Guild Wars 2

jeweledleah.2840:

I think that might have been a joke? its hard to tell in written word sometimes, but it sounded like sarcasm. you know since /dancing is basically rebelling against the whole you should try pvp deal. deliberately asking basic questions like that will cause pvpers who tend NOT to be a friendly bunch from experience, to introduce you to a variety of curses and insults you might still be unfamiliar with. at least that was the way I understood it.

Astral Projections.7320:

Lol. That was a joke. If you were going to troll your team by dancing then I thought you would appreciate ways to troll more.

But, I guess not. Oh well.

Gah! Yes, of course it was. I was tired and cranky and apparently I trolled myself! The friendly bunch reference really should have been a clue….

Astral Projections.7320:

DavidH.7380:

Astralporing.1957:

mulzi.8273:

as others have mentioned, if people would creep out from their comfort zones, they may be surprised how much fun other games are.

Or they may not. What makes you think i haven’t tried those game modes i dislike?

I’ve agreed with you, but with all the condescending admonishment that I should try PvP because I just might discover how fun it is, I’m actually starting to come around.

Mind you, I have absolutely no intention of ever even attempting to fight another player, but I’m really starting to think that rolling a level one, joining ranked PvP, and practicing my /dancing just might be fun.

Ask your teammates questions like, “how do I weapon swap?” and “how do I set my skill bar?” PvP people are a friendly bunch and if you ask questions like that, they will tell you things you ain’t never heard before.

Or I could play what I enjoy and find interesting, not play what I find utterly pointless and uninteresting, and not give a flying kitten how you or anyone else thinks I ought to play.

I play for my own reasons, none of which involve filling my need for challenge and competition by measuring kittens with internet strangers or getting satisfaction or pleasure from being better than someone else at a video game.

Astralporing.1957:

mulzi.8273:

as others have mentioned, if people would creep out from their comfort zones, they may be surprised how much fun other games are.

Or they may not. What makes you think i haven’t tried those game modes i dislike?

I’ve agreed with you, but with all the condescending admonishment that I should try PvP because I just might discover how fun it is, I’m actually starting to come around.

Mind you, I have absolutely no intention of ever even attempting to fight another player, but I’m really starting to think that rolling a level one, joining ranked PvP, and practicing my /dancing just might be fun.

Ayrilana.1396:

DavidH.7380:

Taygus.4571:

I absolutely LOVE the log in rewards! They’ve got me logging in daily…and then I’m like mmmh think I’ll just do x or y…and then I do a bit more and then I’m like “ooops, I have to study….” XD

Yep, but the reverse is possible too. I used to at least play enough to complete the daily fairly regularly. Now I mostly log in, loot the chest, look over the 4 PvE dailies, and just log out without playing.

Come to think of it, I don’t think I’ve actually played at all since the new dailies started…

Are dailies really the issue or rather the lack of content within the game?

Well, I answered a similar question earlier, and for me the issue is mostly that I’m not usually intending to settle in and play as much as I am trying to sneak in the stuff that is time gated to once a day. Since the daily rewards previously required actually playing for a bit, I’d start trying to make progress on new characters or get a little further on map completion and sometimes I’d play past the daily completion for quite a while.

Now I get the most important rewards as soon as I log in and before I’ve even started doing anything. At that point, if the daily tasks don’t look like fun stuff to do just for the sake of doing them (and they never do) then it is pretty easy to just log out before I even start playing and just get on with work, or doing stuff around the house, or with my girlfriend, or whatever instead of starting to play.

Taygus.4571:

I absolutely LOVE the log in rewards! They’ve got me logging in daily…and then I’m like mmmh think I’ll just do x or y…and then I do a bit more and then I’m like “ooops, I have to study….” XD

Yep, but the reverse is possible too. I used to at least play enough to complete the daily fairly regularly. Now I mostly log in, loot the chest, look over the 4 PvE dailies, and just log out without playing.

Come to think of it, I don’t think I’ve actually played at all since the new dailies started…

These threads always make me wonder if the OPs would go to a shopping center with McDonalds, Burger King, Wendys, and Subway, go to the Subway, order a sandwich, and tell the owners, “Sandwiches are okay, but what would be really good is if you sold hamburgers… and french fries…. and maybe chicken nuggets. Yeah, Subway is pretty good, but if you sold hamburgers, and french fries, and chicken nuggets then you’d really have something great.”

Devata.6589:

“Having more time gated but consistent payout systems would alleviate some of the rng pain” no that would not make it better, in a way the gold grind already does that. It’s a really consistent payout but just takes time to get the money you need to buy. Also I do not need to get stuff for free only by putting in ‘waiting time’. That sounds interesting to you?

About the materials, that would already be nice if it would be directly obtainable in a viable way instead of the only viable way being the grind gold and buy it. Even is the total time spend might still be similar (for most).

Perhaps I am the one missing the point, but it seems like this is mostly a case of not being able to have it all, along with the additional need to have multi-month time sinks for players that invest 4+ hours a day.

If you tie rewards to going around the world doing specific goals, then either the dedicated players will blow through everything in a month and complain about there being nothing to do, or you have to set each goal to take 60 hours or so in order to gate it to two goals a month max. If you require 60 hours of, say, jumping puzzles to get a mini or a skin, then you’ve created a typical “grind” of the type Anet is trying to avoid.

To avoid that issue you can substitute gold. If everything generates gold, and gold can buy everything, then you can do whatever you want for 60 hours and buy your item, or just buy gold with cash and fund the game, or be an auction house trader, or whatever strikes your fancy. Of course, the unintended side effect seems to be that people who are playing for direct pursuit of goals find themselves in a permanent “meta grind”…. grind gold, non-stop, for everything you want.

To avoid that issue you can time gate instead, but investing “waiting time” isn’t exactly riveting or challenging game play.

I honestly sympathize with the game designers. I don’t know how you balance people who play two hours a week with those who play 6 hours a day, and people who are highly skilled with people who can’t ever finish a jumping puzzle and just mash buttons as they come off cooldown, and still have everyone feel equally entertained and rewarded.

Diovid.9506:

Neb.4170:

Balancing issues won’t go away whether or not new classes are added. That’s not really a good reason to not add things.

Of course it is a good reason. The more things are added (whether in the form of new weapons or skills or traits or classes), the bigger the issues become. Just because there are balance issues now and just because there will always be balance issues doesn’t mean that the issues can not become bigger.

I know it will never happen, but I would love to see really unique and totally unblanancable PvE only weapons with skills that that are fun and interesting and simpler to design and release since they don’t have to limit themselves to PvP balance.

I think the major harm to PvE comes from limiting the range of potential professions and skills to those which can be roughly balanced for PvP. I suspect a lot more interesting professions and play styles could be introduced if the only requirement was that they be fun and roughly equally effective in PvE.

Since we already have PvP, and the professions are already designed around it, the little balancing tweaks here and there are relatively minor impacts on the PvE game.

Ayrilana.1396:

For those who are choosing not to play the game because of the daily:

Would you still play the game if it was removed entirely?

That is an interesting question, and it made me think about why something this trivial seemingly makes such a difference. Typically I’m not logging in to “play” as much as I am logging in to get the “once a day stuff” that can’t be made up for later if I don’t.

Previously, getting the laurel required the daily, and the daily just required doing stuff, and if I was going to do stuff then I may as well also work on map completion, or looting world bosses, or other goals. So, I would set off to play enough to complete the daily, and along the way I would get into playing and having some fun, and often I would play well past the daily when I really should have been doing other things.

Now the important rewards happen immediately on login. After I collect the chest I am left with a character that is just sitting in a city, dailies that are an annoying set of pointless tasks for an unimportant reward, and the following decision to make. “Since I don’t want to do these dailies, does it make sense to start playing right now just for fun, or should I not even start and just get on with the stuff I really ought to be doing instead?” It is far easier to not start playing in the first place than it is to stop, so I’m regularly just logging out and getting on with my day.

I still play the game, but not nearly as much. If I’m just playing for the sake of playing, I’d only play for a few hours twice a week or so.

I used to play for 30 minutes to an hour to complete my dailies, level a character a little, and relax. Now I mostly just log in, collect the chest, look at the list of PvE dailies, and log out.

It is an odd situation that I’m getting more stuff than ever before, but at the same time I’ve practically stopped playing.

HtFde.3856:

Julischka Bean.7491:

When one does dailies in PVE, one can do them without fear of a squad of enemy players leaping out of a bush, killing you, and telling you that your mother wears army boots, and you are such a sorry player you should just die, die, die….which I am told, happens in PVP, and WWW…something about making the player you are attacking mad enough that they will make mistakes…but still…

May happen in WvW, it’s very rare in PvP – most of the time you get bashed by your team mates in PvP – and I’ve yet to see bashing on the farming servers.

But – let’s get serious – how did people who are actually bothered by such behaviour survive school?

HtFde.3856:

But, as I stated initially – it boils down to communication and many people I talked to who LOATHED WvW did the same … go solo, never ask questions, get killed by enemies … rage quit. For some reason many people do seem to have a communication problem .

Since the first quote made me think of school and the game at the same time, I realized there are a lot of similarities between how I behave in the game and how I behaved in school.

I am one of those people who sticks to Open world PvE as much as possible, loathes PvP, avoids grouping, never run a fractal or a dungeon, (4 level 80s and I don’t even know what a fractal is, honestly, other than it would require me to join a group), never joined a guild, is reluctant to use map chat, etc. I’m around, I like to see what is going on, I even enjoy interacting with other players in events and such when it is safe, but my primary concern when it comes to interacting with other players is making sure I don’t call attention to myself or affect their gameplay by making them teach me maps or mechanics, asking them questions, having to be rezzed, making them carry me through content, causing an event to fail or the group to wipe because I screwed up. It is more comfortable to be around but invisible than call attention to myself and risk becoming the target of hostility, criticism, and abuse.

I suppose in some ways we never really get past school.

Vayne.8563:

Before it was a nonentity. It didn’t figure into the game. People keep saying that. I could do exactly what I was doing and get rewarded.

And I’m pretty sure that’s the thing Anet wants to change. I don’t think they want people to do nothing they weren’t already doing to get 10 achievement points every day.

I don’t really understand why some people apparently think you shouldn’t get the APs for just doing normal stuff you wanted to do and APs should require doing something special, difficult, or that you wouldn’t otherwise do. Is it the thought that APs should be something special, or perhaps that getting APs while getting other rewards as well is over-rewarding people for playing?

As you complete the personal story lines, you get the rewards and APs along the way. As you complete maps you get XP, Karma, rewards, and APs. When you try new things, like the first time you complete a world boss, or participate in WvW or PvP, you get APs in addition to the normal rewards. Periodically, as you do normal things like kill mobs or salvage items, you hit milestones that grant APs.

Sure, if you are trying to maximize APs, there are definitely some that require dedication and effort working specifically toward getting those extra APs. But there are also a lot of APs that just happen naturally as you play. On the whole, I don’t see how there is any real evidence in the way APs are handed out to support the idea that daily APs should require dedicated effort any more than there is to support the idea that daily APs should just require playing that day.

Kaz.5430:

DavidH.7380:

Vayne.8563:

But it’s not true for everyone. That’s the other side. I get to play how I want more than I did before, because I used to get 10 achievement points a day. That meant I had to spend a lot more time to get those points.

Now I can play how I want for more time each day. It’s all about perspective.

Yes, but it COULD easily be true for everyone. If the new dailies were less absurdly specific then everyone could/should be happy (though some may still complain about having to do 3 of 4, but we can’t always have everything we want). Swap out “Complete 4 events in X zone” for “Complete 4 events in X region” or “Complete 4 events while down-leveled.” Swap “Do X boss” for “Do a world boss.”

That easily they could restore some of the flexibility to integrate daily completion into other game goals while still retaining the major features of the new system. It is hard for me to see the downside. I’d think it better to have people attending all the world bosses, or spread out over many zones while down-leveled, than sending the players zerging through one zone or mobbing one specific boss anyway.

What about the people that posted threads, complaining that fact that you could do dailies without thinking about them, meant that the dailies were too generic and not worthy of the term “achievement”?

In the last couple of years there have been plenty of posts by players asking for more specific dailies. Simple fact is that you can never please every single person.

That’s not to say there’s not a possible middle ground though.

No, you can’t please everyone. I tend to give those complaints less serious consideration simply because I don’t see them as consistent with the dailies in any form I’ve ever seen or most of the other achievement categories. It seems that complaint is more targeted toward achievements in general than dailies.

The prior daily categories like “gatherer” or “dodger” or “condition applier” didn’t meet those expectations and the new ones don’t either. Is viewing a vista or completing 4 events in Queensdale any more of an “achievement” than gatherer was? This is consistent with the fact that achievements in general aren’t really “achievements”. Completing the 1-15 zone maps or the capital city maps? Killing 500 centaurs? Killing the Shadow Behemoth? Hitting 3 players with a snowball during Wintersday?

If achievements in general were things like “solo a champion” then I’d completely agree, but everything I’ve seen indicates the achievement systems isn’t intended to actually be challenging for the average player to progress through while “playing”.

Danikat.8537:

No stat treadmill
Yes there is grind in this game, but not for things you have to have to play. When I got to level 80 I got a set of exotic gear pretty much straight away with karma I’d saved up. Then within a month I did both the newly released Flame and Frost dungeon and Arah path 2. In a lot of MMOs that wouldn’t be an option. A newly max level character couldn’t go and do the final dungeon in the game, they’d have to do all the others first to get the other equipment tiers in between.

Along the same lines I’m still using some of that same gear now, almost 2 years later, and it’s still basically the top tier (yes there’s ascended, but that’s a very minor improvement).

This was a big part of the reason why I switched to GW2 from another VERY popular MMO. If/when life happened and I couldn’t/didn’t play for a few months, I would return to discover that the majority of the players had moved on to a new tier that I wasn’t prepared for, and they no longer had any need to run the prior content tiers I now needed. Effectively, if you didn’t keep up you got left behind unless you had friendships with players or a guild that would carry you until you caught up.

Here I don’t have to worry about that. When my father passed away earlier this year, all I did for several months was log in briefly whenever I received an email about a new living story chapter being released. When I return (I’m still only able to play occasionally) I’ll be able to pick up where I left off and continue without suffering any great roadblocks to being able to continue my progress.

Vayne.8563:

But it’s not true for everyone. That’s the other side. I get to play how I want more than I did before, because I used to get 10 achievement points a day. That meant I had to spend a lot more time to get those points.

Now I can play how I want for more time each day. It’s all about perspective.

Yes, but it COULD easily be true for everyone. If the new dailies were less absurdly specific then everyone could/should be happy (though some may still complain about having to do 3 of 4, but we can’t always have everything we want). Swap out “Complete 4 events in X zone” for “Complete 4 events in X region” or “Complete 4 events while down-leveled.” Swap “Do X boss” for “Do a world boss.”

That easily they could restore some of the flexibility to integrate daily completion into other game goals while still retaining the major features of the new system. It is hard for me to see the downside. I’d think it better to have people attending all the world bosses, or spread out over many zones while down-leveled, than sending the players zerging through one zone or mobbing one specific boss anyway.

Vayne.8563:

Manasa Devi.7958:

It doesn’t matter how you dress it up, some options that were there before aren’t there anymore now. Hollowing out the game, one feature per major update.

It doesn’t matter how you dress it up, it took considerably longer for me to get 10 points before, doing stuff I didn’t want to do in the process than now.

For someone going for 10 points a day I have more options now, because after I get those ten points (usually in ten, fifteen minutes), I have the rest of my day free to play.

That’s a whole lot more options.

People play for different reasons and find things motivating for different reasons which will cause them to evaluate changes differently. Sure, if you were someone who did a lot of things they didn’t otherwise want to do in order to obtain 10 achievement points, this is going to be a great change. If you are someone who played stuff they didn’t want to do for the non-AP rewards then this will probably also be a great change as you can just log in, loot the reward, and leave for the day. However, I suspect the majority of the dissatisfaction is coming from players like myself who viewed the dailies as a kind of incentive/motivational multiplier factor.

The laurels provided an extra excuse to play for a little while on a daily basis, even if I really should be doing other things. “I know I need to do xxxx, but I’m just playing enough to do my dailies first,” is something my wife has heard quite often, and she knows that means I’ll be playing for a half hour or less and then I’ll be putting it away and getting on with the stuff I really should be doing instead.

The mildly specific nature of the tasks provided a little challenge and structure for deciding what to do with my limited gameplay, while being general enough to be typically incorporated into a larger gameplay goal. I would typically look at the dailies, decide the best way to incorporate them into my existing gameplay goals, and pursue gameplay that provided the best mix between my long-term gameplay goals and the daily goals. The specificity of the new dailies eliminates that aspect of gameplay, since the daily tasks (at least, the PvE ones) are so specific that they generally can’t be used to further any larger goals other than just doing the daily tasks.

Finally, the daily served as a bit of a reward multiplier. Done in this manner, the old daily setup allowed a short period of focused play to consist of enjoyable activities, further my larger game goals, AND complete individual and meta daily achievements.

The new system, as I see it, is a mixed bag. Yes, I get the important rewards just by logging in, collecting them, and logging off for the day. In rewards terms, that is an improvement, but it feels like a bit of a loss in terms of any incentive to actually play for a bit. Yes, if I cared about APs, I could get more of them with less work, but the tradeoff would be getting channeled into doing busywork tasks that I otherwise have no reason to want to do. The reward multiplier and multi-tasking aspects of integrating the daily tasks into larger gameplay goals just seems to be gone.

Really, this doesn’t add up to a horrible tragedy or anything, but it seems completely unnecessary. Certainly daily tasks should be able to accomplish Anet’s purposes, maintain a somewhat more general nature, and not create the ridiculous zone zergs they are currently causing. Empty low level zones aren’t good, but sending the majority of the population to saturate a single zone for an entire day seems even worse.

eleshazar.6902:

Well I think you are making some rather sweeping generalizations and playing to age stereotypes.

Well, yes, personal anecdotes and wild speculation does tend to run along those lines. :-)

eleshazar.6902:

So no I don’t think age or level of responsibility has anything to do with it. I think that it is personality based.

Sure, but I was more speculating about why that personality type seems to be flocking to games in increasingly large numbers and driving a trend toward “casualization” of gaming, or to reverse the cause and effect, why games seem to be targeting those personality types more. I don’t know which is which. I just know that the player base is diversifying and keeps moving farther away from targeting young people looking for a challenge.

NTDK.4897:

If they have to insist on using schedule, they should make more than 1 bosses spawn at a time. This would spread the zerg, reduce lag, make it easier to tag

With the megaserver mechanic I don’t think it would. If SB spawns by itself, and 300 players attend in the entire game, the megaserver will spawn two maps of Queensdale with 150 players on each. If SB and Maw spawned at the same time and half those players went to each, the megaserver would spawn one map for each location with 150 players each. The only way you will ever get fewer players at the events is if those are the only people in the entire game who want to do the event or if Anet tweaks the megaserver coding to make more instances of the maps and put fewer players on each one.

I play to escape from the real world where success is hard, there is a real chance of failure, and consequences are real and lasting, etc.

In the game you can escape for a little while to a world where the rules are different, experience flows easily from doing anything, bad stuff is limited so it can’t ever really get bad, failure is the exception, and when you do fail or make a mistake you just rezz and try again….

Teon.5168:

Astralporing.1957:

Turgut.4397:

Games used to really test people back in the day, now it’s moved onto catering for the ultra-casual and lazy.

Ah, you see, maybe it’s because games are not a sport, but an entertainment. As such, i don’t want them to test me. I want them to entertain me for long enough that i can consider what i paid for them a money well spent. A hard, but short game is way less interesting for me than an easy one with a good and long story, or one where i can disengage my mind and just have some fun for an hour or two after work. Especially after work, when i am already tired and would really hate for the game to tire me even more.

Quoted for truth!

It’s amazing to me how many people on this forum simply do not get that.
(Well, not that amazing, when I start thinking about what the average age probably is of forum posters)

I think the growth in market penetration for gaming and the aging of the playerbase is starting to expose a culture clash between people who game for a challenge and people who game for an escape.

I, personally, game for the escape. God knows, I have plenty of work I could do if I wanted a challenge that was hard and requires me to learn and improve my skills, and has a real chance of failure, and a reward at the end. I play games to escape from that.

I could invest hours a day every day going to the gym, repeatedly lifting weights, and grinding out muscles. I could take martial arts lessons, fine tune my reflexes, learn to react to telegraphed attacks, and learn an kitten nal of counter actions to negate the un-choreographed attacks of my opponents. If I was willing to do that, I’d actually BE a kitten in real life. I’m not, so I game for a break from that world, to pretend for a little while that I am in a world where the rules are different.

notebene.3190:

I’m not super crazy about zombies and undead and dark and gloomy and fire and lava and vampires and goth and emo and all that. Why aren’t there more top end areas where we’re doing things to help villages and cities and farmers and towns and forts in nice, sunny, grassy areas with centaurs and bandits and ogres and tigers and lions and bears [link to George Takei meme]?

Now that you mention it, that would be nice. Is it too much to ask to be heroic somewhere somewhere cheerful?

munkiman.3068:

DavidH.7380:

My megasterver suggestions:

• Don’t automatically assign quite so many people to every map instance. Boss events are extremely crowded and there often isn’t enough room left for guild and party members to join. With less people automatically assigned the events would be a little less crowded if a guild didn’t bring a bunch of people in, and would have more room to accommodate it if they did.

• Place higher priority on keeping parties together, guilds together, servers together, and then languages together in that order.

• Add a low population preference option for people who like to be a little more alone. Use those people first when the megaserver opens a new map instance so they have a higher chance of getting a low population map instance. Some people have to be the first players on a new map instance, so why not make them players who like it?

• Add a “Move to a different instance of this map” option. If a player is being griefed, or can’t get their guild onto the current map, or whatever, why not let them move to another map instance and see if that helps them resolve the issue?

Perhaps other players will refine these suggestions to something even better.

Problem is, you can’t cram people together with an algorithm. If 100 people join a map and the cap is 50, groups are going to get split up, no matter how you slice it, unless you queue everything. Then parties can wait till an instance has space to accommodate their group. Timing is a BIG, HUGE problem with any tech like this, if one person can’t join a map when the rest of the group does, how is a server going to realize that other member of the group, party or guild are even trying to get in the same map together? Unless anet has developed some sort of mind reading tech, no algorithm is going to fix that. I will admit though, my loading times (especially in party) has almost doubled, that’s always fun too.

Agreed. The big guild groups are the biggest challenge. Perhaps a guild map queue might be a possible solution to their problem. Guild members select a map, send a invite to the guild, and if a minimum number of players accept they get ported together to a new instance of that map. Not a perfect solution, but probably the only way you are going to get 100+ people on the same map.

My megaserver suggestions:

• Don’t automatically assign quite so many people to every map instance. Boss events are extremely crowded and there often isn’t enough room left for guild and party members to join. With less people automatically assigned the events would be a little less crowded if a guild didn’t bring a bunch of people in, and would have more room to accommodate it if they did.

• Place higher priority on keeping parties together, guilds together, servers together, and then languages together in that order.

• Add a low population preference option for people who like to be a little more alone. Use those people first when the megaserver opens a new map instance so they have a higher chance of getting a low population map instance. Some people have to be the first players on a new map instance, so why not make them players who like it?

• Add a “Move to a different instance of this map” option. If a player is being griefed, or can’t get their guild onto the current map, or whatever, why not let them move to another map instance and see if that helps them resolve the issue?

Perhaps other players will refine these suggestions to something even better.

LanfearShadowflame.3189:

Now that it’s out there, it just needs some… tweaking. And they sure have a very large kitten filled feedback thread to sift through to help with that tweaking.

It’s not the end of the world though. We felt / thought the same of overflows at the beginning, and the bugs that existed then that kept us from being able to play with our friends and guildmates. They fixed those, they just have to fix things here. Honestly, I think their aggregate just isn’t working properly and with some fine tuning, we should see things turn around.

I have to agree. I think the megaserver is a great change as long as it is tweaked from how it works now. Right now it seems to prioritize putting too many players on existing maps over leaving room for guild and party members to join. It really needs to leave more room on existing maps for guild and party members to join, and it needs to put more priority on keeping guild and party members together.

It also doesn’t take into account player preferences for higher population or lower population maps. I’d like to see a player settable option for high or low population preference added an a button to move to a new map instance. The system could use low population preference players to open new map instances and fill them with the initial population of players so they get more of a chance for a less crowded world. No preference players get stuck into medium population maps with some extra room for others to join. High population preference players could be stuck into fuller maps without much room for joiners, but where they are likely to find the crowd they are looking for. If you really don’t like the map instance you are in, hit the new map instance button to be transferred to another map instance.

This “problem” has existed in every MMO I’ve ever played. Part of the player base is okay with a variety of “good enough” options, but part of the player base gravitates toward whatever is widely agreed to be optimal. The good enough folks usually don’t usually lack options so much as they have a problem with other people not wanting any of their options but one, and they think a change of game mechanics can change that.

But for the optimal folks, there will always be one or maybe two optimal options regardless of how many changes are made to the game, because they don’t want options. They want predictable execution of finely tuned strategies for maximum efficiency. Even if multiple option are equally viable, the most efficient strategy is to standardize on one to maximize predictability and repeatability in new groups. No change of game mechanics is going to change that because it isn’t a mechanics issue, it is a player attitude issue.

Lishtenbird.2814:

DavidH.7380:

if you aren’t having fun at that point in the game, how are you ever going to enjoy it?

Speaking from my experience: at level 80, once I have everything unlocked. At this point I’m looking on how to combine all traits and weapon skills to make it a fun and efficient playstyle instead of “I swung a sword, I swung a sword, hey, I swung a sword again!”. Everything before it feels like an obligatory waste of time before the real fun begins.

It reminds me of going to Disneyland. I see other people (mostly young) enjoying the costumed characters, the whimsical buildings and music, the overpriced junk food, the rides through fake environments filled with animatronic robots… and I’m just not entertained like they are. At some point in my life I just got too serious or too jaded or whatever to enjoy that kind of amusement. The few big roller coaster type thrill rides are all that interests me anymore, but the rest is just blah. That seems to be the same way some people experience the game. Maybe if you play enough games and see enough virtual worlds they lose their novelty after a while.

Asmodeus.5782:

You have to try really hard to avoid doing leveler, recycler, killer and daily events just by playing however you want (except RP, I guess ;P) and it seems we’re getting them almost every day now. That’s what I’m calling ‘dumbing down’.

I’ve been wondering if that is a direct reaction to this thread or others like it. Unless the first few days were just a totally random coincidence, it appears Anet made a hasty change to the daily rotation and made semi-permanent the ones that are almost impossible to play and not get. The only reason I can think of for that is as a temporary fix until they add more variety and start the rotations again.

It is rather depressing to read this thread and see how little fun some new players say they are having with their first characters. If there is an entire new world to explore, a half dozen new weapons to play with, completely unknown story lines, a new combat engine, etc., and the only thing that interests you is the idea you’ll get a new trait really soon…. if you aren’t having fun at that point in the game, how are you ever going to enjoy it?

Downfall.2671:

Supporting this. How am i supposed to dodge when i can’t even see the enemy? >_>

Just pretend the fireworks are because you are attacking an enemy ammo dump and occasionally you get hit by random exploding ordinance. It is as good an explanation as any for what you see on your screen, and less frustrating than getting clobbered by an unseen boss animation.

IndigoSundown.5419:

Blude.6812:

It is just stupid that anyone could design the the pre-events to run without allowing the boss to spawn.—my goodness, just how lame is that.

Small correction. There was no redesign of the pre-events, hence the lameness comes not from poor design but from cost-saving. Why spend resources to cull or redesign the pre-events when you can just slap a timer on the boss?

Well, perhaps so your client base doesn’t run the event thinking the boss is going to show, think something is broken when it doesn’t and become unhappy and confused when it doesn’t require any more effort or cost to make the pre-events spawn every two hours instead of every hour like they did.

IndigoSundown.5419:

DavidH.7380:

• Wonder how Anet didn’t think to include the schedule in the game client itself so we don’t have to tab out to websites to check it.

I don’t have to wonder too hard about that one. Why spend programmer time on something when fans will do it for you for free?

Again, perhaps because it would take virtually no added effort or expense to do it, but it would prevent the customers from breaking out of game immersion to consult schedule websites after every boss. Assuming that Anet is interested in having people actually play the game, tabbing out constantly isn’t a good thing.

maddoctor.2738:

A Private overflow will have a similar end result, allowing “randoms” to join with the guilds starting the instance, without any of the above issues. It will allow Guilds to play together without having to go through all the invite/join trouble we have now, which doesn’t make any sense at all.

DavidH.7380:

Does anyone else think the chances of Anet considering Private Overflows is extremely low due to the high potential for guilds to figure out ways to game the functionality into allowing them to keep large amounts of activity effectively private and isolated from the rest of the playerbase? Making sure people don’t have a private playground seems to be central design consideration for Anet.

That’s the major design flaw of Anet that created all the zerging mentality and spam1 content. Their fixation on catering to randoms (even guildless) so they get their chance at every event in the game, that needs to change someday.

It won’t keep activity private and isolated if the instance is still “open” afterwards, it will only allow guild members to play together, something this game fails miserably at. And if a guild can field 150 everyday without issues, why shouldn’t they be allowed to do Teq/Wurm/Whatever all by themselves anyway

Well, that is why I phrased the question the way I did. As we all know, people don’t typically use functionality exactly the way the designers expect them to. I think the fear would be that a feature expected to work the way you describe could be manipulated or used in such a fashion that it effectively doesn’t “open” the map to other players until after the guild finishes doing whatever event they were after or and they move on, or at least until it is too late for others to get in on whatever the guild is starting in the map. That effectively would prevent “randoms” from crashing the guild parties which seems to be something Anet is unwilling to allow.

CuRtoKy.8576:

Using active defenses means you can use more offensive stats and by that definition it means a move to zerker. Condition build are a different story since they only need 1 stat to be effective hence they don’t need to build anything else really so they can go tanky stats without punishment.

I’m really new to anything other than solo leveling and boss zergs, so I’m still trying to understand how everything works. Being new to the game, and being an older gamer that isn’t big on “reflex” gaming, I like the idea of a more forgiving stat build, but there are so many claims thrown around on the forums about this and that being broken that I’m having trouble figuring out what the real status of non zerker builds is.

For basic group content, open world, & casual PvP/EoTM, are condition/survival builds viable and easier to play, or do they give up too much DPS to be useful, or is the survival advantage just too little to make a difference even for less skilled plaerys?

Palador.2170:

DavidH.7380:

• Wonder how Anet didn’t think to include the schedule in the game client itself so we don’t have to tab out to websites to check it.

Having seen the mess that is the new Wardrobe and Equipment screens, I think it’s safe to say that they don’t have anyone available to do the more demanding UI work such an update would take.
….
It seems odd to me, but apparently UI work on these things can be a major pain. I can’t really fault them for not having that part ready, especially considering the state of the rest of the update.

As someone who programs a little, it shouldn’t take much work at all. Take an existing UI window that already has tabs in it, add a new tab for bosses, and fill that tab with some text listing the bosses that are due to spawn soon and their times. Done.

phys.7689:

simple answer? anet wanted to encourage zergs. They were afraid with too many options, they wouldnt get full participation.

As an aside i prefer a more dynamic system, with ways players can track the events if they so choose.

What I find really amusing is the insistence that the game design be active skill based with dodging and such being more important than pure stats, but then they jam in so many players with so many particle effects that you can’t even see the boss or the ground effects at all, so you can’t do anything other than hit tab until you see the boss name on the top of the screen, watch your cooldown timers, and hope there is enough regen around to keep you alive through the stuff you can’t see to dodge or enough other people that someone will rez you.

dace.8019:

Miku Lawrence.6329:

Can you precise what should be done for it to spawn then? Would help anyone reading this thread and therefore promote knowledge regarding this boss in game.

As above, it’s really simple.

What you do is, you do the pre-event, and if the Boss’ event is due to start given the schedule, he will spawn. If he is on cooldown, he doesn’t spawn, despite the pre-event being done.

So before deciding if you want to do a Boss, follow this handy checklist:

• Stop playing.
• Consult the schedule.
• Work out, by the schedule, if the boss is due to be on cooldown. You’ll probably need a chart (seriously) from a 3rd Party website.
• If the boss is on cooldown, he is unavailable, and the pre-event is just a tantalising reminder of a system that, while flawed, worked better than this one.
• If the boss is not on cooldown, proceed with pre-event.
• Wonder why this ridiculous system exists.

You missed one:

• Wonder how Anet didn’t think to include the schedule in the game client itself so we don’t have to tab out to websites to check it.

Greyhound.2058:

http://guildwarstemple.com/dragontimer/ has now been updated and is correct. (Also they’ve introduced a prize draw on the page which you can enter every day.)

Nice update! I really like the map that shows you where the next event to start is located and the level requirements being included for each event.

Im Mudbone.1437:

maddoctor.2738:

I’ll say it again, the best solution for the megaserver failure:

Private Overflows

A guild officer/leader can create a new instance of the map for their guild when they activate a boss like Teq/Wurm or a Guild Mission, fill up the map with their members, then open up the map to the public (I doubt many guilds can field 150 players) so the rest of the slots can get filled by randoms.

That way, you keep the open world, “open” for everyone, but allow guilds with loads of people to get all their members to participate in their own guild activities.

Although now the Megaserver failure isn’t so evident, once Living Story begins and simple zones begin to get filled by LS players, guild missions will be even harder to do. Anyone remember doing Bookworm during the Mari LS? A total nightmare, and that’s exactly what’s coming for us when the next LS begins.

Anet has to decide, are they going to keep the game only for pugs and randoms, or finally they are going to add some actual guild functionality in the game.

The idea was for them to go during low populated times. Get all their players that they want into the instance then trigger the event. That is why they are not allowed to trigger the event within a 3 hour window of the scheduled time.

I think there are better solutions that include more of the community then private overflows like the system recognizing that the players are doing a guild mission and put them on low populated shard.

Does anyone else think the chances of Anet considering Private Overflows is extremely low due to the high potential for guilds to figure out ways to game the functionality into allowing them to keep large amounts of activity effectively private and isolated from the rest of the playerbase? Making sure people don’t have a private playground seems to be central design consideration for Anet.

elfycara.1572:

Sorry if there’s already a topic on this but I couldn’t find anything when I searched.

It seems since the megaserver was rolled out the way this event works has changed. Now when the event to destroy the dragon totem succeeds the world boss doesn’t spawn. The majority of players don’t seem to be aware of this so everytime I’ve tried to do this world boss it never spawns.

I’m not sure if it’s supposed to be this way or if this has just been a bug. If it is supposed to be this way then perhaps some kind of announcement so players know it has changed.

The four low-level bosses now spawn every two hours on a 30 minute rotation at 15 and 45 minutes after the hour. Right now it is Shadow Behemoth at 10:45, then the Svanir Shaman at 11:15, then Fire Elemental at 11:45, then Jungle Worm at 12:15, and then the cycle starts over with Shadow Behemoth again at 12:45.

However, the Frozen Maw pre-even chain runs even when it isn’t the Svanir Shaman’s turn to spawn. At those times the event chain ends with the destruction of the totem. As far as I can tell, the pre-events start every half hour, but the Shaman only shows up every fourth time. Confusing, I know, but that is how it works right now.

Great work, and THANK YOU to the people who put these together. To Anet, why isn’t this in the game instead of something we have to tab out to check after every boss????

Personally, I’m doing WAY more boss fights than ever before since I know exactly when and where to be for the event starts and there are always more than enough people participating in the events.

However, the 8 hour spread on the mega-bosses is just horrible unless you are unemployed or a kid on summer vacation from school. You only get rewards once a day, so what possible harm could there be in letting the mega bosses run in rotation every hour, hour and a half, or two hours?

It seems to me that the megaserver system itself is a good change, but the initial implementation has problems that need fixing. I get the impression that the megaserver is putting too much priority on fully populating existing instances at the expense of having room to keep guilds together and having lowly populated maps for people who don’t want a crowd.

So far, the best idea I have is a simple Megaserver Priority flag that can be set to Low, Medium, High, or Guild. When you enter a new zone the server could consider your preference in determining what instance of the map to place you in. High people are crammed into maps that are already well filled. Low people are used to create any new map instances and provide the initial population for those maps since they prefer being more alone. Medium people fill in wherever they are needed. The guild flag would have to consider the total number of guild member online at that time and try to ensure that the map the player is assigned to is likely to accommodate that large an influx of new players. Perhaps Guild may need to incorporate a mechanism like that used to allow overflow players to return to the main map…. “There are currently 50 guild members in various instances of this map. Would you like to move to a new instance of this map?”

Perhaps not the best possible solution, but I’m curious what other solutions people have imagined to try to keep megaservers but make them more friendly to solitary players and guilds.

Nynuwe.5893:

DavidH.7380:

I couldn’t read all 9 pages, but after reading halfway through it occurred to me that there is a really significant difference between the experience of a new player and a new character. As a new player, there is a world of stuff to figure out in the first 40 levels, as you really have no idea how the game works at all and you are busy figuring out such simple stuff as repairs, where to go in the world, karma vendors, crafting, map completion bonuses, travel, the auction house, the bank… it is all shiny and new and overwhelming. Not having to deal with traits until later may be an advantage for those truly new players.

However, when you are leveling your third or fourth alt there isn’t much new anymore other than the new class mechanics and traits to play with. I don’t think gating the experience is nearly as important for these players on new characters. I really like the idea of vendors that only sell account bound items to max level characters that allow them to move through some of this stuff more quickly. Maybe you buy and send a “tome of knowledge” to your alt that teaches them 5 trait points in advance. Or an item that grants bonuses to experience and heart quest completion so your alt levels and little faster and moves through the heart completion quests a little quicker the second time through. That way, repeat players get the streamlined experience and incentive to roll alts while the new player get the unaltered experience Anet had in mind. That could make both sides reasonably happy.

Just how careful were you to read the reviews given by new players? Already various new players came here to express their dissatisfaction. They felt nerfed. They felt confused by this change. But not a single one of them complained about the old trait system being “overwhelming”. Please do take the time to read a few more pages if you actually wish to read the reviews given by new players.

When I was new the trait system did not overwhelm me at all. Why would it? It just requires reading. I looked at the Trait window and started reading. Then some clicking. The in-game tool tips also helped because… I read them. Reading. That’s what it takes. Being new to a game should not stop you from taking your time to read tool tips and read what can be found on screen. Do you think it is unfair to expect new players to read?

At this point I am convinced that the dev’s tired old “But we just want to make it easier for the new players” excuse is nothing short of a scapegoat to appease the masses.

PS: I’m sorry if that sounded harsh, I’m just really shocked by the idea someone would be “overwhelmed” by traits. Especially given that at this point, most players have already become acquainted with the concept of “traits” in other games Not just MMOs, but some solo RPGs as well. The concept and theory behind traits as part of character progression is really not unique. So the number of new players who would disregard reading and are unacquainted with the concept of traits as part of character progression are an extreme minority. Does such a low population merit a change that negatively affects the rest? Again, as I’ve said… the whole “But we are doing it for the new players!” is really just a huge scapegoat.

If you notice, I didn’t actually make the argument that Anet was correct. I was merely pointing out that while Anet may have an idea of how new players should be introduced to traits, and we can probably agree that new players have a lot of other new things to explore before level 30, the kinds of concerns given as the reasons for the change don’t really apply to alts. Therefore, even if Anet thinks this is good for new players, perhaps we would have a better chance of them reconsidering it for new characters…. like the insta-leveling scrolls that would never be allowed for new players.

DonQuack.9025:

DavidH.7380:

No game will be everything for everyone. I understand why some players want harder content, and I understand why other players want a egalitarian utopia where nothing is too hard and no one can be too special a snowflake.

What I don’t understand is why these two groups don’t naturally separate to different games. I didn’t come to GW2 by accident. I searched for the most casual friendly MMOs I could find and GW2 was the most recommended so I came here. I assume the hardcore and difficulty junkies do the same, and they go to whatever game is pursuing that market. That both sides end up arguing endlessly on every single MMO forum is a bit baffling, honestly.

I dunno maybe because gw1 is harder than this?

A valid point I hadn’t considered for this game specifically. However, this argument also rages on LOTRO, EQ2, WoW, etc., so I’m not sure that explains why the argument seems to be universal for all games.

Maybe it is just that people don’t want something totally different, they just want that particular game shifted a little bit more their direction.

Corpus Christi.2057:

jheryn.8390:

Corpus Christi.2057:

Thanks God. No more brainless zombies playing this game just for the AP.

Thanks God, ANet.

What do you care how anyone plays the game? So what if they want to play the game for AP? If that what makes it fun for them, then great. They are playing the game how they want to play which is awesome.

People should play how they want. They certainly shouldn’t be subjected to your rude and strictly lopsided opinions.

The reason is ( for me, personally ) as follows:

We had a great guildmate. At first, when we all started playing the game, he was very helpful and engaged in all guild activities.
After a couple of months time, he became an AP zombie. Whenever he logged in the game, he would do ALL AP EVERY SINGLE DAY. He stopped helping newer guildmates, stopped participating in guild missions and any other guild-related activies. He started cursing new guildmates just because he “was busy doing something he had to do, which is all ap for today, otherwise someone else would surpass him.” ( his words ).

Yes, I do care how other people play, so do our guildmates who want to have a healthy environment within the guild and game’s community.

Cheers

This was considered though, which is why the most supported suggestion is to keep the cap but add the additional choices back. In other words, make it “any 10 you want out of 16 or 20 total options for the day” or even any 8 you want, as long as there are more choices for the minimal five to get the daily reward.

I will agree with you on this. The leveling and personal story process doesn’t seem to go fast enough to complete it within a single zone. Low level bosses spawn in different areas of the world and only reward the chests once a day. Waypoint travel is fast and easy. Crafting, banking, and trading posts aren’t close to all the adventuring areas. Daily achievements often specify certain zones in which they have to be completed.

The cumulative result is that even at a very low level I find myself constantly warping all over the world in an attempt to catch bosses, finish the daily achievements, do crafting, banking, and trading, and so on. The story line my be there, but when I do a personal story stage, then warp off for a boss, then warp off to do Shiverpeaks Slayer, then back to another area to hit the bank, TP, and crafting station, all sense of any running storyline in the zones and the world gets lost. I wish there was some solution to that other than just playing for the story and ignoring the rest.

No game will be everything for everyone. I understand why some players want harder content, and I understand why other players want a egalitarian utopia where nothing is too hard and no one can be too special a snowflake.

What I don’t understand is why these two groups don’t naturally separate to different games. I didn’t come to GW2 by accident. I searched for the most casual friendly MMOs I could find and GW2 was the most recommended so I came here. I assume the hardcore and difficulty junkies do the same, and they go to whatever game is pursuing that market. That both sides end up arguing endlessly on every single MMO forum is a bit baffling, honestly.

Taygus.4571:

DavidH.7380:

The megaserver changes are being rolled out from the lowest level zones to the highest, so it is quite possible you are just above the level where the roll out is at this point.

No they’re not.
Its low population zones to high. Nothing to do with level.

Ah. I misunderstood then.

Too easy for who? A new player on their first character with no idea how the game works, a new level 80 downscaled to a starter zone, a veteran player on a fresh alt, or a veteran player fully optimized and decked out in ascended gear or higher downscaled? There is a huge difference between those scenarios.

nGumball.1283:

Most people who complain though are veteran players. I do understand how many new people have commented and said it sucks but I do honestly not believe that most of those people are new. Yes, I maybe misjudging, I maybe the worst humanbieng ever…but I am not really used to the fact that new players seem to understand builds, have followed all the updates to the game since months, are vets when it comes to other aspects of the game and then put an ending line ‘’I am still level 45 and I am not enjoying the game becasue of the trait change’’.

That is exactly my point. If you know all that, content tuned for people who don’t is already stupidly easy. Adding a good trait build to your knowledge advantage is just going to make it even more of a faceroll. I don’t see how giving veteran players leveling alts an optimized trait build as well is going to make it more fun for them… unless they are fighting way above their level.

As I’ve said several times, a lot of these “issues” could be easily addressed with max level vendors that sell account bound items to boost alts. Veteran players get their boost, new players get the unmodified experience Anet has in mind, and no major game changes need to be programmed.