It’s alright when you get hit by a stun that you could have avoided or whatever, and you didn’t bring stunbreaker or stability so your punishment is 2-3 seconds of disable.
BUT, imho it is actually unacceptable when you aggro 2-3 of the same mob, sometimes unavoidable because they are placed in close proximity. What happens is the AI of the monster will wait until the exact milisecond that the first stun wears off (if their stun has a cast time they will even precast it to time it perfectly) and stun you again for the same timer, and possibly a third or fourth time depending on how many are around you, and there’s no possible way to avoid it for those consecutive times.
More that once I’ve been chain stunned for longer than 10 seconds and imho that’s the kind of situation that just makes you want to turn off the game.
Ayup.
Or you run into situations where the hard-CC is the monster’s primary attack. So you can skillfully dodge the first and second, maybe block the third if it’s a skill on your bar, and Stability a fourth if you’re a class that gets it.
Unless it’s a charge attack, then the block decays and Stability gets chipped away, and the next step or two of that charge also carries the hard-CC, so you get downed anyway. And by then, the Stability skill is on a 40-second cooldown, your dodge is 5 seconds from recharging, so all you can do is get run over again. (Or if you’re lucky, you have time to hop onto a patch of terrain that stops charging/rolling attacks without resetting the mob. :\)
There needs to be a natural hard-CC resistance after suffering one, just to prevent chain-stun spams.
Side note relevant to the latest Living Story chapter, if I’m carrying a kittening Flame of Koda, how am I still getting ice-blocked? The mastery is almost utterly useless.
Many alts; handle it!
“I’m finding companies should sell access to forums,
it seems many like them better than the games they comment on.” -Horrorscope.7632
It’s alright when you get hit by a stun that you could have avoided or whatever, and you didn’t bring stunbreaker or stability so your punishment is 2-3 seconds of disable.
BUT, imho it is actually unacceptable when you aggro 2-3 of the same mob, sometimes unavoidable because they are placed in close proximity. What happens is the AI of the monster will wait until the exact milisecond that the first stun wears off (if their stun has a cast time they will even precast it to time it perfectly) and stun you again for the same timer, and possibly a third or fourth time depending on how many are around you, and there’s no possible way to avoid it for those consecutive times.
More that once I’ve been chain stunned for longer than 10 seconds and imho that’s the kind of situation that just makes you want to turn off the game.
Agreeing to disagree on specifics is fair enough – any denigration of AD&D won’t be tolerated, though
Our DM took weeks (at least) to prepare his campaigns. The throw of the dice controls all often enough, though, to always make things fun.
That just doesn’t happen in GW2.
Success and failure shouldn’t come down to luck of the roll. That might be fine for pen and paper but not for a video game.
They are talking about saving throws, variation in damage dealt or taken, chances to be attacked, and stuff like that. That sort of variation during play in GW2 would really make this game a lot more fun, I agree.
Saving throws are not relevant since that is exactly the type of thing that shouldn’t depend on RNG. That should all come down to the player using the right skills at the right time … or not.
Getting attacked or not should be based on positioning for always hostile mobs or other actions for non-hostile mobs. There is a devourer queen for one of the hearts in Iron Marches that will attack you if you pick up the eggs.
We used to have vestigial traits in GW2 like that (ferocity, charm, and another I think), and occasionally they would determine the course of an encounter.
Those things never had any impact on combat. They just gave you different dialog options when talking certain NPCs.
Another thing that is missing from this game is a real faction system. Being able to earn faction with any group in the game is really a fun angle to develop, but somewhat complicated too. EQ1 had one of the very best faction systems, and I wish more games would copy it.
I fail to see how that has anything to do with the current topic.
Two people figured my main problem out: Super annoying CC in narrow spaces, corridors and bridges.
One of the first HoT annoyances was a steep, winded walkway up to a rock/boulder that lead to a bridge. That path was filled with like 10 caterpillar things that knocked me back and forth. I literally could not proceed there. That was one of the moments where I really yelled “Bad game design!!” at the screen and shut it down. That was on my Engineer (with Scrapper being unlocked but I hate that “Elite” trait and the Stilson wrenches – but no skill points to spend in so far as I just entered the jungle).
Not sure how that works out with thief / daredevil, but being bounced back and forth is not a challenge at all. Especially when every (!) thing is attacking you; I’d rather have mobs that decide not to attack you when you’re posing a threat to them (e.g. comparing your stats to a mob’s thresholds – numbers too high? Better don’t attack the player).
Or projectile-blocking enemies. As Engineer, trolololol. Until I could come close to them, I died already. But oh well, that is probably another “challenge”, a “git gut” problem or “trait misconception”.
Two people figured my main problem out: Super annoying CC in narrow spaces, corridors and bridges.
One of the first HoT annoyances was a steep, winded walkway up to a rock/boulder that lead to a bridge. That path was filled with like 10 caterpillar things that knocked me back and forth. I literally could not proceed there. That was one of the moments where I really yelled “Bad game design!!” at the screen and shut it down. That was on my Engineer (with Scrapper being unlocked but I hate that “Elite” trait and the Stilson wrenches – but no skill points to spend in so far as I just entered the jungle).
Not sure how that works out with thief / daredevil, but being bounced back and forth is not a challenge at all. Especially when every (!) thing is attacking you; I’d rather have mobs that decide not to attack you when you’re posing a threat to them (e.g. comparing your stats to a mob’s thresholds – numbers too high? Better don’t attack the player).
Or projectile-blocking enemies. As Engineer, trolololol. Until I could come close to them, I died already. But oh well, that is probably another “challenge”, a “git gut” problem or “trait misconception”.
Yes, well if you have a problem with that on the only class that can have 2-3 stacks of perma stability then no one can help you.
Done. Oh and you’ve got dodges as well.. almost forgot….
Don’t forget flight.
Jump off a ledge and fly. Chill doesn’t slow you in the air. AND you escape combat.
I completely agree with your post and would like to add, dodging in 99% of what you need to not get rooted. On a quick berry run, there’s usually, maybe 2 spots I find myself stuck fighting. The rest of the time, you can dodge your way out of stopping for anything.
Heaven forbid we get “chilled” in the frozen tundra.
You need to sacrifice skills on your skill bar so you can avoid annoyances… and I don’t like that.
Perhaps I’m crazy, but the need to sacrifice one skill for another and balance out your build is part of game balance. Not having enough of that is part of what caused the zerker meta. If a boss could one-shot a warrior in full zerk and did that attack more often than one could possibly dodge or endure pain, you’d see toughness used as a stat more often. I’m not saying they should do this, I’m simply saying that I disagree. Giving us reason to leave an all-damage spec is absolutely crucial for good game balance.
Yes, I completely agree with you. My point is that CC in PvE is simply an annoyance and serves no other purpose other than to annoy. And if you want to avoid that annoyance, you need to sacrifice skills in order to do so. If CC actually made the game difficult, then I would be totally fine with sacrificing some skill slots to avoid it.
As it stands, CC does not make the game more difficult and literally only delays your travel time, which bugs the crap out of me.
Here is the crutch though: if you make the game so hard to the point where cc is so hard to you absolutely need to run stability then players complain that they need to run a specific build to survive. As it stands now it pretty much boils down to skill: if you are experienced, if you understand the patterns of mobs, you will run with barely any stability and/or condi cleanse because you could just some blocks, press your evade bar or apply some blind, while those who struggle can take some cleanses, stability at the expense of some damage.
Done. Oh and you’ve got dodges as well.. almost forgot….
Don’t forget flight.
Jump off a ledge and fly. Chill doesn’t slow you in the air. AND you escape combat.
I completely agree with your post and would like to add, dodging in 99% of what you need to not get rooted. On a quick berry run, there’s usually, maybe 2 spots I find myself stuck fighting. The rest of the time, you can dodge your way out of stopping for anything.
Heaven forbid we get “chilled” in the frozen tundra.
You need to sacrifice skills on your skill bar so you can avoid annoyances… and I don’t like that.
Perhaps I’m crazy, but the need to sacrifice one skill for another and balance out your build is part of game balance. Not having enough of that is part of what caused the zerker meta. If a boss could one-shot a warrior in full zerk and did that attack more often than one could possibly dodge or endure pain, you’d see toughness used as a stat more often. I’m not saying they should do this, I’m simply saying that I disagree. Giving us reason to leave an all-damage spec is absolutely crucial for good game balance.
Yes, I completely agree with you. My point is that CC in PvE is simply an annoyance and serves no other purpose other than to annoy. And if you want to avoid that annoyance, you need to sacrifice skills in order to do so. If CC actually made the game difficult, then I would be totally fine with sacrificing some skill slots to avoid it.
As it stands, CC does not make the game more difficult and literally only delays your travel time, which bugs the crap out of me.
Done. Oh and you’ve got dodges as well.. almost forgot….
Don’t forget flight.
Jump off a ledge and fly. Chill doesn’t slow you in the air. AND you escape combat.
I completely agree with your post and would like to add, dodging in 99% of what you need to not get rooted. On a quick berry run, there’s usually, maybe 2 spots I find myself stuck fighting. The rest of the time, you can dodge your way out of stopping for anything.
Heaven forbid we get “chilled” in the frozen tundra.
You need to sacrifice skills on your skill bar so you can avoid annoyances… and I don’t like that.
Perhaps I’m crazy, but the need to sacrifice one skill for another and balance out your build is part of game balance. Not having enough of that is part of what caused the zerker meta. If a boss could one-shot a warrior in full zerk and did that attack more often than one could possibly dodge or endure pain, you’d see toughness used as a stat more often. I’m not saying they should do this, I’m simply saying that I disagree. Giving us reason to leave an all-damage spec is absolutely crucial for good game balance.
Hmm, trying to do all content without willing to adapt…
-Unacceptable….-
Making builds and imporvising so you can do what needs to be done without getting killed all the time, due to inabilities to cope with game mechanics, seems like the way how to play this game. If you need to kill a 20 Million HP enemy in a set time you will need your full DPS build with matching rotation, but when you are running in the world facing 10k HP enemies I think that’s mostly overkill… So change build and traits for running / harvesting /survival if needed and learn how to cope with content not being DPS meta only.
I run a PS condi warrior as main. I drop the torch and take a warhorn when running, speccing for warhorn trait and thus condi removal on warhorn., I replace the banners with shake it off and balanced stance and I’m able to run anywhere with only minor hindrance. I can replace either the weapon for a slight boosted effectiveness in combat or use banners when I think I see a champion somewhere.
Just this minor adapting leaves me in full control.
for cripple/chill condi removal
for immobilize stunbreak, for speed swiftness and
for cc’s acces to stability…
Done. Oh and you’ve got dodges as well.. almost forgot….
23 lvl 80’s, 9 times map, 4ele, 4ncr, 3war, 3grd, 3rgr, 2thf, 2msm, 1eng, 1 rev.
Been There, Done That & Will do it again…except maybe world completion.
“… and without sacrificing abilities needed to DPS – unacceptable.”
This is exactly what balance is. It’s the most vital part of literally every MMO ever. You can max your damage, or you can increase your utilities, or you can be durable, or you can break things down with damage over time (i.e. conditions). To be good at one thing requires you to sacrifice another thing. A lack of variability was what caused the Berserker meta to strangle the gameplay for the first 2 years of GW2 before they finally made other builds actually useful.
He’s right. This game is THE WORST ever for the amount of absurd snares and other annoying cc. Also, there is no cc immunity timer, so a big flaw in game design that permits oh-so-ridiculous chain-cc, not to mention the fact they didn’t bother to code in any kind of resistances AT ALL in the entire game – and this is the only big game to go that route.
Clearly this game was designed to be simple to code and balance, for the purpose of maximizing income while minimizing maintenance and balance issues (which are expensive) – and the actual “fun” and “cool” factors (aka, “fun to play”) are a distant second or third in consideration.
Actually this is the first time where there IS a CC immunity. You get a warmth buff after breaking out of the ice prisons which prevents you from being frozen again.
I love GW2 so much!
I enjoy the Story Missions!
I enjoy the Events!
I enjoy the Exploration!
I enjoy the Jumping Puzzles!
I enjoy the Combat!
I enjoy the Voice Acting!
I enjoy the Cutscense!
I enjoy the PvP!
Honestly I love it so much!
GW2 makes other MMOs a chore to play.
GW2 makes other MMOs boring to play.
GW2 makes other MMOs feel cheap.
ArenaNet I ask you this:
Please make MORE!
MORE STORY!
MORE JUMPING PUZZLE!
MORE EVERYTHING!
Only Issue I have is there never seems to be enough! =(
Forget playing other MMOs… they are boring grind fest compared to the adventures of Guild Wars 2 in the world of Tyria!
People will always believe the “best” content is at max level due to how other MMOs are designed and the old outleveling of zones. While raids and LWS3 are level 80 content, if you are starting at level 1 and own HoT, there is no rush.
The other is that there are so many games out there that to play them all you need to rush to the end and move onto the next. Burn through any new content and swap. It’s the nature of gaming now.
nothing is locked behind 80, what you have is a lot of content before and after 80. This is what you want, its not mutually exclusive.
People wanting to rush to the end game are people who have learned the wrong behavior in other games to be quite honest. To use the old analogy they want to skim read the book to get to the last chapters. It id not the fault of the book that the reader doesnt care about the characters they read about at the end of the book..
“Trying to please everyone would not only be challenging
but would also result in a product that might not satisfy anyone”- Roman Pichler, Strategize
Pretty sure they gave people the boost because of too much kittening about how HoT is lv80 only content and they bought the game but couldn’t play NOW.
Way too much is locked behind 80 now to tell new players to take it slow. When did they last release any major permanent content that did not require an 80? LS2? Core Tyria? Even those had level 80 areas. Just for something most people almost take for granted now, basic gliding and autoloot, you need an 80. Before HOT you could legitimately advise newbies to take it slow for the first character or two but now …
Personally, i was shocked Anet gave new players lvl 80 boost and allowed them to use it right away. What they should have done is give one to them, but not allow them to use it until they lvled up at least one character the normal way to max lvl. Once they’ve done that, they unlock their lvl 80 boost to use on an alt.
Giving them the boost to use right away, is a terrible decision as most are not able to resist it. It encourages them to skip all the core game content and so you have these max lvl players who have no idea how to play their class. And even if they go back and do the core content from start, it simply won’t feel the same and often time get bored very quickly and leave the game.
Well, before elite spec came about, you really did not have too much incentive to get to level 80 fast. With elites being so much more superior, you begin to feel like getting to 80 is a chore to get to the elite specs. I am leveling my revenant and I’m just dragging my feet along because it’s so slow without Glint perma-swift. So tempted to just use my level 80 boost and be done with it. People will stop rushing to level 80 if they don’t see the need to get to level 80 fast. With elite spec being so overpowered right now, I don’t see that happening.
Mastery encourage you to grind to 80 so you can get the new spec, gliding, and loot options asap, and then it takes forever to get it all unlocked. It’s ANets own design… very grindy if you focus on the end game. And to be fair, GW2 has pretty much turned into an end game MMO instead of what it was released as.
You will want ascended equipment and all your mastery in order to raid, for example.
The way they gate things behind mastery is extremely annoying and sucks the fun out of the maps that I’m trying to enjoy so of course I farm and grind to get it over with.
If I’m working on my 6th or 7th level 1-80, I’m going to “speed level” as fast as possible.
But I agree that it is a BAD BAD BAD idea for a new player to either want to do this them self, or or be encouraged to do it by other players. Core Tyria is a beautiful, amazing world, and I still like to take a break from HOT content and go back there from time to time. I still find things there I’ve never seen before, and this after 2+ years of playing!
Any veteran MMO player that is new to GW2 will instantly recognize that the game is actually worth taking at a slow pace instead of the fast pace that the mentors encourage.
However, it’s those who are new to MMOs that will most likely fall into the trap of farming, speed-running, and grinding. Otherwise, they are veteran MMO players that want to farm, speed-run, and grind.
To me, the quests in this game are really, really boring. I can’t really explain why. Maybe it’s the lack of NPC/Player interaction when starting a quest. Maybe it’s the lack of a decent reward for doing them. As a veteran MMO player myself, I’m used to receiving armor, gold, and other shinies from quests, but all I receive in GW2 is a measly amount of coins. Therefore, I find grinding more enjoyable than quests because the rewards are infinitely better. That’s just my opinion though.
There are no quests in gw2 so thats understandable that you find them boring since you have nothing to do.
There are however heart task that sole purpose is to hold you to an area were it should spawn a event or three that you can do to fill the hearts faster.
Maybe the leveling you see as “normal” is boring for some? Killing mobs that are easy to kill and pressing F is maybe not something someone wants to do for several hours.
I can completely understand how it would be boring if you think of it that way.
But when I’m levelling I don’t think about killing the mobs and pressing F. I’m focused on exploring the map (which yes I have done several times now, I still enjoy seeing it), watching and participating in the events and speaking to the NPCs, and of course playing alongside other people and talking with them and my guilds. I don’t even think of it as levelling up, I’m just getting on with playing the game and every so often I’m told I’ve gained a level.
Danielle Aurorel, Dear Dragon We Got Your Cookies [Nom], Desolation (EU).
It’s not even just MMOs. I know people who will do their best to rush to the maximum level in single-player games too, and/or finish the main storyline as fast as possible because they want it out the way so they can focus on other stuff.
It frequently does have negative consequences but trying to convince people of that, or persuade them that it’s worse than taking it slow is often futile. In the best cases they know what they want from the game and see everything else as annoying fluff that’s in the way of achieving those goals. In the worse cases they don’t understand the game at all, but have been told by someone they trust that this is the best way to play it so they’re going to stick with it.
I’ve made similar mistakes myself, taking advice from someone I trusted to know what they were talking about which later proved to be…not exactly wrong but not at all the best advice for me.
I think there’s no harm in offering an alternative viewpoint, and especially letting them know that the game doesn’t really change at level 80 so there’s no need to rush. But I don’t think you can prevent people telling them the opposite or stop people believing them.
Danielle Aurorel, Dear Dragon We Got Your Cookies [Nom], Desolation (EU).
I see a lot of this as well. The “get to 80 as fast as possible” mentality, and I actually blame other games for it. They encourage it, breed it. The whole thought process that the “fun” doesn’t start until after the leveling is done. The “hurry up and wait” game, so to speak.
So people rush, and then we see lots of people asking “ok, I’m 80, now what?” We’ve seen it on the forums. I see it in LA a lot. I see a lot of people asking really basic questions in LA too, because they “fast forwarded” through the leveling and don’t understand class mechanics or game mechanics and are confused.
Anytime I see people asking for leveling advice, I always inquire if its their first character and encourage the ‘slow path’ when I can. After all, life’s a journey, not a destination, right?
Don’t look at me like that. Whatever you’ve heard, it’s probably not true.
I agree, I see this happen all the time. It usually leads to people burning out of the game really fast due to the fact that they have no idea what to do or want to aim for once they reach lvl 80.
Exactly my words. So at least some people are really aware. All the other things you said: I can fully agree.
Excelsior.
Zedexx, sly Asura Thief/Assassin
and politically highly incorrect. (#Asuracist)
“We [Asura] are the concentrated magnificence!”
I agree, I see this happen all the time. It usually leads to people burning out of the game really fast due to the fact that they have no idea what to do or want to aim for once they reach lvl 80.
I had a friend who only wanted to pvp because he heard pvp gives you “tomes of knowledge” which he heard could level you up from 1 to 80 the “fastest.” He barely ever played gw2, but usually pvped in most of the other MMO’s he played in the past. To help him get prepared we went into an empty hot join map. I told him about conditions and boons, told him about the importance of dodge and how he could go about countering different classes. I even held his hand in making a build he could play around with. He was so unbelievably confused about even the most basic of functions. When I told him hes better off just playing the game regularly from lvl 1 to 80 so he could have a better time understanding the game, he agreed and never played again lol.
This whole rush mentality is different in this game, because if you rush you will fail not because of your gear, but because of your skill. I did a few unranked matches with a friend the other day and we faced off against some people who were so faceroll easy. We could tell they had very little understanding of how to actually play. I think Anet really needs to provide a better more obvious tutorial for players without making them look dumb for both WvW and spvp. As well as teach people about boons and conditions. Because people are still getting daze and stun confused with immobilization.
I arrived 1.5 years ago and have two characters. Each of them are levelled only by wandering around Tyria and killing everything that causes beef with me. Enjoy it that way much more than anything – not even map completition.
It takes roughly 6-8 months to get my characters to Level 80 and then I do the same in Maguuma Jungle. And guess what – that is probably the reason why I am that one special snowflake not crying about being burnt out, about how stale the game is etc. I’ve accidently used one level-up thing once and since then trashed all the 100+ I’ve received.
I know now what I can fight and what not. Because I do not have someone support me. I do not have Mesmers around me “taxi” me around, I do it myself. I am a lone wolf and that’s what I enjoy. I also would never let me get a mentor in a video game – What is that all about?
People smoke a cigar in 1 minute and then wonder where the enjoyment is supposed to be; you only get a headache and complain about the cigar manufacturer.
But this is the world of today: People rush, rush, rush and are actually sad inside, but they’ve got shiny stuff (Cellphones, cars, Segways, Legendary weapons) but do not enjoy it the slightest…
Greetings and Excelsior,
a special snowflake of genuine leveling like it’s 1998.
Zedexx, sly Asura Thief/Assassin
and politically highly incorrect. (#Asuracist)
“We [Asura] are the concentrated magnificence!”
I’ve made an alt recently and have been levelling it the good old way with map completion. While in Queensdale I saw mentors helping out new players many times, but I found their way of helping kind of wrong.
Basically what they are suggesting new people to do is to use the “exploits” that get you to level 80 asap and then farm the hell out of masteries in HoT areas. And I’ve experienced the result from this in dungeons later on, you have people with level 80 characters, who claim to have started less than a few days ago, who don’t even know how to play properly.
I see two reasons for this, either the game’s idea of encouraging exploration and questing has failed, or new players believe in what these mentors say way too much. Why would you encourage new people to ignore 99% of the content of the game? I get the whole idea that when you have 50 alts you’re too bored to do mapping and quests all over again, but what’s the point in trying to convert new players into grinding machines? Is it a crime for people to take their time and enjoy the game?
I always logged in everyday to get 10 achievement points from daily.
I wanted something to show I was getting something. It showed progress. Believe me that can be a powerful thing to keep playing.
Now I get 2 gold. OMG, now I can add it to my 5,000 gold I already have.
Believe me, I understand all the arguments, pro and con.
All I can say for sure, I’m playing less and may move on to some other game.
I’m sure some will say….good riddance to you. The thing is, I’m not alone.
Give us something besides gold that shows us we are loyal.
There is a finite amount of AP. If they took away the Daily AP cap, you would just reach the end of AP sooner and then you would be in the same boat. Everyone leaves an MMO sooner or later. I don’t say good riddance, I say it will happen one day anyway – this way for some people it will be later.
it’s this luck based mystic toilet that we’re all so sick of flushing our money down. -Salamol
