Guild Wars 2

These problems you speak of… I don’t see and have not seen, certainly since pre-launch. It’s merely a p[roblem you have on something that does not fit your own playstyle and beliefs.

Taking away the Trinity is a bold move and one I have welcomed.. the only thing I would say ANET need to consider is how they add in the opportune ity for players to take a more trinity focused trait line should they want.. but as it is currently I think it works fine.

As for your notion that this is the only game where you can be downed, ressed and run back in… you may want to take a better look out there at how others do exactly that and always have. Heck many allow players to carry portable shrines for all to res up en mass.
As for PvP well I am not that focused on it, but I will say GW1 and GW2 seem to do things better than most – not by any means perfect but to date not at all bad. They have a lots of balancing of classes/skills to polish for sure and perhaps downed state needs a little tweaking around the concepts but its far from a priority 1 issue except maybe to you.. that just your opinion and is not shared by all me thinks.

I never understood the need for “an end game”. But I’m more of “it’s the journey” kind of adventurer/hero. When most people say “end game”, they mean grinding for elite loot running the same set of raids ad infinitum until they are purpled out.

Why bother with making all that beautiful scenery or complex stories and interesting quests if everyone simply blows by it to reach “the end game”? It’s an MMO trope that really needs to be retired or heavily curtailed.

As for the lack of the trinity, everyone in the army knows how to use a gun and do rudimentary medical triage. Doesn’t matter if you are in logistics, a tank jockey or a cook. You can specialize rolls as much as you want but when the crap hits the fan it’s all about shooting back and stem the bleeding. Trinity been around for a long time, as in the first paper RPGs with fighters, mages and clerics. But over time multi class characters became the rule of the day because players want to able to do more than just be the meat shield or the DPSer or the healer. The healer wants to kick butt too. The DPSer doesn’t just want to be the glass canon.

Shouldn’t a player want to able to day any of these rolls rather than being stuck forever and ever in that one role they picked at the moment of character creation?

I like temporary content to some degree. Like the Karka event (while lagging like hell) it’s something I can look back at and say “I was there, this happend, and this happend, we got pancaked by the Karkas” and tell it to new friends you will meet in the future (wether you like it or not, Guild Wars 2 will gain new players.)

Temporary content feels unique.

Personally, WvW is on the upswing.

Removing culling was the single biggest change since the launch of the game, and revitalized WvW. There is still a lot of work to do, but the foundation is solid now.

(It just remains to be seen if Anet commits the resources needed).

The reason many players are more focused on the dungeons is because of two things;

1) Risk vs reward: you can easily make more spamming COF over and over than pretty much any DE in the game (even while not speed running with the now staple “Zerk warrior only!” groups).
2) Difficulty: these other areas of the game can provide much more challenging events than the DEs and open world content. You pretty much CAN’T fail open world content; you fail, oh look it pretty much immediately restarted with no real repercussions.

and 3) Typically difficulty just get’s scaled by increasing enemy hp and damage and then playing bash your face into this wall for the next 10 years until you can kill it…

They need to tie the events together more and make some of them require a groups working together to complete and then have the repercussions be devastating enough to the rest of the game, that players, groups, guilds, etc. are going to want to fight for and beat these DEs. If you fail an event, it should do much more to the world than close off a waypoint (ya, because one lost waypoint is real devastating to the playerbase….).

The events need to become waaaay more dynamic as well. Let’s look at the temples for instance; they need to divide the players more and have 2-3 different scenarios that can be thrown at them each time the event spawns. When the event spawns they could have several different mini events spawn at the same time (the orange circle pops up around Melandru for example, then also at the same time have several smaller orange event circles simultaneously appear along the perimeter that effect the main event in some potentially major way; maybe have none of these if there are only a few players and then have like 3-5 sub events as it scales up for the number of players there…).

They don’t take their DEs far enough. Sure they can be fun to stop and do here and there, or farm certain ones for crafting mats or just straight up sell on the market, etc.; but, when a player see’s an event, they should be going I have to stop and help or else this whole area could go to hell and makes thing very difficult. Maybe even have some events have even farther reaching repercussions as to shut down or impede certain aspects of the game such as npc merchants shutting down within 2-3 map range of certain failed events… ro something to get players into the attitude of “We need to take this”.

I think there are a few things that keep players from doing typical DEs. The most popular events are the ones that are the most rewarding… you know… shadow behemoth, dragons, etc. Also, they’re very easy and never fail. Since they shower you with rares and they don’t fail, there’s not really any incentive to do other events unless you really do just enjoy them.

I feel the purchasable rewards and karma vendors kind of compound this problem, since the things they have are typically blue with maybe 1-2 greens. I’m almost never going to find something useful on a vendor :-|.

So… it’s a risk vs reward imbalance problem. I think there’s ~four things that could completely rectify this problem

1) Make the gameplay feel rewarding in and of itself. It needs to reward you for playing well. Most MMORPGs take the opposite approach and just punish you when you do poorly, and that’s it. That’s ok, but a game should also reward you for playing well. And example of a game + mechanic that I felt was rewarding were staggers in FF 13. It’s nice to stagger a boss, build up the gauge, then slam it with 3 insta-filled gauges. I’m not saying that needs to be in this game though, it’s that feeling that this game needs to capture. It should feel good when you get an amazing epidemic off or such.

2) Make the world feel living. I feel like this is the most under-rated thing people discuss. People like the illusion of a living world, but they never say it in these words. Instead people say “_ [DEs, questing, exploring, whatever] is boring” without really addressing why it’s boring. I’d say GW2 is already a cut above other MMORPGs in this department, but there’s still plenty of room for improvement in my humble opinion.

3) More difficulty, specifically difficulty that doesn’t rely on more/bigger. What I mean by this is that the difficulty needs to be a little more thought provoking. Having more things appear or having things with larger health bars that can one-shot you are really simplistic forms of difficulty, people seem to want more difficulty that requires some strategy.

4) Lastly, tweak the rewards a bit. This is kind of self-explanatory, but I’ll elaborate anyway. First off, the game showers you with stuff as you’re leveling. It’s difficult to NOT have a full set of greens. Another thing – you can ALWAYS use what drops… why? Because everything can either be sold or broken down into mats, and the drop rate of stuff is high. When I see people kvetching “amg nothing I can use” after a “dragon” event I shake my head because really you’re still accumulating wealth no matter how you slice it, and you can buy things right off the TP. You have to be REALLY picky to not see GW2’s current system as very generous.

4cont) So, that said, GW2 feels a little TOO generous. It’s nice that A-net is really anti-grind, but if I can literally just buy new stuff of the TP for 30-100 silver every few levels (which was easily affordable for me), rune everything up, etc, then I feel like there’s no incentive, so this can make doing all the events in the world feel remarkably unnecessary.

In closing, I wouldn’t say this is a player problem. It’s a natural tendency to take the most efficient path to get somewhere, human nature. The “amg endgame is all that matters” is a different matter, I don’t feel that way and never have, but that might just be a preferential difference (values). GW2 has done a lot of things right, but it’s not perfection incarnate (yet).

Any way the big problem that happen when the game first came out there was a big race to level 80. This is not a blizzard game and racing to level 80 was the worst thing possible for the player base to do. You miss out on a lot of events a lot of story line that is build into the environment and a lot of fun things to do. Its not so bad at 80 now but the quality of life for thoughts who exp slower vs though who exp faster is greatly different. Slower players will enjoy the game more hands down then the binge. I think this is true for all things in life if your just simply rushing to the end of your life then your going to miss it.

I love DE’s.
What I would like to see is more chain DE’s- spanning over maps, more complicated DE’s that have various branches and outcomes.
A general improvement in Event density in some maps.
Wouldn’t it be awesome if there were so many events going off that players had to choose which ones to complete and then have consequences for that choice?

DE’s reward me with fun. As I do them I also get loot, karma and experience. Since I play games to have fun, I am amply rewarded by DEs.

Where is the Healing Power, Toughness, Vitality armor? We have Berserker’s that only focuses on offense so why not have this armor that only focuses on defense?

The closest to this set is the Giver’s set but that is boon duration instead of vitality.

It seems like having a set like Berserker’s but not this kind of set is promoting direct dps over other play styles

Whenever Im last man standing in a dungeon I don’t feel lucky or superior. I feel ‘ kitten I gotta pick these guys up quick’. Occasionally to quip “Im so BA, I even scare myself” but other than that LMS=LMS.

As with most things, it depends…

The last person standing because he’s actually invested in some Toughness and Vitality when the rest of the party is comprised of one-track-minded berserkers is still standing because he’s the only one of the bunch with wisdom. The last person standing because he ran away at the first sign of resistance is still standing because he’s selfish and a coward.

Josh,

This is my first time posting on these forums. There are many like myself that play this game on a daily basis and understand the choices Anet is making for the SAB.

Whether you keep this addition in the game for a month or for a year, there will always be people on these forums spewing their distaste and personal reasons why they do not want you to take it or the items it generates out.

The idea of prestige items is very real indeed. If these weapons were kept in the game on a permanent basis then it would lose value and feel no different than any other easy to obtain weapon in the game.

The simple fact is that the majority of players do not visit or care to even comment on these issues on the official forums because frankly they are not unhappy or either content with these decisions.

For instance I came to this thread through a Reddit link talking about this conversation and honestly everyone that is commenting seems to think this is a positive solution.

Long story short; This thread doesn’t speak for the majority because the majority are happy with this decision as well as the game as a whole.

http://www.reddit.com/r/Guildwars2/comments/1d00vm/farmbuy_your_super_items_now_before_they_are_gone/

daicon.2476:

Josh Foreman.8250:

It’s a design aesthetic. A lot people want prestige items which means limiting them. You can limit items by making the amount of time/resources required to get them very large, or you can limit them having them in for a limited time only. We could make every item easy to attain and permanently available, but then we lose the prestige factor. If you don’t value the prestige factor, then no arguments are going to make you understand. It would be like arguing someone into liking heavy metal or kimchi. Personally, I don’t particularly value the prestige factor, but I understand that it is a HUGE motivating force that drives the engine of the economy.

Man after reading this I am so glad I no longer play this game.

I’m glad too.

@Tallis: So, in other words, he’s complaining that there’s financial inequality between players? He might as well complain that some players have better-paying real world jobs as they too can acquire gems less painfully.

There will always be haves and have-less’es, and there’s no practical way around it—some players play 15 hours a day, some can’t, some can zoom through dungeons racking up tons of profits while others would rather slit their wrists that grind like that.

If the ratio were fixed at some mythical point where those who are complaining would stop complaining, there will be no incentive at all for those ex-complainers to spend actual $$ on gems, thus ANet will simply be cutting off a major potential, albeit grudging, revenue stream to please people that apparently have no desire to help fund the continued existence of the game they’re spending so much time enjoying (presumably). Simultaneously, it will bring more players that are willing to spend some cash here and there for gems into the group that doesn’t have to (i.e. a “moderate” fixed ratio means players need less in-game cash to get the stuff they want, thus reducing the revenue even more).

As I said before, the stuff in the gem store is not an entitlement, they’re not gifts for your time spent hacking mobs in the game (but even so, they/some CAN be). They’re there for ANet to make ends meet and then some. If you don’t like the exchange rate, frankly, tough beans (or come up with an actual FEASIBLE, mutually-beneficial alternative that will appeal to you and ANet…seems some folks think that’s easy to do…g’head…do it).

It may behoove some complainers to tone down their googly eyes and become practical like they have to in the real world. You can’t have it all in either place, because someone’s got to supply it, and they want reasonable compensation to keep doing so. In-game gold is entirely worthless to ANet. Not sure where the disconnect is between a game and the real world is when it comes to this basic concept.

Apologies for the length.

OliverT.9021:

I’ve read so many on the forums talking about he/she being the last player standing and then continues writing with the implied notion that he/she is the better player. While in certain situations that holds true, there are times when I see the last person standing as the worst player in the group.

Situations like everyone goes melee range and there’s this one person that stretches the farthest of his range attacks. Yes, you can most definitely dps the boss from where you are standing just fine, regardless 1,200 range away or 130.

I don’t really think that’s the point…

If we were fighting Malrona (the TA Exp Up Path Spider boss), definitely range is the way to go for everyone. If we were fighting Fyonna (the TA Exp Up Path boss after the Spider), even if you were holding a ranged weapon such as a bow or a staff, please fight the boss at melee range so that she doesn’t end up running around like some mad woman on the loose, and worse if she runs out of the cave, causing all the spider eggs to hatch.

Or in FOTM where we got to the Ascalon fractal, and the farthest person standing is holding back all the NPCs, preventing them to go where they are needed…

When everyone goes melee, the benefits are -

1. Being able to res each other when one of the members gets downed because the boss targetted him instead of the rest

2. Tossing out buffs that nearby players can benefit, and this is possible when everyone is within range of each other and usually that is in melee range.

3. AOE heals and debuffs etc.

And then there’s also the case of players complaining about warriors wearing berserker gear being down more often than anybody else, which automatically makes them the natural worst player?

Sometimes that last person standing is all that makes the difference, and actually makes everyone notice whether he’s the strongest link or the broken one.

Really depends, I mean let’s say cof p1, i’m usually the melee warrior who is still standing alive with 90 % hp while the other 4 guys are downed in the red. However, i’d say even the leech who is ranging is being a better player than the dead guy who was meleeing. Since dead = no dps, range = some dps.

Of course, there is always the coward selfish guy who refuses to rev or help others when needed and just runs when the parties all down (that’s your true classic leech there). My number one cause of death is saving others, because that’s just my nature.

Depends on how long that person is alive after the other 4 are dead.

I’ve had my group tell me to “just die” more than a couple times after a wipe because I was able to hold my own against bosses.

OliverT.9021:

And then there’s also the case of players complaining about warriors wearing berserker gear being down more often than anybody else, which automatically makes them the natural worst player?

Yes. Because that person knowingly wore the armor with 0 survivability and full damage. There is the expectation that even if someone is in zerk gear, he should know how to survive. I’m not saying warriors with zerk are bad players. I’m saying warriors with zerk who get downed every 5 seconds ARE the bad players.

OliverT.9021:

And then there’s also the case of players complaining about warriors wearing berserker gear being down more often than anybody else, which automatically makes them the natural worst player?

I agree with everything you wrote except the above sentence. Because a warrior in berserker gear that goes down alot is a liability to the group, and there are many of those from what I hear. If your game mechanics knowledge and playskill allow you to wear berserker without going down more often by all means do it, the group welcomes the dps.

I’m occasionally the last person standing in my parties, and most of the people I play with seem to think I’m pretty good at what I do. I’m a much better “utility” player than direct damage dealer. My main is a mesmer and I bring a lot to the party, but I don’t often see huge numbers like berzerker warriors might. I also don’t melee all that often.

There’s no 100% truth on anything Sometimes the last person standing will be lucky, sometimes it’s skill that keeps them going. In some cases, I’m standing because I have the ability to blink out of an ice crystal or something like that. I have ways I can survive as a mesmer.

But mostly, I think, there is a certain “type” of player,. the run in, don’t think, attack that ends up dying first. I’ve seen a lot of them. They’re not necessary on the same page as everyone else. Or they’re doing something very efficiently and the rest of the group hasn’t done the dungeon before so they end up alone, because people are trying to catch up.

Because I run predominantly with my guild, I don’t really run into this problem that much, but there are a few run run run guys I have to rein in. Then again, I’m not running any races doing dungeons.

I tend to kill mobs rather than run past them, with a few exceptions.

No, I don’t think I’m necessarily better than others for surviving, but sometimes the first person down is the person who isn’t aware that the rest of the party hasn’t caught up yet.

Raphael Williams.3671:

athuria.2751:

Raphael Williams.3671:

ToT.7018:

i am also on Desolation and had to wait 9 weeks for map rotation and my final poi. Why should players now get an easy shortcut to world completion when everyone else has had to work for it.
I spend most of my time in PVE but i actually enjoyed my time in WvW when i was getting my maps there. I even go back now and then with my guild as it can actually be fun.
Oh and we have a few members in our guild waiting for map rotation to complete their 100% map.

yeah hate to say it , and its probably against the code of conduct, but some people just have to L2P its that simple.

They could have made map completion a dolyak-ton harder by making you do guild bounties for it or something, but they didn’t .

Anet just asks that people go play WvW for a while because someone(s) there worked hard on making it.

Someone worked hard making dungeons, but the PoIs and waypoints in there don’t count for map completion. Nobody’s forced to go into them in order to get a token for a cosmetic item designed to be enticing and something that people would want to pursue.

If PoIs and Vistas weren’t locked into keeps, and if it didn’t force you to trek across three of the same map I could see “trying”, but it in fact is designed in a way that requires a higher level of dedication and time to get, just like every PvE map for completion isn’t “trying” PvE—it’s dedicating yourself to covering a large zone.

Killing ten invaders for a daily is trying content, just like doing 4 events in the Shiverpeaks is trying open-world PvE content, doing one dungeon is trying dungeon content. Trying is a very poor argument for the current state of Map completion, because it’s not designed around trying anything. It’s designed around dedication.

The question is, then, was it good design to include both PvE and PvP elements in that dedication? I don’t think, in the way that they set it up, that it was. I don’t think keeping these things in buildings that your server has to have control of in order for you to get into was good design—and I would say the same for any PoI or Vista or waypoint in PvE.

That’s really the crux of the issue for WvW map completion for a lot of people, I think (and it was my problem with it, aside from just not liking WvW)—it’s no longer about you, but about everyone, because it requires everyone coming together to take this keep or that tower so that you can actually get into it. And if you can’t? Then there’s no alternative you can take. You just don’t get it.

Even Badges of Honor can be gotten by running around by yourself and killing people/doing jumping puzzles. You’re not reliant on the numbers and coordinated efforts of other people for something that, ultimately, is only a reward for you. Because the only person map completion matters to is you.

The key phrase “dedicated player” one is simply NOT a dedicated player if they feel they “CAN’T” get 100% map completion. The achievement is for players dedicated to the game, and its supposed to show you are dedicated, if you have to com plain about getting it , you weren’t meant to get it plain and simple. A person may FEEL they are dedicated but its the ACHIEVEMENTS that VALIDATE this feeling. Arena net makes the rules. They CLEARLY don’t want to give map completion to EVERYONE except the most truly dedicated to playing and roaming all aspects of the game THEY feel are essential.

You may be a customer but this is THEIR game

if WvW is an issue people need to learn which build of their favorite class has the most survivibility so they can run to POIs instead of whining that: this “elite” (what it is supposed to be) achievement is too hard.

Sadly, the fact that legendaries can be purchased with a credit card greatly diminishes the sense of accomplishment of the world exploration achievement. Legendaries should never have been tradeable on the bltp. Then anyone who wanted a legendary would absolutely HAVE to get the world exploration achievement.

So… Why not make dungeon tokens be able to buy cores/lodestone from the dungeon vendors in LA? Maybe something like CoE tokens be able to buy charged, or CoF tokens be able to buy molten… ANet can then determine how much tokens are appropriate for a core/lodestone. This will give us players a sure way of getting them without having to suffer on not knowing if we will get a drop from monster/chests because of RNG.

I would rather work on something I know I will eventually get rewarded for, rather than something I MIGHT get rewarded for.

In my opinion boon hate should be boon stripping. Something more classes should be able to spec for in certain trait lines.

There is no need to expand the buffers just because you expand the strippers, there is a reason why they want to introduce boon hate in some way. But then again, stripping or extra damage would be a spec thing, depending on class, some get it for free like necro.

lothefallen.7081:

Without a trinity system, you really have no difficulty threshold for how much opposition you can throw at a team. They have to design content that can be done by a group of Engineers, Rangers, and Necromancers just the same as Mesmers, Warriors, and Guardians.

I will say the issue is not lack of trinity as such, but that traiting for anything but DPS is a waste of points more often than not. The trinity is there, but it is supposedly a soft trinity in that any profession can take on any point by shifting around traits and gear. But because of synergies, DPS outperforms any other.

This is then compounded by aggro, that appears to even further punish a defensive build (weak healing yet massive mob attention when building defensively).

And even more is piled on because while offense is passive (pile on the traits and gear, click a target, pew pew pew for crit after crit), defense is active (hit this key to dodge, this to block, this to CC for a couple of seconds, die when out of endurance and have everything else on cooldown).

Yeah, a great boss – one I really enjoy the events for start to finish, but a bonus chest would be the icing on the cake. Not a biggie – I’ll still do it for the fun

GW2 pve is all about getting in there and getting everything down asap. That extra vit to survive a hit from a boss can be easily compensated with food and the rest u dodge. And that is why people keep stressing the shallowness of gw2.

Sub-par player here.

I don’t think anyone has ever had big enough shoulders to give a shrug expansive enough to represent my reaction towards anyone upset about me not having Berserker gear.

I don’t think I’d particularly enjoy playing with anyone who would react like that anyway, so if anything it’s like an easy way to tell if I’m likely to be friends with you.

ZudetGambeous.9573:

I’m tired of all this temporary content. We haven’t had a real content update in PvE since FotM. This temporary fluff is just getting annoying.

Also a monthly fee to access part of the games content? no thanks…that’s why I left all the other MMO’s.

Spectator mode might be fun, though that was a feature that was supposed to be in at launch.

Hmm? I have yet to see any plans on removing the Guild Missions.

No, there is a “monthly fee” to OWN part of the games “content”. Anyone can PLAY the content for free, but in order to OWN it you need to pay.

They take into consideration feedback, but they are most likely mainly look at metrics. Just because somebody comes on to the forums because some ele escaped, doesn’t mean they are going to instantly nerf ride the lightning or cantrips. They are going to collect data before they feed the whiny 15 year olds.

Skill > Time. We championed it in GW1, we continue to call for it in GW2.

Gear should not be the deciding factor in a fight…ever. Getting my kitten rolled because I didn’t have 10 hours a day (for ‘x’ many weeks) to dedicate to ‘gearing up’ is not fun. Many of us (I won’t use the word ‘most’ because I’d hate to imply that I’m making a general assumption. Absolute blasphemy that) have school, or work, or families and just don’t have that much ‘free time.’ If I lose a fight, I want to know its because the other person was more SKILLED than I was, not because they had better gear.

I don’t want to not be able to access content ‘x’ because I don’t meet gear requirement ‘y’. Can’t access it because I haven’t completed a specific chunk of a story? Sure, this was common (and acceptable) in Factions and Nightfall. I expect this trend; after all, it can get a little confusing if you try reading the book out of order. Can’t kill a foe because you’re not infused to defend against them…sure (Why hello Prophecies), as long as the incorporation into the game is part of the flow. But ‘requires gear rating of blah blah’? Which I now have to go out of my way for, and do some lame extra grind… Nope, no thank you.

Skill > Time.

Its fine to be a hardcore player. Its fine to be a casual or even in the middle player. It’s fine to want to be the best. But YOU be the best…don’t let your armor do it for you.