Guild Wars 2

symke.3105:

To answer your challenge … yes, I am enjoying GW2. But not so much as I’ve hoped to. One of my biggest complains is combat system. And the other is lack of “growth”.
There is a gear progression in game. But to me it’s only cosmetic gear progression. Which to me means that ArenaNet thinks we value our looks most of all. Do you?

Now my challenge to you … What do you do to have fun in GW2? What do you do to enjoy it?
To put it differently … if this game had gear progression … how would that stop you from having fun? You simply choose not to follow that progression, do your own thing and enjoy the game in the way you want.

I really don’t want to insult anyone but it just boggles my mind that people see lack of added options as something better.

I’m glad you brought this up. Firstly, I can and do spend hours customizing the look of my characters. So it’s very important to me, and I imagine to some extent or another it’s important for most people. You gotta look good while you’re smashing faces, after all.

To answer your question—what I do to have fun in GW2—I play it. More specifically my primary interest in the game is the PvP,. I’ve done the hardcore PvP grind, most recently owning about a dozen server firsts for acquiring top-end PvP gear in Rift, which, sadly, made it entirely too easy to destroy people because the gear in that game inflated FAST. Ended up quitting because having such dominance based on gear alone stopped being fun. So there’s a knock against gear progression, even though there are ways around it, which GW2 is already doing really.

I also wanted to address the last couple things you said. You said it boggles your mind that people see a lack of options as better, and that gear progression does not limit your enjoyment of the game. To the former, I agree wholeheartedly. However, the latter is completely untrue.

See, gear progression does limit the content a player can do, because one must have the prerequisite gear to even be capable of doing the content. Gear checks and all. No matter how good your tactic for beating the encounter, you simply cannot if you don’t have the stat numbers required to survive hits or to kill the boss in X time.

This style of content ends up being limiting, because with each tier of gear progression added, smaller and smaller numbers of players can access it. It also limits the content that the progression players can enjoy, because their gear advantage begins to absolutely wreck older areas. This creates a lack of options for a significant portion of the community, and as we’ve agreed, it boggles both of our minds why anyone would think less options are better.

ounkeo, the friends thing is a good point and I’ll certainly give you that. I would point out that a GM can imagine a new dungeon to explore or a new monster to kill a whole lot faster than people can create the same experience in video game form, but otherwise what you have to say is fair enough.

As for the soccer thing in Raging Bull’s post, I would point out that soccer is played with a ball and two goals on a field. If we’re going to compare progression and content complaints to soccer, it would be like soccer players complaining that the ball is always spherical, or that there’s always two goals, or that they don’t get a new jersey made of stronger material or cleats that make them run faster and kick farther every time they play.

The “world” in which the soccer players play is the same. Their “gear” is equivalent. They don’t petition FIFA or whoever to design new styles of soccer fields.

Anyway, my point is that I’m not arguing against progression/customization. I’m saying that having fun with the gameplay and the experience of it is by far the more important thing. And if fun isn’t being had, feedback should be provided to make the game more fun, and not simply longer.

Schurge.5194:

I think that these players who continue to say that “Guild Wars 2” is about fun are missing the fact that people don’t repeat dungeons for fun. For most people leveling is not fun after the first go ’round.

This is exactly the kind of thing I meant. If you aren’t having fun with the gameplay, why in the world are you playing to begin with? I’m not saying quit, but have you seriously evaluated why you’re spending time on something you consider to be “not fun after the first go’round”?

Which I mean, that’s fine. Not everyone’s going to like the gameplay, but why would you want incentive to keep playing a game you aren’t having fun with? This makes no sense to me.

Anyway, a couple of the more recent posts mentioned that progression is an RPG staple, to which yes, I agree. And it’s very enjoyable to see one’s character grow stronger. I said this. I make no attempt to claim otherwise. My thing with this thread is that lately MMO players seem to play only for progression and not because they enjoy the actual playing part.

Now, you PnP roleplayers didn’t gather over a table for loot written in different-colored pens. You gathered over that table with your friends because it was a fun way to spend an evening, whether things went right or wrong, whether you progressed or didn’t. Don’t even pretend otherwise; I will call you a liar to your face if you tell me you were into PnP RPGs solely for gear upgrades and wouldn’t play without them. So, what happened to that mindset where having a fun time with your friends was good enough, for those of you that want to evoke your PnP experience? Where’d that go, and why is it no longer acceptable?

Speaking more on subject to the game, I would challenge each of you to ask yourself and answer honestly whether or not you are enjoying the gameplay of Guild Wars 2? And if the answer’s no, I’m wondering why people who aren’t having fun would think gear progression fixes the problem. Why not suggest changes to the gameplay and combat to make it fun instead?

And if you are having fun, well… isn’t that what’s important?

knightblaster.8027:

I think it’s more complex.

I agree with most of what you say. The best point you make is to look at GW2 like a non-MMO. You pay the 60 bucks, beat it in a few dozen hours, then you can either go for 100% completion, play multiplayer (PvP), or replay the game (alt). Or you can put it down and play something else like you would any other game when you’re bored of it.

That’s still an amazing amount of content for 60 bucks. So I dunno. People definitely are looking at GW2 with the wrong perspective, but I dunno what fixes it, and my big concern is that the devs will eventually cave and make this a progression game. I hope not, but it’s a concern.

Are MMO players trained to play for progression rather than for enjoyment?

Subscription MMOs have, over the years, used inflating gear rewards to keep players in the game, because progression is exciting. There’s no denying that, I think everyone likes seeing their character get stronger.

However, I think in recent years we’ve come to a point where we see a growing number of people who play solely for the purpose of seeing their progression. Once they have the strongest gear with the prettiest text color or whatever, many of them simply stop playing until there’s even stronger gear to progress towards again. We all know players like this.

I question if these players even like the game they play as opposed to the feeling of getting something newer and shinier.

And why I bring this question up, is because I also question whether or not this kind of player is worth attempting to retain in the GW2 community as they are.

I would hate to see hard work on the part of the developer go into content that only a small fraction of the community will do, and even then only for about a week until they’ve progressed past it and go back to complaining.

To answer my own question in the title bar, I think the modern MMO player is trained to play games they don’t enjoy as long as there’s progression. So here’s another question: how do either the developers—or us as a community—break players of this mindset, and remind them that, well, gameplay can actually be enjoyed on its own? That exploring and playing the game IS doing content, even if there’s no gear progression? How do we make these players get it about Guild Wars 2?

Or can we at all?

One would think you, as an artist focusing on graphic design, would appreciate a clean and attractive design that doesn’t impede the site’s actual content.

Just sayin’.

Thread: Bad.
You should feel: Bad.

You’re not supposed to make jokes! Forum r srs bsns!

Same thing with any other game after you’ve gotten through the story bits. 100% completion, play multiplayer (PvP), replay (alt), or just stop playing and move on.

What’s the problem?

That you WANT more weapon skills doesn’t mean the game NEEDS them.

Don’t get me wrong, I’d be all for customizing some or all of the 1-5 slots myself (even at 2 choices per slot per weapon the customization options would be immense), but let’s not get it twisted. This is just something you want, and nothing more.

It’s funny.

With any other game, if you didn’t like what the game had to offer, you just wouldn’t play it.

With MMOs? GIANT FORUM DEPOSITION.

You paid 60 bucks for the game and let’s say you got your three days at 8 hours a day. That’s not all that hardcore but people’s definitions vary. So you got 24 hours of enjoyment out of the game before you decided you saw all there was to see.

How is that different from any other game you’d buy? That’s better than the campaign lengths in any number of shooters lately. That’s probably more than the big action-adventure games like Uncharted, Assassin’s Creed, or God of War. Probably more than the open-ended games like the GTAs and the Saints Rows, and probably somewhere around par for RPG offerings as well.

If at this point you feel you’ve seen all there was to see, stop playing and get a new game! I don’t get it. People post here like there’s something FORCING them to play. There isn’t! There’s no subscription! Once you’ve got your gear set, you don’t have to worry about falling behind in PvP! You paid 60 bucks and got 20+ hours of enjoyment out of it like any other game. Come back in six months and see if it’s worth exploring a second time. I really don’t get it.

Staff guardian is fantastic support and the autoattack is a conal AE that should have no problems tagging everything. Really, this isn’t a game problem. This is you needing to be more conscious of where your party is and what they’re doing.

be a proper gentleman and let your wife tag the mobs too.

hope you’re not this fast in all aspects of your relationship.

Aion had a console command to change FoV, and once I found out about that I could no longer play with the default, the improvement was so big.

So would definitely approve of an option to change FoV, even if it was just between two presets (60 and 90).

Interesting, though either your scale is pretty lenient or GW2’s forums are overwhelmingly positive compared to other MMOs (just looking at it and giving it an eye test, GW2’s forum seems as negative as any other).

I dunno, I’m kind of expecting one of these days for an MMO developer to just not have ways for its playerbase to gather and discuss the game, because negativity in the community tends to feed on itself.

That’ll be a sad, sad day, but if I’m looking at it from a business perspective, I can’t help but wonder why developers allow players to convince each other that the game sucks via the forums.

Stark.1350:

Man I can’t wait until these stupid WoW trolls leave the game and forums.

Get used to disappointment.

I’m not knocking the explanation because it’s a good and valid one, but it kind of sucks for the roleplayers to hear the NA community team lead tell them they’re not worth the effort.

The game provides for a lot of roleplaying flexibility, so here’s hoping more things will be done for them in the future, even if it’s on a smaller scale than providing a roleplaying ruleset.

While attracting dedicated streamers (and by this, I mean the ones that stream as their source of income) probably would help towards building a stronger esports community, the rules seem pretty set against that sort of thing.

In-game replays may go a ways toward negating that, but hm, no commentary…

Pikafan.3792:

“In PvP” are the keywords.

There are plenty of tanks and healers willing to raid and I never had to “wait hours” like some of you exaggerate.

Personally, I prefer the “trinity”, you don’t have to worry about having the roles you need AND the quality of the players involved at the same time.

With GW2, you have to worry about people bringing sufficient copies of snares, condition removals or situational skills like projectile reflection, AND you have to worry about players being good enough to handle the actual combat mechanics.

Of course, the fanbois and gals will start blindly rushing in to lambaste me for those statements, ignoring the fact that I don’t hate GW2’s combat/role system, it’s just that I merely prefer the trinity.

Waiting depends on a number of factors such as the particular goal you’re working towards and the server population and the time of day. That’s annoying, but I wanted to address the next part because I think it’s interesting.

You said you prefer the trinity, then go on to state that because players are held so accountable in GW2 it’s hard to get a good group.

While I agree, I think this is an advantage for GW2. Player skill isn’t masked by effective specs and spamming single keys in this game, at least not to the point that it is in a more WoW-styled MMO.

In the long run, this is a good thing because it forces players to be better and more focused, instead of glancing over at the screen every couple of seconds while watching TV. This improves everyone’s experience of playing the game in an ideal world, because all players are fully involved in the combat, and fully dependent on themselves and each others’ skills to make it through.

Granted this isn’t an ideal world, and rather than pushing players to get better we may begin to see the compromises that every other MMO developer eventually caves to. I hope not. I hope, for once, that the players rise to the occasion on this.

I can get to the character select screen about half the time, but it’ll pop up an error about connection issues before the game loads and kick me back to the launcher.

Phy.2913:

A dual spec system could help I think.

Again, Rift was on top of that, with not two, but five different specs that you could load at any time as long as you weren’t in combat.

People just don’t want to play tanks and healers.

Bigperm.7586:

I would much rather see a system in which every class is able to spec over to all 3 roles, whenever the need fits. I really don’t want to knock them for trying something different, but I’m really feeling that leveling a melee to 80 was a waste of time for pve.

Rift tried this. Three of the four archetypes (warrior, rogue, cleric) had a method of tanking, and three of the four archetypes (rogue, cleric, mage) had a method of healing.

The end result is that every single player in the game could either tank or heal, if not both.

You’d still be waiting hours for the healer and tank because only a certain kind of player wants to play those roles.

Imo, Guild Wars 2 has the superior design. Let’s be patient and hope they also give us superior execution moving forward.

There will always be an extremely vocal group of players to complain about the lack of gear progression and raiding.

This will do nothing to quiet them, because to them it doesn’t count as content if there aren’t gear upgrades. That’s why all the people telling them about things to do now aren’t quieting them.

No matter how much there actually is to do, without gear upgrades that type of player just doesn’t understand the point in playing.

SpectacularYak.6518:

Because my brain has evolved enough that I can enjoy more than one thing. Shocking, I know.

This is the internet. You’re only allowed to enjoy one thing ever.

Unless it’s cat videos, because c’mon, everyone loves cat videos.

The icons are self-explanatory. (Character?) gender, character profession, race, and the type of crafting, but I had issues figuring out what the bars themselves meant.

I assume it’s the number of characters engaging in crafting by those filters but who knows.

Anyway, I would like to emphasize that data is good and should be given to us, just a bit of effort could go into explaining things too.

I understand the points others have brought up about PvE objectives being in PvP zones; I just wanted to point out a very important fact.

PvP in a PvP zone is not griefing.

The other points are fine, and agreeable, even, but cannot emphasize the fact enough.

First GW game was like the video, in that some zones were day and some zones were night. There were no day/night cycles in that game, though.

Perhaps GW2 is similar in that some zones just don’t cycle?

The players as individuals look at things that can be improved about their own experience. It’s a very narrow, biased, and selfish view of the game, and is often contrary to the same narrow and biased views of other players.

That kind of tug of war is something a developer doesn’t want to get involved in. If you want to see an example of a developer who probably cares too much about what the players say, have a look at Trion Worlds and their Rift MMO. They work very hard on the game but can’t seem to satisfy anybody because they’re trying too hard to satisfy everybody. It doesn’t make for a very strong “vision” of what the game is.

So my thing would be for Arenanet to stay focused on their vision of what they want GW2 to be. Especially since this game isn’t relient on an always-bleeding subscription rate, Arenanet is in a unique position (for an AAA release) of being able to let the players grow accustomed to the game, rather than trying to change the game to appease the players.

I believe GW2 is truly the next generation of MMO, and it would be a great shame to see regression because players have a tendency to whine rather than adapt.

Everquest → World of Warcraft → EVE Online → Aion → Rift → Guild Wars → Guild Wars 2

Played a couple of others along the way but not for more than a hundred hours or so. City of Heroes probably most notable among those. RIP.