There was no end game in GW1.
I actually liked the GW1 end game. First, there was HoH. Farming fame with PUGs upon first reaching level 20 is one of my most pleasant memories. Then they added the green items. That was especially fun because you started out farming with a full group of four, and once you got to know the area you could refine your build until you were able to farm with only three. Gradually you got down to two, and before you knew it you were solo farming that stuff. I really liked that because it felt rewarding and challenging no matter your level of play. Getting to claim every single green in the instance once you had your solo build down is still one of the best in-game rewards I’ve ever seen in a MMO. Nothing in any MMO since has come anywhere near that level of reward for me.
But people who join groups that explicitly advertize e.g. full zerk, minimum achievement points, ping gear, experienced only, no rangers, no necros, or similar stuff will obviously kick people who join but don’t meet those criteria. As they should, right?
Advertising criteria like that for a PUG is passively aggresive. It’s no different from excluding that one kid in the school yard from the lunchtime football game because they happened to drop a pass or fumble the ball the previous game. Is ArenaNet obligated to stop this? No. Will it continue to happen in every MMO? Absolutely. I have no illusions that this behavior will magically cease. However, I still think it’s a stupid way to play games. The main reason I left WoW was that you were pretty much forced to adopt that attitude in PUGs as well as organized groups if you wanted to enjoy the game. My experience in GW2 so far is that there is no such need. That may change when I get into higher level fractals, but so far I haven’t encountered anything that couldn’t be overcome through the slightest bit of persistence.
If it was a reverse situation where someone formed a play-how-you-want, all builds accepted group and somebody joined in full zerk gear and then started constantly complaining about poor group dps, complaining about the ranger/necro in the party, and calling everyone noobs and complaining about inexperienced play, he would also likely be kicked, right? As he should. He simply joined the group with improper expectations.
It’s a game. I don’t want to play with a bunch of cry babies and drama queens. I’ve spent years training my kids to quit behaving like that, and I don’t want to educate someone else’s kids in game. Kicking such a player would have nothing to do with how they play and everything to do with dragging down everyone else’s mood by acting like jerks.
The OP’s assumption that kicking players who don’t meet advertised group criteria is a form of aggression is incorrect. People joining such a group when they don’t meet the criteria are obviously the ones who are being “aggressive” since they are simply annoying or interfering with others who are trying to play how they want.
The act of kicking may not be aggressive, but the advertisement in and of itself was already aggressive. That having been said, I personally don’t see why anyone who didn’t want to meet those criteria would even join such a group. I would chalk it up to ignorance. Someone who doesn’t even know what “zerk gear” or “APs” are may not even realize that they are failing to live up to certain criteria.
I have no desire to run dungeons with PUGs right now, but if I did, I would probably use those advertisements to filter out the groups that I don’t want to join. I prefer unexpected adventures to repeatedly running an instance at top speed exclusively for the sake of farming materials and gold. To each their own, I guess.
Daily done.. time to log off.
Fractals done.. time to log off.
monthly done.. time to log off
Teq done.. time to log offlets play a more interesting game,
if you did a poll you will find that most of our playerbase feels like this.
I kind of like having a nightly goal that is consistently achieveable in under 2 hours. They can only put out content so quickly. Thankfully there is no subscription fee so if you’ve played through the entire story on a character I think you’ve gotten your money’s worth. No matter what game you play, there will always be a newer one that’s “more interesting.” ArenaNet really has no financial incentive to compel their players to remain online 24/7, and I personally wouldn’t want to play a game that expected that of their player base (looking at WoW here).
To be honest it is a lot less in this game. Why? Because this game is so easy you can stand in a corner with your friends and faceroll most of the pve content with almost any build. A while back a guild group had a conversation about dps and dungeons and we decided to just play whatever we wanted. I ran banner regen condi war and I don’t think anyone else was running a “ideal” dungeon build.
I agree.
I have run my condi war build before in pug that didn’t mind and many lulz were had as I face rolled my way through the dungeon with 300+ group hps and a nearly unkillable warrior with 900+ hps.
I personally feel that’s as it should be. MMOs should be fun and full of lulz. There shouldn’t be one and only one “correct” way to play. The thing I loved about GW1 was that the wide variety of skills allowed for many viable play styles, many of which strayed from the traditional “DPS/heal/soak as much/as often as you can” approach. I haven’t played enough GW2 to determine whether that’s the case in this game, but from what you’re saying it still is, and in my opinion that’s great.
For example, I played Anarchy Online for 7 years. Despite it’s age, it has THE most complicated gearing system I have ever seen; Almost all the gear is skill required and those skills can be buffed in multiple ways. In addition, the content is still very difficult with raids from single team (6 people) to zones that require upwards 12 teams. to complete. Despite the wide variation and raids and difficulty (It’s actually easy to fail a raid there, even to this day) never once playing that game did someone tell me “Oh, your build isn’t correct” or kick someone for not having the right gear. Gear was a non factor in completion and was a significant portion in your overall stats (at least 50%).
How long ago was this? WoW pretty much ruined the MMO community by allowing addons that report gear levels as well as DPS levels. Suddenly players weren’t content to gradually muddle through end game content with diverse players utilizing diverse skillsets. Now they could grade players on skill and gear in order to maximize the efficiency with which they farmed gear. Many MMO players no longer treat games like games. To them it’s a job that must be performed as efficiently as possible so that they can get to their goal of having the best gear in the game as quickly as possible. Players who fail to conform to that mentality are obstacles who are slowing their progress towards that gear to which they feel they are entitled.
Some of this has spilled into all MMOs, but I still contend that GW2 suffers less from this because there is no DPS addon and no way to inspect gear (that I’m aware of). Unfortunately this still happens (sometimes) in GW2, but that’s just how the kids these days are ™.
YES that’s my main gripe with the new trait system. It just makes the game too boring for too long until you get into the higher levels. However, if they implement an attribute system like in that video… that would be pretty sweet.
I’ve only been playing GW2 for a couple of months (played GW1 extensively back in the day), but my experience is that more often than not I’m just equipping whatever trait I’ve unlocked that looks best. In many cases I’m even running around with empty trait slots simply because I haven’t unlocked anything. In GW1 I liked that I could simply purchase most skills in new towns and then go boss hunting for the elites later on to take my game to the next level. I also felt more inclined to experiment with the various traits because I would often run into areas that I couldn’t clear without a certain set of skills. In the current environment I feel like it doesn’t matter because I just latch on to a zerg and level effortlessly with or without traits. In GW1 I often customized builds for areas that I was trying to vanquish and/or solo farm. I feel like the GW2 trait system is a big step back from where GW1 was.
Correct Vayne, but also remember that Elite Skills were to be captured off of lvl20 Bosses and you had a quest to go capture an Elite(may not have been the one you wanted/needed but was still there). There are numerous traits in GW2 that are in areas with higher level mobs than when you should be able to get said trait. The Elite Skills caps were also not severely bugged or in some cases just non-obtainable like some traits in GW2.
On the other hand, 99% of bosses with cappable skills were soloable with heroes and henchmen. I never had to camp an event in GW1 in the hope that a critical mass of players would spontaneously form to help me get my skill. I would spend my solo time capping skills and my group time doing instances like Underworld and the EotN dungeons. Now instead of hunting down and capping skills from bosses I hunt for zergs to piggyback from. I have to say that I prefer the old way.
So I have been playing since day 1 beta, I come to the game for a while, and then go and then come back, and everytime I come back I am reminded of why I left in the first place… There is absolutly no endgame… You either farm for a legendary or play the same fractals over, and over, and over, and over, and over again…
How is that different from games like WoW where you’re farming the same raid week in and week out for the best gear? The difference I can see is that ArenaNet isn’t constantly performing arbitrary gear inflation so that you have to do yet another extensive grind simply to feel as powerful as you did the first time you optimized your gear. If you burn through Dry Top in a couple of days then I guess you’ll just have to wait for the next update. It’s not like you’re paying a subscription fee. There are plenty of other pay-to-play games that are incentivized to arbitrarily keep you on the gearing treadmill. That may be your idea of a compelling end game, but I’m not inclined to agree.
I’m 44. I only feel old when that one guild mate who joined up in GW1 before his voice even cracked talks about legally going out to drink with his friends. Most of my guild mates were in their early 20s when I first started playing with them and are now 30+.
Am I the only person who has played GW1 that feels that a lot of the lore of the series is being told in a stale manner? The entire Instance with rytlock in the dragons reach was just so dumb. I mean the items were just found lying around in rocks. Whoever the writer is does everything in such a rushed manner. I also don’t feel like there’s anything to do because I liked hunting for my skills in GW1.
Let’s be honest. Lore has never been Guild Wars’ strong suit. I was pretty intrigued with the original plot line of pre and post-searing Ascalon and the conflict with the Charr, but that conflict was quickly abandoned even before the end of the first game. Every subsequent expansion introduced lore that had nothing whatsoever to do with the lore before. The stories have never felt cohesive, and one gets the distinct impression that someone’s just been making crap up as they go along.
Thankfully what ArenaNet lacks in lore they make up for with pretty graphics, performant interfaces, and superior skill systems. Unfortunately I have to say that I prefer GW1 to GW2. I’m sorry they ended its life so soon.
In other games it’s worse, since in most mmos you can inspect other player’s gear. In other mmos you can also use mods that can read the group’s or player’s dps and stuff (there are mods that can even see what mods other players are using), so in these games if someone is not geared properly and is not dealing the expected amount of dps they can be kicked from the group.
This is WoW in a nutshell. Worse, there are many bosses in WoW that simply can’t be done by some players, no matter how well-geared or dedicated they are. They simply don’t have the reflexes to do them.
I haven’t been playing GW2 for long (played GW1 extensively, switched to WoW in 2009, and just came back for GW2 a couple of months ago), but I have never encountered a boss in this game that couldn’t be defeated through persistence. I did a fractal for the first time a couple of weeks ago, and we only had one encounter that was anywhere near a full wipe. I think I only died once and had to rally maybe twice. I think that may be part of the reason that players are so much friendlier in this game.
I’m actually surprised to find this topic in the GW2 forums because for the most part Guild Wars player tend to be much friendlier and more helpful than players in other MMOs that I’ve played.
I think the locus swarms “staying around” was the buff bug the wiki is talking about…..If you defeated him with the bug active, you can count that as a “well done. sir!”. (Despite the thread Necromancy).
The wiki made no mention of the swarms. It blamed Determined for being the cause of the problem, but I don’t see how Determined makes a difference since many other bosses have the buff without being so difficult to kill. I didn’t see any mention of Locust Swarm on the wiki or in this post, and that, in my opinion, was the hardest mechanic to contend with. I did eventually defeat him despite that bug, but it required for me to accept three facts:
- My NPCs were pretty much worthless, and whatever help I got from them was going to be purely incidental
- When that Locust Swarm got to me I was going to go down so I needed to kite it as often as possible, and I needed to rally as quickly as possible when it reached me
- The fight requires patience because at 3% heals per tick the Spider Lord’s health takes a long time to decline
My intent was not to necro the thread, but to add the useful information that I felt I lacked when going into the fight. The fact that this is post comes up as #1 when Googling Risen Spider Lord was the main reason I opted to add that information here.
…why? What purpose did this serve? OP has probably defeated the boss by now.
The title of this forum is “PlayerS Helping PlayerS.” It just so happens that Google brought me here last night when I was having trouble with this boss, and the advice in this post amounted to, “L2P noob, and bring condition removal.” After spending hours trying to figure this out on my own I decided to post my own personal solo experience so that the next person who came along would have something more substantial to go off of. I was hoping that my post would be more informative than the previous ones. Was there something specific that you found to be purposeless?
(edited by Bernie.8674)
@Falunel You were awfully quick to disparage others for pointing out that something is seriously wrong with this boss. Just having killed him myself, I can attest to the fact that he is above and beyond any of the others in this game in difficulty.
The first phase, where the Spider Lord is in his first form, shouldn’t be too much trouble if you kite a lot to avoid getting eaten by the little spiders.
Maybe that was the case when you did it, but kiting the spiders was the least of my worries. The actual problem was his specialized Locust Swarm. Note that according to the skill description it’s supposed to go away after 10 seconds. He, on the other hand, had two of them up at all times, they stayed until they were killed, and killing those things was no walk in the park. Two of these heal him for 3% every hit pulse and continually own the NPCs to boot. The NPCs are glitched too so they are permanently resurrecting each other. For some reason only one would ever respawn with me, and half the time it wasn’t until I had just about finished the swim back.
Finally I decided to ignore my NPCs and that’s when I made headway. I used my bow to drop AoE fire and just kited him and the hatchlings through that while hoping for my NPCs to draw the locusts away. From time to time my NPCs would heal enough to start beating on him, and that’s when I would temporarily make progress. When the locusts caught up to me I died pretty quickly, but I used the ever re-spawning hatchlings to mitigate that. I constantly kept AoE fire on them so every time I went down there was at least one hatchling that was over half way to dying. Whenever I went down I found one like that and took it down ASAP to rally.
It’s his second form that’s troublesome- once he becomes a spider, he’ll start doing this nasty attack where he’ll pull you to him and immobilize you.
For me this is where the fight devolved into the typical story boss faceroll because he stopped spawning those locusts.
You will either want to dodge this pull or bring a condition remover to escape the immobilize ASAP
This is sage advice for almost any boss that immobilizes. You know that something nasty’s about to come when that happens.
Bernie.8674 – We have no ticket from this account. Please click Support above and then Submit a request, providing as much info as possible.
Thanks, Gaile! I resubmitted my request via the link above and got Request #626423. I’ll give it a few days to work through the system. I was reluctant to resubmit because I had already e-mailed support@guildwars.com, but I guess that submissions coming from sources other than the link above are disregarded these days. I appreciate that you took the time to check for me.
I submitted an issue via e-mail a week ago, but I never received a ticket number or even a response. My problem is that I purchased Guild Wars 2 last weekend and I want to link it with my Guild Wars 1 account, but I no longer have access to my college e-mail, which is the one I used to register my original Guild Wars account. I do not remember the password to my original Guild Wars account so I can’t use that either. I submitted my original e-mail, two potential keys (one is my wife’s and I don’t know whose is whose), and several character names from that account. Is there any remedy for me?