Guild Wars 2

The OP seems to think it’s impossible for a game to be both Fun-centric AND Reward-centric. Apparently it’s not fun to earn things…

Draennon.8576:

@OP
You mentioned that we shouldn’t compare this game to WoW. Why should we compare it to GW1? And how is it not Guild Wars? It is placed in the same universe and that’s what makes Guild Wars. Sure, gameplay is part of Guild Wars too, but Guild Wars is a universe. Guild Wars 2 is set in this universe. So it’s more than legit to call it Guild Wars 2.
I never expected GW2 to be like GW1 in any way (and yeah, I played GW1, all chapters in fact). GW1 is a great game. So is GW2. It appears, you expected GW2 to be far more like GW1 than it is.
What I don’t get. You like to play story, but you want to quest grind to level? Why do you not just go to a new area, search for the scouts and run from heart to heart? I came barely across any obstacles across my way. AND, you don’t have to return to anywhere. You just go on as you run from heart to heart and do the ‘Quests’. Events give a fair amount of exp btw. And when you can spend quite some time to find a single PoI, why not invest the time to get to a heart in an area, appropriate for your level and grab the exp from there?
And don’t tell me, you have done everything yet. My Ranger is lvl 40 and I haven’t even set one foot into the lvl 35+ areas. The level 25-35 are isn’t even half completed. All I did was most of the 1-15 areas and two of the 15-25 areas. That alone got me to something close to 40 already. Neither did I have to invest much time, nor am I underleveled in any way for what is about to come.

Where I say you are right though is:
Yeah you DO have to do events, hearts, crafting in order to keep your level up with your personal story. And I honestly think, if you can not enjoy the exploring, GW2 just is not the best choice of a game (my oppinion so far). I enjoy exploring ALOT and am having a blast in this game.
Are you playing alone or with a friend? I am playing with a friend almost all the time, what makes it even more fun. That is pretty much the only thing, I could suggest.

About what was said above about quests in GW2:
They are the same thing as in every other MMO. But (again, in my oppinion) they are wrapped up MUCH better than in any other mmo. You want to know, WHY you have to do stuff? Go to the ‘heart-NPC’ and ask him about what is to do and why. And tadaaa… you have your ‘normal’ Quest. I like the new way, they went with GW2 in this regard. Doesn’t mean that everyone has to like it, by any means. Thats why there are so many games out there. Just pick the one, you like.

About taking things from WoW, because it ‘is’ succesfull:
Why does it still have million players (numbers are decreasing btw, they once had 10million+)? WoW was there at the right time. And most people stick to the game because of friends playing it and because they feel rather oblieged to keep playing, since they achieved so much already. I have some friends who play wow, and the reason why they still play it is either because of a still running subscription or because the others still play it. I, personally, don’t see any need to inherit anything from WoW. Making something different is perfectly fine and doesn’t have to suit everyone.

It really sucks when you notice that the game, you spent quite some money on, is not the game you expected it to be. But well, was stated before… that happens to everyone.

They can call it whatever they want to. The questing isn’t like GW1. The story missions aren’t like GW1. The Skillbar customisation isn’t as good as GW1. The grouping isn’t as good as GW1. The combat isn’t like GW1. The setting isn’t like GW1. The classes aren’t like GW1. The art style isn’t like GW1. They have a town called “Lions Arch” in GW2, woopdy-doo. As I said earlier, I have a history book in my closet with a naked picture in it, that does not make it a Playboy magazine. Anet can call this game whatever they want, but it’s not a Guild Wars sequel in any way really.

Zoridium JackL.7463:

“What I’m reading here is “I want to limit my gameplay to a small percentage of the content & map, but I still expect to be given loads of xp as if I’d completed it all”.

You want to skip the majority of the content designed for each level? Fine, you’re free to do so. But it’s hardly surprising that you find yourself too low level to succeed in the higher level areas."

no, I don’t want to do vistas or PoI for the experience because it turns the areas between them into travel zones thus devaluing the world that has actually been well crafted, I like vistas and I like PoI, but there is a difference between incentivising them and making them required, I’m not asking to be fed EXP so that I can be a higher level, I’m asking that questing give enough exp that I can go to the next zone once I have exhausted all the quests in the area (or at least be no more than 1-2 levels below), questing should be in and of itself its own reward, but instead my reward for questing is being forced to do something else so that I can continue questing, and even then the questing isn’t that good. people tell me just to go to anther level appropriate zone? but that removes me from any sense of character/immersion and makes it feel like I’m grinding for levels, when I’m actively trying to avoid grinding for levels, again, the difference between grinding and questing is presentation, GW2 severely lacks it.

I’m not asking to be rewarded for questing, I’m asking not to be drastically inhibited for questing.

Thank you, glad someone agrees with me. The people who want to questgrind to 80 shouldn’t be punished for wanting to do so. We’re forced to go out of our way to just be able to do our personal stories. Quests should give enough exp that we shouldn’t need to worry about being too underleveled to do our storylines. The leveling in this game was set up so horribly that all Anet is doing is ticking off their GW1 fans. This is not a sequel to the first Guild Wars in any way, we were expecting a Guild Wars game, and rightfully so.

Stormfox, I love the fact that you just suggested that we craft our way to 80 as if gold is super easy to make. Lol really, is that the best suggestion you can give?

Jest, by that logic…exploring over and over again is repetitive. You just contradicted yourself. Just saying…

Archer.6485:

Well you have to consider the leveling balance of all the players. If exp gain was higher, then anyone who DOES like to craft, pvp and find as many events as possible would level at a rate that’s much too fast and that would ruin their experience. You’ll just have to accept that doing only one thing in the game to level means you’ll have to do a lot more of that.

Those players can self pace though and make themselves go slower, I don’t have the option to make myself level faster. So in the end it isn’t as harmful as you think and doesn’t affect them really in any way.

Grinding quests isn’t nearly as repetitive because it would be faster to level than going LOTR nerd and trying to figure out how to get up a mountain for 15 minutes or so. Faster leveling = less repetitive than slower leveling…it’s common sense.

Jestunhi.7429:

Acewings.6872:

I’m level 34 and I’ve just finished the last 1-15 zone, I fail to see how you could be lacking the xp to get into a map with content which you have not yet done.

And the mid level maps?

As far as I can see it;s impossible to complete the provided content and not have enough xp to progress. The problems come when you limit yourself to one one chain of maps, etc.

Yes, that’s what I meant. I’ve done all the mid → lower level maps with the exception to the 1-15 asura starting zone (I believe). I need to get to 48 for my next personal story quest.

Jestunhi.7429:

Acewings.6872:

Archer.6485:

Why are you even trying to reach a poi if you don’t like exploring?

To level up so I’m able to do my personal story quests…it’s not like I have another choice since I can’t quest grind, hate the crafting system due to item costs, and don’t like the way that pvp is set up.

What level are you and how many of the maps in your level bracket have you completed (even ignoring the POI / vista exploration there is heart / dynamic event content)?

I’m level 34 and I’ve just finished the last 1-15 zone, I fail to see how you could be lacking the xp to get into a map with content which you have not yet done.

My warrior is 44 and I’ve already done almost all of the starting zones in every area of the map.

Archer.6485:

Why are you even trying to reach a poi if you don’t like exploring?

To level up so I’m able to do my personal story quests…it’s not like I have another choice since I can’t quest grind, hate the crafting system due to item costs, and don’t like the way that pvp is set up.

Op, that is my issue too. This game focus’s far too heavily on exploration and zone completion rather than just letting people grind out quests for exp. It makes the game feel really repetitive imo…

Algreg.3629:

First of all, if you want to have a useful discussion, stop convoluting things. The bugged SP has nothing to do with your dislike of exploring. Yes, it sucks you cannot complete relevant maps yet, but that is another point.

You are not forced to do any exploring, the leveling to 80 is so easy, if you dislike exploring, do more events or crafting which gives considerable xp. In case you dislike those too, well, you really have to ask yourself if this is really the game to stick with.

That’s not fair because events don’t give nearly enough exp and certainly don’t happen every 3 mins like you guys keep suggesting.

Archer.6485:

Maybe they should make every area just flat? Kind of like Tatooine and Hoth in Swtor? Those were really popular right?

It doesn’t need to be completely flat…it just needs to be flat-er. There’s no reason to have like 20 mountains in one small area blocking the POI other than to annoy people like me who are trying to get to it. The maps just need to be easier to traverse, that’s all.

Gauradan.8361:

tolunart.2095:

Believe what you want. The whining is about seeking attention, not trying to communicate.

Why in the world would I want attention from you? Or from fanboys in these forums? Let me tell you something: I don’t. The reason why I keep expressing my genuine concerns about the game (which you call “whining”) is because I love the game and the promise that it showed and feel that it would be a real shame to let it be destroyed by terrible decision on ArenaNet’s behalf.

I know our “whining” affects your self-created idea that the game is perfect. Well, it’s not. If it were, there wouldn’t be so many people “whining” on the forums. However, there’s a simple solution to that: don’t read the threads whose title suggests a topic that might bother you.

I would never be here expressing the issues I have with the game if I downright hated it. Instead, I’d be off playing someone else. There’s no reason I’d waste my time trying to cope with the huge amount of fanboyism on these forums if I didn’t like the game.

This, despite all the mess-ups I’m passionate and hopeful that the game will improve to my liking. You guys call it whining, but it’s actually constructive criticism.

Jestunhi.7429:

Rhanoa is true, the lack of persistence in GW1 makes it hard to label it as an MMO.

I seem to recall it was marketed as an ORPG instead due to the amount of instancing?

My point exactly actually. I have a history book in my closet that has a naked picture in it, that doesn’t make it a Playboy magazine. Arenanet can call this game whatever they want to, but the fact of the matter is that this game is not Guild Wars 2 because it is in no way related to Guild Wars 1 thus it is not a sequel.

Shroom Mage.9410:

Acewings.6872:

For me personally it’s about the storyline…I just want to experience the story. I can’t though because they dropped the ball for players like me who hate exploring because it’s a snoozefest and a chore, yet need to so we can level. I’m not going to bash people either who like to explore, I just thought that this game was going to be like GW1 in that respect that players like me who only wanted the story could experience it. I mean, I beat Prophecies I believe 12 or 13 times, and it certainly wasn’t for the gameplay or the endgame greens, it was because I loved the Prophecies story so much.

You really need to add this to the OP so that people coming into the thread will better understand where you’re coming from. At first it looks like you just want a MapleStory-style grind. If you actually want just the story, that’s a more legitimate complaint. That’s why you’re getting all the “go play WoW” comments.

Thanks for being respectful and not flaming me, unlike the other users in this thread.

Rhanoa.3960:

This is a great example of players needing their hands held more!

Folks who can’t really think for themselves. Always needing help or guides, leaves very little room for improvising or imagination to say the least.

Well maybe if they didn’t make the game so frustratingly lame…

I wandered around in LA for 54 minutes trying to find the PoI that was in the sewers. They made this game one giant maze, and there needs to be some more simplicity for the casual players.

Oh yeah, in regards to your handholding comment…funny how I didn’t need my hand held in Guild Wars 1, way to admit that this isn’t a worthy sequel.

I loved the fact that you noobs brought up WoW and compared GW2 to it. How about we compare GW1 to GW2 huh? Oh right you can’t because GW2 isn’t even a sequel in any way shape or form. I win you lose, take a forum hike.

Smackjack.5071:

Why cant it be more like wow and all of its 100 clones
Why do we have 1 game that doesnt copy wow
Why did i buy this game
Why am i playing this game
Why am i not playing wow or any of its clones
^the OP^

Why not take some of the things from WoW and improve the game? WoW has like 8 million players…clearly they’re doing some things right…

Lol, polish at release? Good joke bro. The Trading post was down for maintenance for like a month. That COMPLETELY ruined the Gem prices because nobody had gold to spend on gems due to not being able to sell anything on the trade post. The Gem value is finally going up, albeit slowly. The damage has already been done. Seriously, don’t make me laugh, this game was absolutely broken at release…

Edit: and there is no excuse for it. People like me who had been saving up hundreds of dollars for gems to sell for gold completely got screwed because Anet dropped the ball with the trading post being broken for a month at launch.

Zoridium JackL.7463:

Amlin.6041:

Here’s what you do: You do a zone that’s your level range, just do the hearts and if you run into any events along the way awesome and if not no biggie. Just make sure you do a many of the hearts that you find fun. Then once you finish with that go to another map that is in the in the same or close to the same level range.

That way you’ll see new sights and keep things fresh, you were never supposed to stick to an area and grind out the same events or do the Exploration stuff, in fact Exploration is actually just a bonus thing.

here’s the thing, I don’t want to be questing with my sylvari in the forest, fighting the nightmare court, only to find that once I’ve done all the karma quests in the area and run every event that has popped up (even if I didn’t want to) that I am still several levels under the next area and can’t keep questing in my natural progression path, my only options are to go get all the vistas and points of interest (things that I don’t want to be forced to do because not only does it trivialize the nicely crafted areas but feels tedious) OR go fight the inquisition or the dragon worshipers or any other “not my problem” in areas that make no sense for my character to have traveled to, that aren’t part of my natural progression path, and remove me from any sort of immersion and turn what should be a nice quest arc into a set of go here do this objectives to get to the next level.

I think that the questing in this game is most aweful I have ever seen in any MMO, not because it’s “different” and not because it’s “hard” but because it’s so badly designed that I am punished for doing it by being stripped or any immersion and being made to feel like I’m grinding for exp, all I want to do is quest, the major distinction between questing and grinding is presentation, something that GW2 lacks to a large degree.

Thank you, that’s what I’m trying to get at. The questing is one massive fail in this game. GW2 isn’t a bad game by any means, it’s just repetitive many times and the questing system is REALLY poorly designed.

NetherDiver.6079:

Acewings.6872:

NetherDiver.6079:

But isn’t exploring one of the things that makes MMO’s fun? You’d like to grind instead?

Heck yes I’m only playing this game to rush to 80, I really want an account of all max alts. What happened? I remember the phrase “Play it your way” in an interview or something. Playing it my way would be playing the traditional MMO, which is running and grabbing multiple quests and then doing those quests for exp. I don’t want to explore, and I couldn’t possibly care less about exploring tbh…

I’m asking questions not because I defend any particular argument, but merely because I’m curious about why people play a certain way. If you’re playing this game to max out characters, something you can do in any other MMO, why are you playing THIS game in particular? This clearly wasn’t designed for you to grind character growth. I’m sincerely curious, again, I don’t defend any side of the camp, I just find this stuff interesting.

For me personally it’s about the storyline…I just want to experience the story. I can’t though because they dropped the ball for players like me who hate exploring because it’s a snoozefest and a chore, yet need to so we can level. I’m not going to bash people either who like to explore, I just thought that this game was going to be like GW1 in that respect that players like me who only wanted the story could experience it. I mean, I beat Prophecies I believe 12 or 13 times, and it certainly wasn’t for the gameplay or the endgame greens, it was because I loved the Prophecies story so much.

Edit: Also thanks for being respectful about it.

NetherDiver.6079:

But isn’t exploring one of the things that makes MMO’s fun? You’d like to grind instead?

Heck yes I’m only playing this game to rush to 80, I really want an account of all max alts. What happened? I remember the phrase “Play it your way” in an interview or something. Playing it my way would be playing the traditional MMO, which is running and grabbing multiple quests and then doing those quests for exp. I don’t want to explore, and I couldn’t possibly care less about exploring tbh…

Kalocin.5982:

So uh….don’t then?

I HAVE to because there is no other way to level since they won’t add repeatable quests, buff monster exp, and fix all the exploration bugs.

I mean it’s bad enough that you won’t let us quest grind…but you FORCE us to explore and you make everything a maze. I mean we can’t just go from point A to point B, we have to walk all the way around like 10 mountains, swim across a freaking river, go UP a mountain, then we have to do a jumping puzzle or some crap, and then we have to push F and watch a stupid AC cutscene (for vistas at least). There’s a skillpoint in NE Snowden Drifts that is bugged and won’t appear, so yes…I’m angry since all I can do is explore. You couldn’t even get the exploring aspect right since the skillpoint in Snowden is bugged for people. I mean comeon Anet, if you’re going to force us to explore, at least make sure that the exploring isn’t a giant inconvenience and so repetitive. Also, could you make monsters give more than like 20 exp atm since you won’t add repeatable quests?

Please? If someone wants to buy like a thousand dollars in gems, they have to keep making seperate transactions. It would be easier to add the gems to a cart until you get the total number of gems that you want, and then go to a checkout and pay the total amount. It would be easier on people like me who are planning to work the gem system for in-game gold.

Illushia.3721:

Cupid.1796:

Thinking about it now… PvE bosses (even when you don’t get your condition damage in) get defeated fairly easily. Wouldn’t removing the cap mean super fast/easy boss battles? I haven’t been to a boss where there hasn’t been atleast 20 players participating.

That isn’t the point. 20 Direct Damage dealers do their complete damage to the boss at all times.

20 Condition Damage dealers, while separate, do their damage. But get all 20 of them into a place, and only about four of them are doing any damage at all, especially if they’re conditionmancers where almost ALL of their damage is through condition damage.

Because of the cap, about 16 of the people who showed up to the fight are doing jack squat, but the mob is still scaling to the amount of people nearby.

The mobs are actually dying slower than they should, and fixing this would actually bring damage back to where it’s supposed to be.

You wouldn’t be buffing it. You’d be fixing it.

Couldn’t have possibly said it any better…

I agree. Also, it’s dumb that you have to pay 44 copper to go to a waypoint and ress. Lol what happens if a player can’t afford it?

Vibe.2861:

Change the 25 bleed stack limit

This really should be one of the first things the devs should do. The current 25 bleed stack limit per mob makes it impossible for condition based builds to do any real damage in big events and thus recieve any kind of reward for a fight even though you’re there pressing skills the entire time.

I play a Conditionmancer (Condition based Necro) and it’s practically impossible to recieve any kind of medal on big dragon fights or any kind of big fight for that matter. I can stack 15 bleeds in seconds on a single mob. That means 2 conditions based players can easily hit 25 bleeds limit and thus render any other condition damage useless. On big fights there’s just so many people with conditions the stack is maxed in a second and the direct damage I do is just terrible. I’m finding myself switching weapon sets for big fights just to get that bronze medal, even though my traits don’t support it. This shouldn’t be like that.

There is no sense why there should be a global 25 bleed stack limit per mob. The condition damage is the same as direct damage, just dealt over time. Noone is going to deal more damage than they would if they played solo anyway, if the bleed stack is removed/raised/changed.

This is very gamebreaking for condition builds right now and really should be top priority.

Proposed fixes:

• Remove bleed stack limit entirely
• Introduce 25 bleed stack limit PER PLAYER on a single mob, eg. every player has his own stack of bleeds on a mob

I agree 100%, it needs to just be removed entirely.

Vlaid.5790:

What you propose would actually make condition builds redonkulous.

What you likely meant to suggest is to have individual condition caps per players so their damage is not nerfed by multiples of the same profession. The condition caps exist for a reason, but they shouldn’t be shared across multiple players.

And I agree to some extent. However, two things:

1.) Currently it’s pretty useless to have multiple condition based classes like warriors and necros in the same group. The alternative to this is that the classes will then become way overpowered as you pointed out, but that is still like a million times better than being useless like they currently are.

2.) Then wouldn’t it be better to just nerf conditions as a whole at the individual player level? I mean there is no need to punish entire groups over it.

Anet, I love you guys…but your views on conditions are dumb. There should NOT be a condition cap for enemies and here is why:

1.) It makes having multiple necros in a group USELESS as only 1 necros condition is counted.

2.) It defeats your entire point of “Oh we want to get rid of the MMO Paragon”

3.) It’s a GIANT damage nerf. I wouldn’t like carrying a bunch of players through a dungeon because they can’t pull their own weight due to not being able to apply conditions. It’s not fair to ANYONE.

You can’t have it both ways: You can’t sit there and say “oh we want to get rid of the MMO paragon and just let everyone play as they want, yet we want to nerf damage and nerf dungeon groups and basically make the multiple classes that rely on conditions USELESS”. Come on, get rid of the condition caps and let there be multiple condition stacks on enemies.

I agree with the OP, and LMAO at people saying that mounts have no place in Tyria. There were mounts in the first game…maybe you don’t remember the dwarves who rode dolyaks in the Prophecies campaign? Yeah, mounts ftw.