad lvls, lvl 6 unlocks…
- 8v8 guild/team arenas; the elite; this is what we balance for; 30 min matches; complex maps; sick skins, not available but wearable in PvE, rivaling the PvE legendaries up for grabs at the top levels of competition; serious monetary rewards in monthly and yearly tournaments to encourage professional teams to get involved and raise the level.
Oh and – stop wasting effort on WvWvW, let it die.
I’m sure there are flaws in this system, but it would be a definite improvement over what we have now.
whoever was in charge of these decisions needs to step down and allow someone who actually cares about PvP to give it a try.
I’m more interested in finding out who made the original Guild Wars PvP and where he or she works currently. I’m buying a game from that person without a single doubt.
GW1 PvP had its own problems. its business model was problematic in terms of achieving balance, the transitions between the different PvP formats was everything but smooth, personal rankings were never taken into account in the matchmaking of entry level formats, etc., financing for PvP dried up relatively early killing GW1 as an e-sport in its infancy (at the time people said it was never going to take off anyway, as it’s not as immediately watchable as SC2; LoL proved them wrong).
I’m not saying doing a good job on GW2 PvP (thinking of it from a serious e-sport perspective) should be easy. but right now I think you’d agree even some of essential basics haven’t been covered.
I think it’s sad because a great chance is being missed. look at LoL. GW2 is an absolutely glorious game in many respects and with some focus they still can make a great e-sport, that could win them more players, which would be a win for everyone involved.
edit: just wanted to add this quick link to drive home my point
http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_detailpage&v=JX4eEdlwm2Q#t=3863s
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let me quickly preface this by saying that I haven’t played any PvP in GW2 yet. I wanted to learn the mechanics first (like I did in GW1).
everything I’ve learned about PvP in this game so far makes me go “huh?!”.
the addition of WvWvW. a format that is, to anyone who’s spent any time at all thinking about it, obviously utterly impossible to balance. how much time are people expected to keep playing it (independent of incentives on one side and invisible hordes on the other)? huh?!
structured PvP without a ladder system. if you would sit down with the goal of designing a system to guarantee maximum frustration for everyone involved, after what I’ve read so far, it seems to me that what we have now is probably what you’d come up with. and that’s not even touching subjects like professions being optically indistinguishable from each other and other minor nitpicks. huh?!
after GW1 this boggles the mind. honestly, from the side it looks like sabotage. whoever was in charge of these decisions needs to step down and allow someone who actually cares about PvP to give it a try.
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While I support all the proposed additions (with the possible exception of private servers, unless you mean private PvP instances for friendly matches like in GW1), what I’d like to see, and have been advocating since GW1, is the addition of ranked and tiered 5vs5 and 8vs8 PvP (i.e. PvP leagues) on symmetrical maps with automated matchmaking within the tier ala SC2 (but for teams, not players) with the highest ranking games of each league being broadcast GW1 style.
It would help if an 8vs8 guild was be able to create multiple (let’s say a total of 3) teams.
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