Showing Posts For neoplasmax.4286:
How about each heart in a zone gives you Karma. Karma is used to buy your first set of gear which is the lowest tier of zone you working in. Karma is used for potions and other small consumables. Doing all the zone’s quests could earn you full set of first gear. The quests lead to the medium bosses. These bosses drop random 2nd tier loot as well as reward a small amount of karma. (not really more as you got a decent 2nd piece of better gear which is compatible though with the first tier’s bonuses of that level. The exotic tier of the zone are drops from the bigger badder events which need lower quests to spawn. But they only drop for higher levels (or higher involved players of the massive events.) Certain events may only rewards certain pieces of your gear such as shoulders and even harder ones may give legs or chest pieces. So this would allow higher levels to redo bigger events in all zones as well as help spawn them for lower levels to work together. To me, this would give reason for guilds to help with quests and also spawn larger events which in turn spawn the much larger ones. The drops need to be adjusted to the amount of XP received so that you may possibly get a blue set of gear by the time you get out of the zone equal to your level. Does any of the gear really change though? No. It stays the same as it is now. It’s just the manner in which you receive it. I also would prefer more varied stats and gem bonuses.
Just a small note on people that don’t like loot playing a factor in battles, how does this equate to skill alone? I would almost prefer skill to be how well a person knows their character. I mean, to me it’s like drag racing with ONLY one type of honda. Basically, the winner is who knows when to shift and who pushes on gas first. Not much variety. When I go to drag races I wanna see hondas and other rice burners, dodges, fords, chevy, bored out engines, newer engines, old engines, turbine engines, shift kits, wheelie bars, variety of tires. What I’m getting at, I want the user to know the character and mold it to his style of play. This to me is inclusive to skill. I would love a bigger choice of skills. Maybe double the amount per each weapon but only allow up to 8 to be used. If I don’t wanna have buffs, lemme remove them and put an additional skill there but it only does half the damage or stun time. I mean there are so many crazy variations to do things without really changing too much of how it is now it seems.
anyway….
Number 5: Guesting and Realms
Because dynamic events have a persisting effect on the world (ok they really don’t, but they’re supposed to), each overflow will have their own different little world. Every time the player re-enters the zone and gets put into another overflow, everything is different, the village he saved against the centaurs in the previous overflow is burned down, etc.Because most events reset to fast I didn’t even consider that an issue. And for the larger ones that are (like the world bosses or statues) the algorithm could put you in a server that had compelted them. I breifly mention this at 20:52.
I think the bigger events should be linked to smaller events and those events to the quests you do around the area. Based on stuff you do and whether you succeed or fail, those events should transcend to medium ones or bosses in area which then the bigger bosses say, “well, I guess I have to do it myself” and then they appear rather than on timers. I hate timers. I really do. They kill everything. Why can’t there be other mechanics trigger various things other than stupid timers. If anything timers should only be used as a minimum so a boss can’t spawn too quickly back to back from multiple quests being done over and over to spawn something. I’m not sure how it would fix the current content but it would definitely benefit future content. Also if someone is alone in zone, huge bosses would’t block them from doing quests to get to those points. A level of gear and certain variety should be on easy stuff, medium increases the loot a tad and hardcore bosses spawned should give even better unlike how it is now. Plus, working towards a huge event would make your guild wanna work together or server to help spawn the tyrant again. I think there NEEDS to be consequences if you fail also. And all game open world events seriously need a challenge. The challenges in the game make me faceroll to often.
Number 4, 6, 10
These things are limited by available resources and developer time more than anything else. WoW excels in these areas over Anet because Blizzard has these resources to polish their game until it shines.And even WoW took YEARS to get it right.
This is extremely true. I remember being logged out for server issues often in Vanilla wow. I remember lots of stuff broken and lag. I remember painful wait times in que. The game to me has it’s audience because it was there when it all got started. It made the right turns when it should have and because of subscription, it was able to keep players who didn’t wanna pay for another possible fail game. People to me go back to wow because of the investment already and the fact they got some things really polished up like their dungeon mechanics. Even with crappier graphics, the dungeons play precise and require team effort so they are more fun and challenging.
This game because of it’s easy/casual approach didn’t get me invested in it. And I had no problem stepping away for a bit. I played Aion from start and still playing now and I have a hard time walking away from game cause of the time invested in it because it was rough. The grind, some of the gear was tough to earn. I feel proud about my char. So when 4.0 comes, I’m probably going to be stuck for again some time.
(edited by neoplasmax.4286)
An exerpt from an article over at IGN in what Johanson thinks would help MMOs (GW2 specifically) survive these days. :
“According to Johanson, the answer is simple; innovation. “What we need to be able to do is look at the game and say, “What is the next big innovative feature that people expect out of an MMO?” and one of two things will happen. Either a competitors going to make it in their game and release a new game that brings you in, or we’re going to put that into Guild Wars 2 and grow our game into the next type of MMO within that game.”
I sort of think this is it. But first, look at what has kept Eve online around so long. The depth and variety of game play. The game was innovative for it’s time. EQ2 was innovative. WoW was innovative. But then WoW stopped being innovative and simplified their game so they would attrack 4yr olds up to 80 yr olds and casual to medium core players. What you get when you make a WoW clone? Competition for players already in WoW. There is a plethora of gamers that don’t have a home cause we don’t want a WoW clone. There is Rift and many others that have copied the formula and they split the fans. But hard core players don’t have much of a home at all. New players are also good grabs. Ex-Wow gamers also looking for something unlike WoW are needing homes.
To me, we need to bring back games before the huge nerfs. The times where games had so many options, there was room for error and few cookie cutter builds or layouts and linearity was semi non-existent. Variety ALONG WITH innovation will you keep and bring new players. Innovation alone ends up where GW2 is now. There has to be challenge and players need involvement. I still hear people talk about Star Wars Galaxies crafting today. No one has matched it. Even Sony nerfed the original. Innovation may raise and eyebrow and pick up a few extra sales but it doesn’t hold players and if players don’t stay you get “GW2 is dead” all over the net and you lose new potential customers from the best advertisement in the world, …word of mouth.
Sorry about the change in train of though mid-way down in last paragraph. I had a thought in event loot management and it just came out when I was talking about stats at first.
Also wanted to add.
The way I would fix gear progression is to make gear with way more stat variations or with random stat numbers. Say a Tier 1 armor will have 15 points randomly distributed amongst 10 different stats. Tier 2 may have 20 points. I’d also make stats that combine 2 stats. Say one point in ferocity which may give you .5 points in strength and .5 points in dexterity. (I honestly forgot what stats were in GW2 during my hiatus, this goes to show how rememorable the stats were. None.) I honestly love lots of stats and gear choices. And having more than one desirable stat for each class to avoid cookie cutter stats/builds. This to me sort of seems to be one of the easiest modifications cause it’s lots of times just a few changes in the formulas. Wow has changed their formulas a lot since launch and added stats also like resilience which was not there. People love theorizing and formulating how stats play with and the style they play. You really shouldn’t worry about balance but variety. More variety actually can create balance. Too much time stressed over balance and most the time it’s fixed by adding variety to allow people to break a cookie cutter mold that creates the limited underpowered feeling.
WoW did this in the beginning as well, they offered lots of stats. Remember names like “of the wolf” and “of the bear” many stats and combos were undesireable but that’s where the formulas and skills come in. You have to make them robust as well and actually count. Just get rid of magic find as well. It’s a terrible idea. You find everything already easily without needing some stat to modify it. Your endeavors in game should reward you properly without having some fully armored player in the bunch that didn’t do crap to the boss get everything better or same. No healers in game, why not have damage meters running behind scenes. if you stop to rez, you get a bonus amount added to yours for the time you stopped. Maybe the dps of the dead player up till time died or something, you can think of something I’m sure for those people that do nothing but run around rezzing others. There’s usually little chance to fail though in some events so I’ve died before and no one cared to rez me. So I feel there should be a greater reward for those that take time out to do so. Maybe additional dps added for those with group buffs on. Highest at end of boss encounter gets 1% of a chance to get best. dunno…
I love where this game was seeming going and there is a lot of hope for it. Least I would think so. I’m a huge MMO gamer. I’m currently playing several, I still have active account in Tera & Aion as well and people may knock these two games but if you log in either of them, you see people everywhere still on them even in the lower zones. They always say, a game that is plagued by gold sellers is a game that is still in high demand and I see gold for these being advertised still all the time. Plus, there are tons of people in front of the level 20 dungeons LFGing and their LFG Tools only take about 15 minutes to get a group which is not bad at all. Not seeing that anywhere much here at all. I know that GW2 was designed for the casual, but I left casual games cause I felt there were just already too many WoW clones. If I wanted a WoW like game, I’d just as well stay with WoW. I personally feel, if you truly want to beat WoW at their game, you need to get hardcore players attention first. Make a game they will love and the rest will follow and it doesn’t even take as much content as GW2 has currently. It would take fewer more planned out challenging events and dungeons to appease them. I was so ready hoping GW2 could take my time away from these other games but it didn’t. I am still hoping for that hence the reason I still log in from time to time and play some things. I’m not a skilled programmer but I wouldn’t even think it would take too much time to set some of these above ideas in motion. These are the things I love about MMOs and I know many feel the same way.
Some things I do know… You don’t make a game hardcore or more community based by removing Global Chat or Dungeon Finders. This is more or less a communcative issue with some players such as myself. Sometimes I have time to sit and find a group old school way but some days I’d rather just click “Find Me A Group” button and have the game do it for me. Doesn’t mean I’m less hardcore, I’m just lazy or short on time, or I just wanna do something other than waste my time spamming chat for an hour to have a little fun. You don’t keep players by making content easier and simply innovative. It’s the challenges that keep people coming. The complexity of story and consequences. I don’t mean adding a death consequence but one from choice or failing certain events or tasks. You don’t make a game more community based simply because the game allows people to join and get the same rewards and not have to fight over a boss. The game base has changed because WoW brought us a lot of new gamers to the scene. You will always have whiners either way you make this game, but at least making some of it harder (and not just harder by making bosses 1 shot you), you will keep the people that want a game for it’s challenges that can’t be beaten overnight. There’s already so much for the Checkers players in a Checkers based MMO market, let’s get something for the Chess players.
I have tons more ideas/plans, but I forgot them over the course of writing all this.
… I’ll be back!
Some of the things I definitely don’t like about GW2 that I wish were around.
Let’s do the obvious. A bulletin board or dungeon finder. Well, I know I’m at war with other servers but this shouldn’t stop me from being able to hit up a dungeon with them. The technology proves itself in many modern games. No one likes sitting in front of a door (to a dungeon) and spamming “LFG SM 40 Warrior” or whatever.
I think having a dungeon finder actually builds community because it’s not simply left to communicative guilds. I was in three guilds and not a single one communicated. Yes, they were poorly ran but that’s what seemed to be commonplace here. I found guilds to join by doing runs with skilled players in other MMOs. But the initial runs were found with LFG channels or dungeon finders. If you don’t want to automate it, then just look at Aion Online. It’s totally free right now, please devs, get an account (this is your publisher NCSoft’s other game). Just look at the way they did their LFG tool. Get in game and hit Shift-V. It’s super robust. All this tool does is give you a few preset options (that you can change) based on your current level. Then all it has is a Comment box. So then when you hit enter to post, it lists you on a bulletin board. This would allow me to continue gaming and not have to sit in front of a dungeon entrance. If I want to find someone say in my area that wants to do BAM kills (sorry, using Tera terminology for large event bosses), all I would have to do is search BAM and would find all comments with the acronym ‘bam’ in it. It would give a list and I could simply right click on name of person or group and apply. What’s amazing is that the Aion devs were probably some of the best when it came to giving the end-user a vast amount of options and total control. Just look at their character creation screen and their LFG Tool and you’ll see this is what makes MMOs an MMO…
The other biggest problem I have with GW2 is no world chat. Sorry, I don’t know how this can be detrimental having. I play MMOs specifically to be in a community of games that love to play a similar game together. How in the heck is world chat a bad thing? Even with 20 players logging on in 20 different zones, I’d have someone to chat with or just ask a question. Not much else to say about this one.
I keep hearing the word “Skill” when it comes to PvP or even PvE. But when all you have is 5 moves F1, 1, 2, 3, 4 (and possibly 4 other buffs, etc), how is skill played out here? Not enough moves for my taste to have consequences. The “skill” in these arguments I guess is where to stand and when to dodge cause the moves are too simplistic in nature to not have alternative patterns of usage and definitely little consequence. I play games that I have 3 or 4 (12 button) bars with remappable keys and macros and combos and never have enough keys on my keyboard to use them all. This is my kind of system. Why? because I want consequence, I want someone to use the wrong spell at the wrong time and it not just be a simple spam of the same pattern of keys 3421, 3421, 3421, “Ooh, must heal self!”, 6, 3421, 3421, “Switch weapon set”, 4231, 4231, 4231….. < This is boring! Among the other problems with not enough skills to use, there is the lack of debate. The sometimes heated debates of people thinking they know the best skill set to use and when. Anyone ever PvP’d on other games like Aion and got owned and wondered how they did it? Cause that person learned something different about the skill sets of their char? That’s a huge plus for that game. To have so much to offer, people have debate and challenge in learning what works best for their play style and class.
Another thing I love about this game but it does need some tweaking is the events. These events were massive and they were fun. But the biggest problem I had with them was the difficulty scale based on how many players showed. The 2nd biggest problem was that there was no consequence for failing. The 3rd biggest problem was that the loot or rewards didn’t seem to be exclusive to the battle you participated in. These to me, for GW2 to survive in PvE as an open world adventure would need to be addressed. The game was just way too easy for my tastes and I thought this game was about skill. Skill to me, means the game as a whole, not just in PvP. The threats in the world needed to be real. They need consequence and they need to be challenging. Without these, the game is not a game but just a prewritten story you participate in some. Consequence needs to drive us to win. It needs to alter parts of the plot, it needs to deepen in objective. But I don’t think it needs to be like Rift. If you don’t kill off a Rift invasion, it takes over the towns. But instead it needs to change the story in areas if other areas aren’t completed or won. Like, it would be cool to do smaller events to open up the bigger ones, not it just be on a timer. It looks like this was almost achieved in many zones reading the story but it never happened. Every event was simply just a timer and a timer that was easily farmed because people figured it out. Does anyone remember World of Warcraft Vanilla? Remember in Duskwood when you did the quests and when you were complete it released a big boss that would walk down the road and attack the town??? Well, when the game first released, there were no level 60s running by to one shot kill the boss. It would wreak havoc and people had to band together to kill it. That was a rememberable moment in that game that it instilled in my mind. And you never knew when someone would release the boss cause during that time, only few realized a quest line was the culprit. On Rewards, it doesn’t matter if I kill 20 giants in a small village or kill off a gargantuan undead dragon, the rewards seemed to be the same. The loot (whether drops, chests, or karma) was pretty much equal on all events. Some of bigger magnitude dropped more and lesser, well, you get less but were easy and more readily avail. I could just sell that stuff and buy the stuff someone else got fighting the bigger events. So essentially it was the same. I wish the last exotic sets or better (or even all sets) were non-tradeable and pieces were exclusive to certain magnitude events. There so many sets of gear in this game, it’s a shame that it’s mostly fodder. If things were done in this manner, the gear would have meant a little more. I know GW doesn’t like loot progression (and many fans don’t like it) but it didn’t need to be also just given away. The gear was there, it just needed some serious planning on the distribution and that simply would have given it value. I don’t even care if there was only 1 set of gear and it was all cookie cutter to every level and class, I just wish I had something to work for in this manner. I didn’t want it handed to me, I wanted to earn it.
….
First of all, I’d like to take a few lines to praise a few of the things I’ve enjoyed in this game. Which I’d like the devs to adhere to as the game develops further. These items are as follows: (This may be lengthy, so I hope it doesn’t drive away devs from reading.)
I absolutely love the game real estate and art. The only tiny issues I have with the real estate is the ability to actually journey a bit further. Over by Wizard’s Fief, I was hoping I could swim out and explore around underneath the floating castle in the sky. I couldn’t. I was hoping for more hidden coves and strange places that just seem out of this world. I love the hidden stuff. Caves no one knows about with a boss that might just have something indifferent than the normal drop loot you get off any old outside boss. When I saw how the real estate looked, the vast heights of some places, the depth of the underwater, I was thinking, “Wow, this place seems to have tons of secrets.” but there really wasn’t any. The Wizard Fief was a great place to run with the story of the townfolk. Townfolk that I would have hoped would hint to a hidden discovery to possibly end up in the castle. I also hoped that maybe this would be a future dungeon. (This is still possible.)
I do love also how the game handles zones and levels. The fact I go to a level 18 zone and my char level turns to an effective level 18 is the future in my opinion. This to me makes zones reuseable. It makes them explorable even if they were skipped. This also makes the real estate refurbisheable. Wanna put a new level 18 boss in a certain area and have level 60s still have a good time? You CAN!!! So the whole world to me (not just high level zones) are good for all players and not just those leveling up or playing on alts. I’m really not sure why no other games have come up with this before.
Just add a COMMENT area… This comment is like 16 chars long tops… Let people enter what they want because you can make the biggest input list and someone will want to put something that’s not listed there. So it’s simple…
alter table contacts_lfg add column lfg_comment varchar (16) ;
I’m just guessing but lol…
I’m not entirely sure how the LFG works.. I click myself to be looking for group… A little blue icon appears by my name. BUT, how do people know what dungeon I’m wanting to do if it’s not posted?
I love how Aion did their.. Was very simple… You had a comment box next to your name when you post… OMG SIMPLE! Where we can post dungeon name. The LFG would automatically post your name in LFG channel chat which I think should be the only thing that posts in it. No Global chat with LFG, it’s locked out to system posts through LFG only.. That alone will get people using it.
I couldn’t face mobs no longer than around 2 seconds without being feared, and most fears I faced even crippled us too.. A DOG HOWL CRIPPLES (and fears)? What stupidity. It’s like your designers just threw in a ton of mixed spells and didn’t think about crap. I like hard stuff but I like control also. There is no control anymore. It’s just mostly a clusterkitten of trying to down one mob before you wipe and then do another or kite them to hell while select few kill one. Every pull in CM seemed to kill me too fast.. Usually one hit or two. I got got combat spam of like 10 hits all before I could get 1 in under 1 second.. It felt like a one-shot. When I do get to live, I can’t be on my feet oir unfeared for more than 2 seconds.. That’s how much CC you gave the mobs and it’s frustrating cause I’m mostly on CDs for things that get me freed from that mess…
I think CM story mode was changed all wrong… It’s stupid now…
STORY MODE shouldn’t be wipe after wipe. It should be somewhat difficult but not like it is now. It’s pretty stupid hard. It’s the freaking 2nd dungeon in the game for crying out loud. It should be fun, not painfully challenging. The rewards aren’t worth it either. I do like diminished returns for this mode. That was a little rediculous. I’m L58 and went to help a friend do it for his quest and it took near 3 hours. By the end we lost a player and four of us was repeatedly trying to kill last two groups. Then right when we got to last boss, it bugged and they wouldn’t aggro on us after the first wipe. So we did this dungeon 3 hours and got bugged out on last boss. What a waste of an evening and over 50 silver in repairs.. Total bullkitten.
EXPLORE MODE: OK this should be hard and gear rewards SHOULD reflect those who actually do it and make it through it. I’m not liking though how melee is getting screwed though. I get near 1 shot by most pulls as a warrior, can’t always see the circles from all the special effects on the grounds from the spellcasting effects specially from elementalists seems. I think it’s a bit too much and needs reconsideration.
I agree with GY rezzing…. I think it takes a little too much away from a dungeon… I was hoping that it was just in the early dungeons and later get taken away, but apparently from previous posts, this is an epidemic in the latter… I mean it’s easy to rez people, you have skills like banners also.. if 4 people wipe and the 5th kites till rest everyone else shows back up to continue boss where left off, there is an issue.. See it happen too often already… Or I see people kiting bosses back to the WayPoints so they can easily just keep getting back in the fight after death… No negative effects… If you wanna keep this feature.. least lower the reward if a waypoint was taken.. Then there will be a small sense to let boss reset and try again from start.. To get the loot they deserve for taking it down correctly…
So pulling bosses and find “exploitable” areas is not strategy? I would think this would be… Because you didn’t figure it out and read about it or watched the “exploit” on youtube to make a boss easier, well, the real damage here is you researching a boss and using the so-called exploit instead of figuring it out yourself or with your team… When you do that, a strategy could be an exploit cause it just made it too easy for your team.
Exploits to me is more or less locking a boss in a corner of a polygon where he can’t hit anyone.. Or hacking code or changing out textures models in the game to get an advantage over a boss. That’s exploiting to me… Dragging a boss to another room to use stairs to avoid aoe and range him down is NOT an exploit (just one example).
Two points then:
2. Nerf repair cost. I dont mind wiping and learning new fights, as long as I dont have to pay tenfolds for it. Honestly, given the bad loot drops and the meager token rewards, what really incentivices me to do a dungeon if I know in general I will maybe just break even money wise, IF we clear the whole dungeon?
lolwut? I seem to always make more even in fail parties… I just sell the crap gear to vendor (without breaking it).. Seems to render more money than any repair cost on my crappiest runs.
The rewards in this game on a whole are lousy.
I think someone missed my comment about being naked… How can drops improve “A LOT” if the gear doesn’t affect the char that much in the whole? Personally, I like this fact too… I hate 2 pieces of gear making or breaking a dungeon.. Gear should matter yes, but should not be the be-all end-all…
2. Nerf repair cost. I dont mind wiping and learning new fights, as long as I dont have to pay tenfolds for it. Honestly, given the bad loot drops and the meager token rewards, what really incentivices me to do a dungeon if I know in general I will maybe just break even money wise, IF we clear the whole dungeon?
lolwut? I seem to always make more even in fail parties… I just sell the crap gear to vendor (without breaking it).. Seems to render more money than any repair cost on my crappiest runs.
Has dungeons been redefined by other games? It “used to be” a sense of accomplishment for the reward.. I remember doing BWL just to see druid gear chest drops for weeks but wow, that first time beating Nef was great feeling and all I needed… To say I did it…
I think it would be awesome if GW2 would give people special capes to wear on the back slot that shows what you have accomplished. These pieces really don’t offer much other than look with some slightly decent stats.. But the cape though shows off you’ve done this or this other dungeon and ONLY place you can get them…
But now it seems, it’s about easier dungeons and superior loot drops……. WTF????
I really wanna see it go back to the other way……… There’s no pride in farming dungeons… Means you just got more time than anyone else…
I thought explorable mode was just that…. Why should it be uber gear also? Quite frankly, I played with all my gear off yesterday and I didn’t notice that huge of a difference… Which is nice for a change. I hate when gear is all it’s about. (I mid paragraph “THANKS” to ANet for NOT allowing inspections or having online Armory.) I’m tired of PvP also being evaluated before a match starts. You know when you get people looking up your gear online on their side laptop before a match starts…
This game feels more like it’s being real to the gamers. Not the amusement park riders. We already have plenty of MMOs that fit that bill. Instead of turning this one into another one, I’d rather you go play those… Or better yet, stay here and learn to be a gamer. Why can’t you all let games have their differences. WoW is already there if you want a nerfed ride…
When I heard dungeons were hard and that I should expect a lot of deaths and several hour runs for a typical 30 minute length dungeon in any other game, my first thoughts was HECK YEAH!!!!!!!!
I’d never played GW1 so I have nothing to compare to but maybe WoW Vael (BWL) fight. This is the stuff I remember. This is the times when I had most fun in MMO. Granted it was painful, but there was a huge sense of accomplishment.
Now I played two dungeons so far in GW2 and even though I did die a lot, and spent around 2 hours in the first. The very 2nd run with many of the same players, we flew through it and I didn’t die but a couple times. Does that constitute as hard? No, I’m more of a fast learner. I learned when I should get close, when I should use range, when I should dodge, when I should stick and move, when I should kite, etc.
After just two runs, these dungeons went from a scary and what seemed to be a near impossible (but yet simple due to useage of waypoints over and over in a fight) to extremely controlled and easy/smooth runs.
I see no reason to nerf anything. At least for a while…