Guild Wars 2

I never really got what the point of ‘dailies’ were if there wasn’t a subscription fee. I can understand them being there as an incentive to playing the game, but it’s the game itself that will bring the players, not the carrot.

It also makes sense if you’re game’s lacking challenge; you can’t just give out the goods for free. That highlights another problem, though.

The game has serious performance issues period. I’ve never seen anything like this. Ever. It’s an MMO which we were told would be “ready when it’s ready” yet high end machines are getting shoddy frame rates just by standing around in Lion’s Arch with 40 odd other people. That is not good enough. The game leans too heavily on the CPU and arguably is too heavy in general for what it’s supposed to be, they may have overreached aesthetically. It’s an MMO, not the latest shiny single player first person shooter.

WVW is big part of the game, and it needs some serious optimization.

My personal expectations of the Living Story were something along the lines of what was delivered in Flame and Frost (but with more permanent additions). The content was designed in a way so that the player felt like he was actively contributing to the story and that the Molten Alliance was defeated with the players playing a pivotal role.

But now, all I can see as far as the Living Story is concerned is two weeks of throwaway minigames bound up by content that I personally consider a joke. Cutthroat Politics is really the last straw for me, as ALL the man hours for this content were spent in minigames.

I do not play the Living Story for minigames, and I never will. I did not buy Guild Wars because I was expecting updates containing throwaway content released every two weeks. If you want to release lots of temporary content, that’s fine, but please stop with the throwaway minigames. I’m sick of them, and it goes against the idea of a living STORY.

I want the living story to be a STORY, not just a new carnival every two weeks.

For the reasons above, I consider Bazaar of the Four Winds/Cutthroat Politics to be the weakest chapter in the Living Story by far and beyond. I would like this trend to stop, and it is for this reason I am posting today.

go Evon, more BL Keys and more RNG’s; gotta pay for this guy’s new car

Clockradio.3257:

Gems always cost the same with real money. Just be happy that there is a conversion from gold to gems…

I don’t ask to improve the Gems rate but to make a fair gem market… really I’m impressed to see you selling lolFlute for 28.5g or even a 1hour booster for 5.3g…

Okay I think you didn’t really read the topic.

So I’ll go your way…

800 Gems = 10e

lolFlute = 10e
1 hour EXP Booster = 1.8e / hour = 43e / day
150 Kite Fortune = 30e
1 Character slot = 10e

You see no issue in the price balance ?
They sell 1 bread same price than 1 Car.

My issue isn’t only Gems rate but balance in prices [Gems <> Gold <> Euros].

I would buy 150 Kite Fortune for 5-10e. But it’s 30e so I bought nothing. I would spend 10-20e per Month in this game if only I could get something correct in exchange.

I will end by mentioning that Guildwars 2 pvp is fun. It is just far from what it could have been. They ironically tried to recreate rpg pvp but ended up landing in territory that has already been visited before. The most original game I could ever imagine for pvp was and at this moment, always will be, guildwars 1. Further, I am not asking for deathmatch or for literal GvG. I am asking for any format that focuses on fighting as a team and offers alternative objectives that can act as an alternative means to an end and give the game more strategic depth. Capture points uses capture points AS the end and further does not focus on the concept of team fighting.

I apologize for the length, but I literally couldn’t stop writing as I had started. I honestly think it is worth your time to read it all, but I will offer a very quick summary below:

tl;dr: Guildwars 2 looked to be innovative, and in many cases is. However, the most innovative thing they could of done was kept the same game play as guildwars 1 gvg and just thrown in some of the already changed aspects of guildwars 2 to of made a pvp game that is simply unrivaled. Oh, and an observer mode.

Now we wait as I suspect no one will read this. Oh well, at least I got it off my chest….

Guildwars 1 was and is the only team oriented pvp in any genre of any game I have ever found. At the current rate and direction game developers are going, it appears it will remain that way. Now, there are plenty of games that have team concepts, plenty of games that require you to play collectively, but no game that asks you to truly depend on your teammates.

Coordination Versus Team Play:

Guildwars 1 As An Example:

Reality And Guildwars 2

Theoretically, for these reasons listed, Anet decided that guildwars 1 was simply too complicated of a pvp structure. I can understand that quite honestly and it pretty much was. The thing they overlooked however is how many of those problems got solved by the innate design of GW2 mechanics. Throw in an observer mode that is extremely informational and you’d of had one of the greatest platforms for an rpg game you would ever encounter. Of course, now it is important to mention why this is the case and that leads me to part 2…..

Guildwars 1 was looked on by many from the outside world as an unsatisfactory pvp model. This, however, was an unfortunate consequence of the lack of other good models. It was by no means due to the combat itself but more due to hidden in game mechanics, hard to grasp initial game play, and poor observation mode.

Hidden In Game Mechanics:

Hard To Grasp Initial Gameplay:

Poor Observation Mode:

PolarisNova.3867:

aspirine.6852:

No expansion will make it a dead game within half a year or less. No amount of living story can give you the effect what a new expansion does.

Can I have your crystal ball please?

Why, because as far as I can tell, instead of getting content all in one big blob (expansion), it’s evolving and coming to us in stages. Is that so difficult to envision? o.o

Well, I think the issue is that the content on offer isn’t actually comparable to what you’d get in a true MMORPG expansion. Even if you took 2 years worth of the kind of content we’ve been getting and offered it all at once, it still wouldn’t be on the same level as a WoW expansion.

For example, in WoW’s latest expansion you got:
- 16 new raid bosses at launch, with 3 difficulty levels.
- 9 new 5-man dungeons with 3 difficulty levels.
- 7 new scenarios (like a normal mode dungeon, but for 1-3 people).
- About 1400 new quests in an entirely new continent.
- About 900 new achievements.
- 2 new PvP maps, 1 new arena map.
- The usual mass of armor skins, weapon skins, mounts etc.
- Pet battle system.
- A new class.
- A new playable race.
- Increased level cap.

Then you have the content patches throughout the expansion’s life cycle on top of that.

As much as I’m impressed (and surprised) by the frequency of updates in GW2, to say it’s the equivalent of an expansion being spread out over time is just plain inaccurate.

So, an Asura calling a human “bookah” or a Sylvari being called “salad boy” is racist?

What’s next? Complains about killing pretty much everything in-game? Should I call the cops whenever someone jump into a centaurs camp and kill everyone inside?

Or what about complaining about certain attires? Should we start a protest because the skirt of some females is too short?

But wait, we have alcohol in-game too! Oh god Anet, what the kitten is wrong with you?

Somebody please think of the children!

Tbh, i think they’re focusinga bit too much on all this Living World stuff.

Granted, it’s nice, but has 2 core issues:
-it’s not permanent content (so far)
-it doesn’t fix issues that base game still have.

Examples?
-Dungeons are in a bad state. Reward/time/effort ratio is out of whack (and no, i’m not talking about cof p1. it’s all the other 23 paths, that need to become more appetible.), metagame has depressingly become a DPS race, due to lack of depth in encounters..and there are still way too many bugs. Ah, and fractal is still waiting for new stage plus rebalance of current ones. And tokens, still needs to have other uses (inb4 core/lodestoens from vendors)
-Open world is empyt outside the boss chest event farming – and those events needs improvements too, most of the time it’s 40ish players spamming attack to a dmg sponge for 10 mins, then collecting reward. Not very epic.
-spvp…uh…well, i’ll skip the listing of issues. To name a few: unbalance, single and boring game mode, lack of rewards.
-wvw has a single but huge issue. Its treated as a mere extension of PvE – while actually it’s the main endgame mode of this MMO right now, even with all the issues (zoneblobbing, lag, bugs, unbalance, lack of rewards) that it have.
-gief us housing gvg anf more guild managing things. Give commander tags more tools. Extend some currently char bound stuff to be acc bound, stop punishing who plays on alts.
-plus, general bug polishing and balance across professions and across wordl/dg is needed hard.
^this is just to name things on top off my head.

I’m happy to see new stuff and new features every 2 weeks. Living World is a nice concept. And it’s improving every release.

But please, put it at hold for a couple of months and focus on your base game.

Yuujin.1067:

He said mist form while downed. When a thief turns invisible in his downstate you can continue dealing damage to him or her. Don’t turn his point into something it isn’t.

I don’t think mistform needs to be removed from the downstate. I think ANet should remove Elementalist’s ability to run through portals in WvW while it is still active. Thieves and Mesmers can’t teleport inside of towers, so there is no reason why Elementalist should be able to stand outside of keeps, get downed, then just mistform back inside.

That said, I don’t think ANet has the capacity to make this change. Their state of the game cast a couple of months back acknowledged that Elementalist had crazy mobility and they talked about bringing other classes, like the thief, up to it but so far they’ve fallen pretty short on it.

So if you manage to catch an Elementalist and kill it, make sure you don’t do it too close to a building they own, cause they’ll just float right on inside!

Balance.

Well think of it this way:
1. Elementalist abilities like ride the lightning have an insane CD now
2. They have the least base health of all classes (11K)
3. The mist form lasts 3 seconds and if you immobilize a downed elementalist they can’t go anywhere.
There’s nothing OP about elementalists. If poster’s zerg is getting pawned by one elementalist then I would say that it’s a bad zerg.

while we’re at it, let’s remove all abilities that allow all classes to escape. Like invisibility off thieves and endure pain off warriors -_-

Anet did a great job bringing everyone to Southsun during the Living Story. There were plenty of events and rewards, and even farming was made more productive. The events, particularly the Queen event, were challenging because they required everyone to coordinate to keep the camps cleared.

But now that the next chapter in the Living Story is live, everyone has abandoned Southsun. It’s empty. Well, it’s almost empty. The monsters are still there, in very large numbers. The camps are always overrun, meaning the way points are almost always inaccessible.

The idea to get more people in Southsun long-term just didn’t take. Perhaps if the Queen were made a world boss that simply pops like all other world bosses – if the requirement to hold the four camps were removed – then people might drop in when she’s due to pop. But I haven’t seen anyone on my server (Blackgate) bother getting her to pop since the Southsun chapter of the Living Story ended. The added incentive apparently isn’t worth the trouble.

At the very least I think the zone could use some scaling back. Because the camps are always overrun, getting around is a bit of an hassle. This is especially true when crossing traveling through Steampipe Steading. That place is an absolute deathtrap if you don’t perfectly dodge all the cripple-inducing ranged attacks from the army of karka camping the place.

I think using the Living Story to entice people to visit abandoned zones is a good idea, but as people move when the next chapter goes live perhaps scaling the newly-raised difficulty (if it’s raised for the Living Story) of these zones back a bit to accommodate the lower population would also be a good idea.

The ability to laugh at oneself. “You” get a big part, not just some side-joke, no! A really big gig, dangerous – UNBLINDEABLE.
Organized, everywhere, spying on us – even got into the living story! Wasn’t the grawl, or the jotun, no! Once opressed by the evil dwarves you now seek revenge. Not just by, you know, sneaking up one by one in houses. No, you are building the mega-cannon.

What did the french get? Or the spanish? Any good german villains in this game?

Don’t be insulted, it shows they care.

We’ve all heard the QQ’ing about the Living Story and how the content is limited time only.

• Players who can’t log on consistently or new players end up missing a lot of good content.
• Furthermore, they may be dropped into the middle of a narrative they never had the opportunity to begin.
• Lastly, some of the content like dungeons takes a lot of work to create and balance, just to have it disappear in a month – this may not be most efficient use of resources and creative talent.

However, limited time content also has it’s positives.

• It presents the world as living, breathing, and evolving rather than static.
• It encourages players who can log on consistently to do so – this keeps the persistent world alive and populated.
• And finally, it helps the gem store sales by increasing demand for items that are unique to the event while also giving them a context.

I propose the Historian as a compromise toward the first 3 points, without stealing the luster from the last 3 points.

The Historian is an NPC who records and offers to players his account of the past events in the Living Story.

The Historian’s account should include:

1. Story
The story is simply the Historian telling (voiced or written) in his own words the story that took place. This includes what happened in the dialogs, cutscenes, the open world activity, and the instanced parts. Concept art and screen shots should supplement the story. The story driven cutscenes may or may not be included.

2. “Flashback” Instanced Missions
This includes the very same dungeons and instanced story missions that ran during the event. These instances are arguably where the quality gameplay is in the Living Story. Though I won’t presume that it takes more developer resources than the open world activities, instanced content is the typically more fine tuned and replayable.

Because it is completely instanced it does not threaten the new state of the world for people who participated in the actual Living Story event, nor does it require participation of the world. For all intents and purposes, it is simply a playable “flashback”. But for those who missed it, this is a chance to experience without disrupting the world continuity for others.

The Historian’s account should NOT include:

1. Open World Activities
What can be considered the “Living” part of the Living Story – the activities that took place in cities and explorable areas. For example: killing the dredge sonars, helping the refugees, collecting southsun samples, and smacking piñatas.

These open world activities definitely have a place in the event making it feel like the story was really having an impact on the world. However, these activities didn’t really offer anything unique or challenging to the gameplay, rather most of it depended on community coming together to be meaningful. Even the boss events were just the same old damage spam for an hour.

Also, re-implementing open world activities that were supposed to have been in the past presents serious technical and continuity challenges in itself. Attempting to bring open world activities back to the world could destroy the permanence of the changed world that the developers were trying so hard to create, or split the playerbase more than necessary between shards.

2. Achievements, drops, cosmetics, and other exclusive items

One of the goals of the Living Story is to reward players with that prestige “I was there when it happened” titles, and exclusive cosmetics. Allowing others who weren’t there to easily pick them up later through the Historian would diminish that sense of pride. It would also decrease demand for the cash shop exclusives during the event, which doesn’t benefit the company financially.

I’m not saying certain rewards should never be offered again in the future, but that it should not be the purpose of the Historian.
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=== TL;DR ===
The Historian is intended as a compromise for new players or those who can’t make it to the live events, while remaining in line with the original purpose of the Living Story – a one time event with a permanent effect on the world.

Players will be able to read/listen to an account of the Living Story events and play the instanced missions/dungeons as flashbacks. Players will not be able to engage in the open world activities from the event (they will be summarized in the story) nor can any of the achievements or exclusive items from the event be earned through the Historian.

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The Historian is primarily aimed at the story related content, not exclusive drops and rewards.
If you wish to discuss ideas about bringing back previously exclusive items or achievements, PLEASE START A NEW TOPIC ! ! !

I would like dungeons and other content to be based on meaningful, strategic choices. Make content that doesn’t incentivize Beserker-only builds, but requires a thoughtful execution of control and support mechanics. Modify weapon skills, traits and abilities to match this.

Just wondering what you guys think about the longevity of this game . I seem to just stand in lions arch n talk rather than doing something , heres why

[Group Events] Lack rewards and motivation to complete in open world zones

I decided to make an engineer and went to all the starter zones , basically Nobody wanted or zone was empty to do the group events …

[Dungeons-Story modes] Impossible to find a group to do these been trying now for days to do story mode dungeons – Had many replies of people saying " Dont bother doing story mode theyre not worth it "

[RNG] This is a very touchy subject atm , i think it needs to be nerfed a lot , mystic forge and gemstore loot [Ouch]!!

[Crafting] Well this is just used to level up , no rare skin recipes to hunt n craft to make money or even sell the recipes

[Tpvp] Serious Lack of builds/rewards/game modes i quit after rank 41 , and now stand in lions arch doing nothing

I guess im bored of the game , why i try n to play throught the game a 5th time but i just cant bring myself to do it just because of the problems listed above