Guild Wars 2

If you are forced to repeat a specific piece of the content to get a specific piece of gear, that’s a grind. Whether that piece of gear is “cosmetic” as in GW2 or “opens up new content” as in other MMO’s is irrelevant.

If there’s only one way to get it, that you have to repeat over and over, it’s a grind.

If you had all of the world content available to get a specific piece of gear, that’s an open world design and is quite clearly what ANet were hinting at (if not outright promising).

I think the heart of the matter is that there are too many currencies in this game. If I could buy the dungeon piece I want with Karma, why would I ever go into the dungeons?

Well if I happen to not enjoy the dungeons, why should I? What if I prefer to explore the entire world?

I really, truly don’t understand the mentality behind these content-restrictive currencies.

It seems to be a case of the developers saying, “We don’t want any of our beautiful content to go begging for players. So we’re going to force some groups to go there and experience them.”

Well guys… make it enjoyable and people will go back over and over again. Anybody here ever “beat” a Mario Bro’s game and then play it again? <raises hand>

That’s because it was fun.

So rather than having a bajillion currencies to force people into content, how about looking at content that isn’t being utilized and tweaking it until people WANT to go back?

Am I breaking the laws of common sense somehow with this suggestion? I’m really curious because try as I might, I can not fathom how forcing people to do something that they DON’T want to do to get something that they do want is good design.

Please help me understand if I’m missing something here..

I’m disappointed because travel or Orr (and much of the rest of the game) is artificially difficult. It’s the Hand of Development showing up in all it’s non-glory. It’s not challenging, it’s irritating.

16 mobs on screen at once, perfectly placed to make getting by them without getting into a fight impossible, with a ludicrous aggro range and respawn rate, combined with geometry that forces you to encounter them.

I mean… is wanting to be able to sneak around them such a crime? It shouldn’t be “guaranteed” that I’ll get by them, but at least make it possible.

Anybody else notice that there are soooooo many obstructions just kind of laying around in this game that force you to circle around them? Especially in Orr?

With no “climb” ability, and the jumping being… dodgy at best due to camera troubles, not to mention that these obstacles are unjumpable by intentional and malicious design, just getting from one end of the zone to the other becomes a grind.

This type of thing is amazing, I just wish there was a lot more of it, and maybe more stuff to do in these areas.

I spent about half an hour roaming around the “jail” in Rata Sum the other night following Warden Zikki on my norn ranger. I was just exporing and ran accross what LOOKED like the potential beginnings of some kind of quest or puzzle or something.

A talking bear, a mad scientist and a mysterious chicken are all locked inside cells with plaques outside that you can interact with and read.

I soooooooo wanted there to be something more there. But alas, it’s just eye-candy (well, and ear-candy. The dialogue is pretty funny, “Shut up talking bear. You’re not going anywhere!”)

But overall what started out as a “Hey, this is going to be awesome!” moment turned into kind of a let down.

I’m not sure if they’ve “fixed” it or not, but I was getting 177K xp from doing CM story mode with guildies the other night.

One shotted the itsy bisty tiny kitty out of that achievement.

gurugeorge.9857:

Derpinator.2894:

gurugeorge.

I disagree that we’re affecting the world at all, much less “live and in real time.” And I take some offense at your insinuations. a) you seem to feel that we aren’t picking up quests at a hub then “ticking them off”, and I would agree, but given any given amount of game play time, we’re still finding quests and ticking them off in my opinion. The difference is semantics, and doesn’t change the root of my concept. To wit, we don’t change the world. We don’t matter. Neither as a group nor as individuals.

Please share your thoughts about how we are having an effect, with specifics, and those that have any impact greater than 10 minutes are most appreciated.

I also disagree with your assertion that technology isn’t at a place to allow for a more personalized experience in games, although since you make a blanket claim with no specifics, it’s difficult to pinpoint something to use as a disclaimer. But let me point at some relatively recent technology that belies your point: instancing.

If an instance can be created for a single player, or a group of players (as it definitely is in this game) then individual contributions/changes can be accounted for, even if only in small ways.

To say it’s not possible to create an environment that is (or at least appears to be) changed by an individual for lack of technology is simply untrue. Whether it’s feasible or not, I can’t say. But I suspect it’s actually more a matter of desire to do so and (more importantly) a knowledge that it will help the game experience that is at issue.

I’m not a programmer, but I’ve read quite deeply about this stuff and trust me, it’s not possible beyond the level GW2’s doing it at the moment. So far as themepark games are concerned, Anet have really pushed the envelope as far as it can go with DEs, and in a very elegant way (without using too much “phasing” – see below).

The only way you can get “players affecting world” is a) a text-based game that doesn’t have any visual assets to design and render, or b) by a purely player-driven sandbox type of game like EVE Online, and even then all that’s actually changing is something abstract (i.e. “sovereignty”) – and, again, EVE doesn’t need a whole lot of assets to be created and rendered to represent the abstract change in the virtual world. A game like SWG also enables player-interaction to feel like it’s players affecting the world, because they’re affecting each other by being part of the world’s furniture for each other.

There’s one more way of doing it in a themepark game, by using something called “phasing”. LOTRO uses this a bit, as well as DDO. GW1 used to use it a lot, and the intro to GW2 uses it (the big boss fight at the start is in a different version of the starter area than the one you actually start the game in). But the downside of it is that the “phases” (e.g. a part of the world that’s a happy village, but after an even in which you participate, is a burnt-out wreck of a village) split up the persistent world feel. It can get very complex and messy and somewhat lose the sense of the game being in a single, persistent world.

So yeah, short of phasing, something like DEs is the only way it’s going to happen in a themepark game. And DEs work – at least for me. There have been numerous occasions when there’s been only me and another guy at a DE and we’ve held off mobs from taking over a spot. That gives the requisite illusion of change. There have also been occasios where I’ve started off a conversation with someone that’s led to a chain of DEs in which large numbers of players participate. That also give the requisite feeling that I made a difference. If you wander around in GW2 pretending to be an adventurer, things like this will happen, and you will get about as much of the feeling of “making a difference” as it’s possible to get in a themepark game, without overuse of phasing, at the present stage of technology.

I am a programmer. It is possible. It’s really, REALLY hard.

And it’s the true next generation of MMORPGs.

I’ll wait.

Crysto.7089:

Derpinator.2894:

Crysto.7089:

Derpinator.2894:

What makes something “fun”?

Sharing unique experiences with friends.

After its been done once it is no longer unique and we move onto the next thing.

And if each repeated experience was unique BECAUSE it was experienced with friends?

And that could lead to changes the next time because you had to “hold” the tag of a member of the “Crysto/Name2/Name3/Name4/Name5” dungeon run as the group that had completed it the fastest with the fewest wipes?

I don’t know what you’re trying to say.

I’m saying I have a group of friends (RL) and we like to do things together and then talk about them after. Be it finding a nice spot to climb, discovering a new beer, or playing a new video game. We find new things to do, always looking for the next challenge or thing we haven’t done yet. Maybe we’ll repeat stuff with slight variation (ok now you have to make it past that ridge with one hand!), but for the most part its on to whatever is new.

I don’t care if I matter in a game. I care about having a good time with good friends.

I’m out of this discussion, but I’d ask you this: if you don’t matter, why play at all? Why not just ask for “ghost mode” and FOLLOW your friends while they do stuff?

’Night.

Adine.2184:

Derpinator.2894:

Adine.2184:

Derpinator I’ll give you my list of things that kept me playing Guild Wars 1 for 7+ Years

1) The Community
It was friendly . This is important because if a game if filled with a bunch of grentches your not going to be having fun no matter what .

2 )The Music

This may sound odd to some but music actually plays a roll in in gaming as it does in movies.If it doesn’t fit the atmosphere or action you’re going to be left wanting . As far as im concerned Guild Wars has one of the best Soundtracks and the Music seems to fit the atmosphere/action perfectly .

3) Helping Others

This kind of speaks for itself but going back to long forgotten missions ( in GW2 this would be Personal Story ) and helping someone out simply because i could .

4) Titles

Yes working on titles is fun to me and quite frankly they need more . You also need the ability to show them .

5)Community Events and holidays

Community events such as Wintersday and CNY always bring people back and are always fun .

6) Dungeons and Elite Missions

These were fun to me and i think having some elite dungeons Urgoz/The Deep style would be great .

Adine, a wonderful list! And thank you!

I would ask: did these things make you feel more a part of the world, as if you were part of a community, as if you made a difference?

edit [for some reason it changed the number to 1] number 2 is just pure appreciation of someone else’s efforts, and I get that it doesn’t make you feel meaningful in and of itself. But to my mind, every other item meant that you felt impactful. Not necessarily that you changed the world itself, but that you were a part of a world worth impacting.

Which doesn’t change my original point. We want to matter, and we want to matter in a place that mattering matters.

Ok, I know that’s a bit of a silly way to put it but look at the other side. If you made a difference in a world no one else would see, would you play MMO’s? The second M is “multiplayer”, and if that isn’t important… what is?

I stand by my point: we want to matter.

Yes it did . As for 2 it goes to Emotional involvement in the game as the job of music is to evoke an emotion . If you evoke sadness when you should be be evoking happiness then you havent done your job have you?

To bring up the “did i matter” point I can bring up several examples in fact . War In Kryta . When it starts there are white mantle everywhere in Kryta when it ends they are gone Winds of Change has a similar effect but a Canthan version . Alliance Battles moved the Kurzick/Luxon line on the map and definitely had an impact . Maxing titles extendeds Favor of the gods. Before the update to how Favor worked it was which ever server ( NA,Europe or Asian ) held Halls could enter UW or FoW and get blessings from he gods which made a big difference .

I have to concede here as I have no idea what most of this means.

You win

I have 1 level 80 toon with about 50 “extra” levels and a few dozen dungeon tokens. Maybe I’ve missed something.

So I resign from the argument as I’m experienced in this game. But I won’t be struggling to reach your heights. To me it doesn’t seem worth the effort, but I wish you the best. And as I resign, I stand by my point, which is WHY I’m resigning.

I don’t matter.

Be well..

Crysto.7089:

Derpinator.2894:

What makes something “fun”?

Sharing unique experiences with friends.

After its been done once it is no longer unique and we move onto the next thing.

And if each repeated experience was unique BECAUSE it was experienced with friends?

And that could lead to changes the next time because you had to “hold” the tag of a member of the “Crysto/Name2/Name3/Name4/Name5” dungeon run as the group that had completed it the fastest with the fewest wipes?

pmiles.3489:

Well there are MMOs that have ultimate modes… you die, your character gets deleted. There is no second chance. Most players prefer not to play that way. The say they want a challenge, but in reality that’s not at all what they are after.

“Matter” is a state of mind… if you don’t mind, it doesn’t matter.

Great point. And I still contend that if those who chose the “ultimate mode” and succeeded could have a real impact on the world as a whole, that many more people would try.

I might fail as an “ultimate mode” player to stamp my name on the “Uber Sword of Derpinator”. But I’d try. Oh yes. I’d try.

And even if I weren’t hardcore, I’d try to make a difference if I changed the world. I can’t tell a developer how to do this, but if everyone who played a game had a chance to change the world for future generations, I truly believe more would stay and try.

There are (a total guess) something like 25,000 dynamic events in this game. Maybe another 1,000 heart quests. Maybe another 500 regions. Maybe another 4,000 recipes in crafting. And 5,000 more items. And at least another 10,000 I have no idea about.

That’s (approximately) 50,000 opportunities to let players change the world, and that’s just assuming a “permanent” change happens. If you make the challenges to achieve “naming” weekly, that’s 200K a month, just on what I know about.

Yes, it’s a huge technical challenge.

But I think (again given my original point) that even the slim chance to matter makes a difference. And if that chance shows up month after month… can you say revenue?

Oh, by the way, this isn’t to say that ONLY changing the world in a large, nameable way matters. But some impact definitely does for all players.

imo.

Adine.2184:

Derpinator I’ll give you my list of things that kept me playing Guild Wars 1 for 7+ Years

1) The Community
It was friendly . This is important because if a game if filled with a bunch of grentches your not going to be having fun no matter what .

2 )The Music

This may sound odd to some but music actually plays a roll in in gaming as it does in movies.If it doesn’t fit the atmosphere or action you’re going to be left wanting . As far as im concerned Guild Wars has one of the best Soundtracks and the Music seems to fit the atmosphere/action perfectly .

3) Helping Others

This kind of speaks for itself but going back to long forgotten missions ( in GW2 this would be Personal Story ) and helping someone out simply because i could .

4) Titles

Yes working on titles is fun to me and quite frankly they need more . You also need the ability to show them .

5)Community Events and holidays

Community events such as Wintersday and CNY always bring people back and are always fun .

6) Dungeons and Elite Missions

These were fun to me and i think having some elite dungeons Urgoz/The Deep style would be great .

Adine, a wonderful list! And thank you!

I would ask: did these things make you feel more a part of the world, as if you were part of a community, as if you made a difference?

edit [for some reason it changed the number to 1] number 2 is just pure appreciation of someone else’s efforts, and I get that it doesn’t make you feel meaningful in and of itself. But to my mind, every other item meant that you felt impactful. Not necessarily that you changed the world itself, but that you were a part of a world worth impacting.

Which doesn’t change my original point. We want to matter, and we want to matter in a place that mattering matters.

Ok, I know that’s a bit of a silly way to put it but look at the other side. If you made a difference in a world no one else would see, would you play MMO’s? The second M is “multiplayer”, and if that isn’t important… what is?

I stand by my point: we want to matter.

pmiles.3489:

We failed to kill the grawl… they over took the game headquarters and deleted our characters…

You want that sort of “we make a difference”?

I have no idea what you’re talking about, but that would be interesting if it were actually true wouldn’t it?

Irritating. Painful. Even enraging. But unforgettable. Yes?

gurugeorge.

I disagree that we’re affecting the world at all, much less “live and in real time.” And I take some offense at your insinuations. a) you seem to feel that we aren’t picking up quests at a hub then “ticking them off”, and I would agree, but given any given amount of game play time, we’re still finding quests and ticking them off in my opinion. The difference is semantics, and doesn’t change the root of my concept. To wit, we don’t change the world. We don’t matter. Neither as a group nor as individuals.

Please share your thoughts about how we are having an effect, with specifics, and those that have any impact greater than 10 minutes are most appreciated.

I also disagree with your assertion that technology isn’t at a place to allow for a more personalized experience in games, although since you make a blanket claim with no specifics, it’s difficult to pinpoint something to use as a disclaimer. But let me point at some relatively recent technology that belies your point: instancing.

If an instance can be created for a single player, or a group of players (as it definitely is in this game) then individual contributions/changes can be accounted for, even if only in small ways.

To say it’s not possible to create an environment that is (or at least appears to be) changed by an individual for lack of technology is simply untrue. Whether it’s feasible or not, I can’t say. But I suspect it’s actually more a matter of desire to do so and (more importantly) a knowledge that it will help the game experience that is at issue.

Bobby,

Nothing in what I said could possibly be construed as demeaning the intentions of the developers unless you read into it with anger already in your algorithm. I never even hinted that they weren’t trying to make great games or great experiences. I may be arrogantly assuming they don’t know what I’ve proposed, but I never attacked anyone for lack of desire to make great games.

Pandemoniac,

What causes you to feel like you’ve had fun?

I’m willing to go out on a line and say that it’s root is that you feel valuable in a way you can’t/don’t in real life. Yes, it’s a stretch. But give it about 10 minutes of real contemplation then get back to me.

What makes something “fun”?

Make us feel as if we make a difference.

That’s it. Not easy, maybe not even possible, but for all of you game companies out there wondering why people jump from game to game, or wondering why some people seem to stay forever:

If we leave, it’s because we don’t feel like we matter. If we stay, it’s because we feel like we do.

If you want to create the most popular game ever, find a way to let people feel like they contribute. Like they make a difference. Like they are important in either or both of the game world and the real world.

End of thesis.

I get that I’m more powerful in lower zones; and that’s cool, although badly implemented. I mean, if I can kill everything, why even bother to have it aggro me?

I just don’t see any reason to be there unless friends are there.

Sure there’s map completion, and I even complained about having low level stuff aggro when I’m just trying to gather mats before. But… I mean… I WANT to go back to those zones. I spent half an hour following “Prison Warden Zikki” today to see what she had to say.

But after that half hour I was just feeling like I’d wasted a half hour of my life.

I can’t explain it better than that. There’s something wrong with how things work, and I can’t put my finger on it, but I know it’s doing bad things to the players.

That is all.

But here’s the mathematical breakdown:

I do an event in a “noobie” area – metrica province:

3,675 exp. 243 Karma. 1s 20c.

I do an event in Orr. Reward: 17, 780 experience, 378 karma and 1s 86c.

It seems like a small difference on paper, but it’s actually huge, and more than enough to make me choose Orr, even though I dislike the zone.

Keep in mind, this all based on the assumption that any DE take approximately the same amount of time, although probably slightly less in lower level zones. I’m not sure that’s true, but it definitely feels that way to me.

Add to this the extra travel costs (waypoints cost much more at higher levels). The extra death costs (repairs cost much more at higher levels). And the slighly hidden cost of node gathering in these zones (orichalcium tools versus… whatever) and it’s almost a balance but my intuition says that the return on investment isn’t in favor of going back to low level zones.

It might be close, but I can’t see it.

So since I have no way of knowing for sure, and it feels like being in the lower level zones isn’t worthwhile, I choose to be in the higher zones. Which means (I assume) that most higher level players will intuit the same thing and DO the same thing.

/end observation.

There’s a phrase in software development that applies here, “If you don’t announce a problem, most people will never notice it.” It exists because the man hours necessary to deal with the backlash from complete honesty outweighs the available resources by about 10,000 to 1.
They’re doing a great job with the resources they have. Remember, you’re people with lives and jobs and hobbies. They are too. But they’re responsible for the “hobbies” of about 2,000,000 people. It’s impossible to accommodate everyone. Unless you want to pay $60,000 for your copy of the game. That’s around the average salary of a game developer, so if you want 1 on 1 access, that would be the price of the game.

I’m not trying to be snarky. Just trying to shed some light from a developer’s perspective.

+1. I would give my left arm to have 1/10 of the artistic talent evident in this game. I’d give my right, but I’m right handed.

I’m just curious.

select count (distinct UserCreated) from tableFormPosts.

I know that’s not the actual code, but it’s got to be close. How many of us are there actually posting?

roqoco.4053:

Piktaro.2931:

I agree with the above statements about being able to RPG more within the different “zones” and cities/outposts. I think THIS would make for a more DYNAMIC interaction between players and npc/storyline arc. Also, 1 other thought about DE ..sometimes I just wanna gather and not have to fight everything that comes along, now I don’t mind killing the mobs near the gathering node I’m trying to get to, but I do mind having to be involved in a DE when I don’t want to. Right now the only option is to fight or run, I wish there was a way to turn off DE’s just for my active character at that time, and then turn them back on later. Maybe that’s wishful dreaming.

So you don’t want to play the game, but rather be put in a zone where you can gather stuff without any risk? I take the opposite view – gathering is a bit too simple right now and there are too many easily accessible nodes, which is making the supply outstrip the demand and driving the TP prices down.

No, I absolutely want to PLAY in the world! That’s the point!

Where is this plethora of easily accessible nodes? I find it quite the opposite in fact. A huge number of them are guarded by something that was GLARINGLY OBVIOUSLY placed there by a designer to make you “work” for it. The problem is the “work” in this case is just a time sink of a few seconds. The mob will die. You will get the node. 99.999% of the time. Predictable. Dull.

I’d actually rather have an actual MINE available. It’s full of nodes, but you have be cautious, solve jump puzzles, watch out for traps, gas leaks and cave ins, bring a torch to be able to see, potentially get trapped or captured by miners requiring skill, thought and planning to get out of. No just here’s a random copper node guarded by a troll. That’s unbelievably DULL.

The world feels repetitive and dead; man made; crafted to require x amount of time for y gain. Economized and mathemetized rather than fluid and seamless.

And it has so much potential for greatness that it hurts to say these things, but they’re true.

mulch.2586:

I’m actually unimpressed with the map design.

Zones are rectangles, with very limited, abrupt transitions to other zones. Compare even to WoW (2004) you had continuous zone boundaries, cross almost wherever you like and go back and forth at will.

Sometimes you can climb a 45-degree slope. Other times you can’t climb a 30 degree slope.

Inside of zones, you frequently encounter invisible walls, and abritrarily restricted travel. I think I understand why they limit it so much, but it feels like a throw-back to old-fashioned rpgs that don’t promote a feeling of being in an explorable world.

I went to explore an island with a lighthouse recently. Approach it and WHAM invisible wall on the face. Still hurting from that…

/sympathy for mimes

Hmmm. Yeah. I’d noticed it, but really only at a subconscious level. It reminds me of EQ actually. That’s REALLY old school. “Train to zone!!!”

I don’t miss either of those things and they snuck the zones in on me by putting a shiny thing at the zone lines.

Sigh.

It’s true that the world is gorgeous, but even as an avid explorer, I’m really, REALLY tired of having to kill something every 10 feet to see it. It’s not that killing things is hard. That’s actually the problem. It’s predictable. A foregone conclusion. This thing keeping me from getting “over there” to see what’s there will, definitely, absolutely, 100% of the time die. It’s just a matter of time.

That’s mind breakingly dull, and I have no choice. There is no stealth option, and since I’m deleveled there is no walk past as they quiver in fear and leave me alone option.

It wouldn’t be so bad if it wasn’t so OBVIOUS that these road blocks were carefully placed by a human in order to slow you down.

Ever notice how many times to get to a crafting node, you have no choice but to go through some kind of aggro creature?

The man behind the curtain keeps standing right out in front of me waving his naughty bits at me and taunting me.

It’s getting old…

Schakal.6091:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bartle_Test

Different strokes. GW2 seems to be great for Explorers. Achievers… not so much.

That’s good stuff. Thanks for the link.

I’m definitely heavy on the explorer and I’m losing my hunger to explore in this one rapidly. The horrid “lore” of the personal story, the endless chain of same-same mobs (risen and dredge, dredge and risen, oh look, a bear, risen, dredge, dredge risen), the predictable, time-sink, snorefest of pve combat, the dynamic events that change NOTHING…

It’s a shame. This game was sold as an explorer’s dream and seems to have delivered… well, who did it deliver for? It’s not terribly social, although at least it’s not antisocial like so many in the past. The killers may enjoy it, but I can’t imagine for how long given how dull the combat is in pve.

Hmmm. I’ll have to give it some more thought.

Anyway, thanks again for the link.

I wear an MF set so I can afford to upgrade.

I don’t carry a second set because I can’t afford one, and I don’t have enough bag space and I hate the concept of switching. I didn’t decide to replace dps/survivability with MF, the designers did. Likewise I didn’t decide to make consumable buffs a one-at-a-time deal. The designers did. I didn’t decide to make travel and death horrendously expensive as a gold sink. The designers did.

So take your complaint to them.

When I’ve made enough to afford my “combat” set, I’ll switch permanently. Until then, or until the economy is straightened out, deal with it.

Actually, I did watch the videos, closed beta stuff, read reviews etc.

And what got delivered is ALMOST what was promised. It’s the parts that didn’t quite make it that sold me on this game.

No grind.
Awesome crafting.
Easy travel with a minimal cost.
Player skill required but not a true twitchfest.
Truly skill dependent pvp.
No !‘s over npc’s heads to get quests.
No mindless “kill x, to get y of z” style quests.
An epic personal story.
Truly dynamic world.

Each of these things, as delivered, is almost true.

There’s no grind for gear while you level. Gear that’s “good enough” forms out of thin air. After you reach the cap: be prepared to invest enough hours to get a college degree in gearing up your character.

Crafting is an xp reward you get for gathering while you explore. The crafted items are completely useless until 400.

Travel is easy, but what happened to minimal cost? Travel costs are HORRIFIC money sinks. It’s a totally unsatisfying experience, and may be the thing I hate the most about the difference between what was advertised and what was delivered.

Player skill, not just “I’m swinging a sword, I’m swinging a sword”… really? I’m swinging a sword then hitting my dodge button endlessly. I wanted actual tactics, puzzles, riddles, fights, true skill. In the outside world, non-existent. In dungeons it’s a little better, but they’re so poorly tuned, and it’s so hard to know what the player skill interactions actually DO that it essentially stays a button mashing festival.

sPvP actually seems pretty balanced, although poor camera control and horrid attack/evade animations and the overall zerg-to-win mentality of the randomly constructed teams just makes it… meh. I have no desire to even try after about 50 instances. wvwvw is… pitiful. More zerg to win. No chance at stealth raids, assasination, actual battle lines, guerilla warfare… nothing that makes me feel like I’m actually contributing. Be a warm body in a zerg. That’s your contribution.

There are no quests AT ALL in this game, and that’s a problem. So yes, they got rid of the !, but they also got rid of any sense of accomplishment of short term goals that some (very few, but some) of those ! quests supplied. And it’s still “kill x, to get y of z”. It’s this exactly. Or “go pick up x of y and give them to z”. Or “escort x to y”. It’s not even a good copy of the system. It’s even worse because at least if I’m kill buzzards to get gizzards in some other game, I know how many I have to get to get the freaking quest OVER WITH. Here it’s just a bar, slowly filling itself for a while. Then it’s done.

Epic personal story, where you (after being the “hero” for 60 levels) start playing second fiddle to a talking turnip.

Dynamic world. I’ve seen NOTHING change in this game in any of the zones I’ve played in. 50% map coverage and everywhere I go, everything is exactly the same as it was the first time I saw it. Dynamic mykitten And this was the BIGGEST thing I was looking forward to. I mean, I can actually CHANGE the game world through my actions? How freaking awesome is that!!!!

Fail.

So tl;dr: I did “study” and didn’t get what I was lead to believe I was paying for.

Having said that, I’m not rage-quitting or anything. I’m going to be patient and let them polish this because I still think they truly wanted to deliver all these things, they just didn’t know how until they had enough people in the game to tune it.

So we’ll see how it works out.

I love this game, but the overwhelming number of high level kitten ups are more than I’m willing to endure.

I’m playing alts for a bit, and if the big problems aren’t fixed, I’m done completely.

I won’t go into specifics because… read the forum. Seriously. There are thousands of problems outlined here, and I’m seeing no communication about the huge majority of them from the developers. Yes, they’re doing a better job than most companies, but now I’m starting to see them as a company instead of a bunch of game fans building games.

That’s. Not. Good.

So. Alts, even though that’s not what I most want to do.

Let me say it a different way: I don’t want to play low level alts. I’d prefer to play my main but I’m not willing to keep enduring thekitten poor design as it exists. But I’m not going to give up on a game with this much potential just yet.

But my patience wears thin. And I’m not a fickle fanboy from another game. I came here based on what anet said, not what anyone else said, and they failed to deliver on their stated goals.

So, this is not ragequit. Yet.

But when it is, rest assured I won’t be back ever. You can’t lie to me and expect me to keep coming back.

We’ll revisit this after the 9/24 update. I would look up the threads but I’d rather be playing the game.

Apparently there’s a big update coming on that date, but it’s been hinted at for a while.

When the patching in this game is so seamless, why wait that long?

I’m just curious for an official response. I mean… you could do it tonight. Why wait?

I get the “you’ll be pushed back” from one side and a glass wall from the other.

Guys, this is completely lame. Please, please, PLEASE for the love of all that’s holy, hide the fact that this is a game.

I was SO into my exploration and this just makes me want to log out for a week as it’s so painfully obvious and easy to test, or hide, like you did with the SUSPICIOUSLY REGULAR MOUNTAIN RANGES everywhere else in the game.

It makes me sad that as much work as you spent on the beauty of this world, that you got so tiny kitty sloppy with things like this.

I so very much want to express how I feel about finding things like this in stronger language but I’ll refrain.

Adine.2184:

Ok let’s assume you get your way and bronze and rawhide leather is now used in level 225 recipes . This would inflate prices lowing if not negating the profit margin for those that buy mats . It would also increase botting for said mats which is never a good thing.

1) what profit? There’s no money to be made in crafting right now precisely because materials are under-used and players level too quickly. Having an actual REASON to use “low level” materials other than to get to 400 would increase prices of these materials and therefore increase profitability as they become scarce. If you NEED 1000 copper pieces to make a suit of dungeon armor, they start coming off the market in huge chunks making prices go up, but also INCREASING the price of the crafted items making it a seller’s market and therefore potentially profitable.

2) the only way to stop botting is to stop trading or make all materials free. This is not an argument at all. It’s… I don’t even know what to call it. Fear mongering? “If you make swords available, everyone will want one! The bots will be sword farming us into the ground!”. Nonsense.

So seriously, you guys think that “low level” means unrewarding and unusable rather than basic?

Did you hate the low level zones that much?

I didn’t. I mainly don’t go there because there’s not much reason to after you bypass them, which I personally think sucks. I think there should be quests that take you back there occasionally, events that are so much fun that you want to go back occasionally and yes, crafting that requires you to go back occasionally if you want to skip buying the mats on the TP.

I wish I could say I was surprised, but I’m not really. Just disappointed.

Just remember to use the orichalcium wiring in your house to turn off the lights before you go to bed tonight since the copper is beneath you. And be sure you only wear you Gossamer underwear tomorrow at your daily grind. You’re higher level after all, so no point in using plain old cotton. It’s a step backward.

;)

Adine.2184:

Why would you want a high level character to have to farm low level stuff?

First, I hate the whole idea of farming. To me it means standing in one place gathering crap because you have to. I prefer to think of it as gathering necessary materials to achieve your objective, and a) no one has to “farm” with a trading post (if/when it works) and b) this would obviously be offset with rewards for the crafting of these items in terms of xp and gold. So it’s no different than mindlessly killing in an “appropriate” level zone.

And finally, even if it’s “farming”, why would you care where you “farm” if it made interesting and profitable results?

I’d second this as a) I think they’re just a bit too squishy, b) I think movable spirits should be much, MUCH easier to spec for since this entire game is about fast paced movement and c) they just look awesome but appear a little… special needs when they just stand there and take damage until they die.

I love the idea of a spirit build. But I’d also like to know what they do and when they do it. So how about adding something that lets me and the party know that it was the spirits that helped them out?

Right now, I’m in a weird spot. I intuitively know that running a spirit build helps my groups survive. I just can’t prove it. I have no idea when a party member gets a buff from one. I just “sense” that we do better when I’m running spirits.

That’s not very satisfying or motivating.

I’d also like to see either multiple “skills” per spirit, or a broadened selection so I can pull out the ones that add dps, add cc, or add defense/health as necessary. Right now they’re just… dps oriented mostly. And that’s a bit depressing. Sure there’s the protection one, but otherwise, lightning, swiftness, fire, cold…

They need more variety, more power (because a 20% chance to cause lightning does… what exactly? I mean I can’t even tell when it happens, much less if it’s actually doing anything useful). How about regen? Condition removal? Health bombs? AoE damage on their own? Something like AI that lets them actually help, rather than just being,… there.

Good topic.

Nothing I do at level 65 requires copper/jute/soft wood/tiny fang etc.? Really? Nothing? Not one recipe?

I think crafting in general and gathering crafting materials in particular would be MUCH more interesting if things didn’t suddenly become obsolete to the process at later levels.

/discuss

It shouldn’t be easy. It shouldn’t be cheap. But it should be an option to make crafting feel more worthwhile and give options for getting what you want without being forced to a) do something you don’t like (grinding dungeons for example) and b) let you do something you do want (anything that pays in gold).

You want dungeon set, heavy, item B. You can farm for it in the dungeon, or you can find a TRUE grandmaster who has the recipe (and it was not easy to earn) to make it for you if you’re willing to pay their price.

/discuss

I’ve been responsible for a lot of the “complaints”, which are actually just me saying, “A lot of this is amazing, dipped in awesomesauce, so please put more sauce here, and here, and a dash more here.” Really it is. Even if I get a little nasty sometimes, it’s only because I’m invested in the success of what GW2 promises to my beloved MMO genre as a whole. It’s the only game type I really play and the things about the genre that irritate me REALLY irritate me.

Having said that: the artwork in this game is simply mind bogglingly gorgeous. Everywhere I look another detail, another shadow or light source perfectly presented. No once, EVER in this game have I felt like I was looking at a tile repeated over and over again in the terrain.

It’s truly astonishing how talented the art team is. Not just in creating beautiful things to look at, but in HIDING the fact that it’s “just pictures” pasted onto geometry.

There. I said something positive.

I have a basic MF set right now and run at around 70% with omnom bar active (although with the freaking TP down all the time I’ve now run out and can’t restock), but the above post is something I’ve really been wondering about. I definitely see a larger number of mob drops now that I geared up for MF, but I’m wondering if the fact that I’m basically missing something like 1/2 of my potential damage/survivability stats is really COSTING me somehow.

I wish I was mathematician enough to do some real comparisons.

Anybody know if there is some kind of sweet spot, or soft cap for true utility in MF?

Um… first of all, holy crap.

Secondly, since you’re apparently honestly asking for suggestions: leave until the expansion.

You won.

I’m not being sarcastic. I mean you really did it. You hit every goal in the game that you wanted to.

I don’t think your question should be, “What do I do?”

I think you should ask yourself, “Why should you stay at all?”

So go do something else for a while and come back when they’ve developed more for you to do.

I think it would make more sense if any of the dynamic events actually had an impact.

If we take an area of the map from the undead, it should be ours, at least temporarily. Grass should start growing, rabbits should show up, the coral should start dying and shrinking. And I don’t mean every 10 minutes as currently. That’s what keeps people clumped up in the “good” spots for events.

Then, late at night, a new WAVE of the risen should rush out, destroy everything and retake the area, and only during this wave, we should fight back by doing important small and large raids on key locations to bottle them up and hold the land we’ve taken, but if we haven’t the resources, they should win.

They are an unlimited enemy after all, but they shouldn’t bloody well keep rising instantly.

It’s a war zone.

It just feels like a minefield and not much more as implemented.

I say steal everything you can from wvwvw and throw it into Orr. Give us something other than rerunning the same mouth-breather events again and again.

Nah. I think they’re close and just need to tweak a few things. This will allow us to choose specs that are truly useful for the core roles they’ve decided to implement. The “New Trinity” as it were.

I think the core of the problem really comes down to the MASSIVE differences between the outside PvE world and dungeon encounters and to some extent wvwvw.

Outside pve, every class is OP to some extent. My main (ranger) for example. I mean… pve is laughable on that character unless I get ganged up on by 3+ mobs. Well, I shouldn’t say laughable since it isn’t entertaining at all really, but it’s very predictable. I’m going to stand here and shoot this thing in the face for about 30 seconds, then it will die and I’ll move on. Snore.

And they know it. So what happens in Orr?

You get 3+ mobs whether you want them or not. Problem solved right?

But no, not really because now the fights aren’t challenging, they just become confusing and the only survival strategies are “pray for another player to come along” or “run away” because everyone, me and the mobs are now virtually unkillable and fight a long slow war of attrition unless one or the other of us gives up. And of course, they never give up because they don’t pay repair bills.

So you take FIVE of us that are unkillable, and put us in a dungeon.

What do you do? You send 15 mobs at once? No. That’s unmangeable. Let’s limit it to 10 or 12 (/sarcasm), but we’ll give each one so much burst damage and so many hitpoints that we reach stalemate again at the 5 on 1 scenario that a good group is going to try to establish. And we design things to remove the damage output of as many members of the group as far as possible without being blatant about it: AoE means they have to dodge, downed players take forever to rez, healing is weak compared to damage which means players little health globes are always low and that annoying “I’m dying here” voiceover will play almost continuously so you’ll really, REALLY pay attention to dodging instead of dps.

There. All balanced now.

Not. It’s a great idea and can be dramatically improved, so no need for the old trinity, but it’s not working as intended right now. At least not if relaxing, challenging, fun is the intent.

Personally I find the wipes in this particular game demotivating in a way I’ve never experienced in any game before so even 1 is too many. Mainly because almost every mob feels like a mini-boss but the reward for surviving the fight is, “You survived. Here are four more just like that on. Go!”

My guildies and I attempted CM explore last night for the first time. For me it will probably be my last, at least for a while. It’s just unfun. We were on voice and everyone of us kept saying, “what the f was that? How did I die? Where did that come from? How many curseword hitpoints does this thing have, and why are there now 4 of them? Why can’t I run from the waypoint to the repair station without pulling four of them onto me?” etc. etc. etc.

And that’s been my experience with all of the story mode dungeons as well as the final step in the personal story in Arah.

The mobs zerg rush you and start smashing you like a bug while some kind of AoE goes off as you effectively throw cotton candy at them while hitting your dodge button as often as you possibly can.

There’s no time for strategy and the penalty for “ok, let’s try again” is just too high.

There’s not even a way to build an exploration strategy in this game. If you COULD single pull a mob to test it out, or escape once you engage, or even have a truly effective heal/rez skill that you could pop to buy your group time to escape (not just one person) then maybe things would be different. But the “challenge” in this game seems to come in three and a half basic flavors, or some combination thereof:

1) Lots of mobs at once
2) Lots (and lots and lots and freaking LOTS )of HP per mob
3) Lots and lots of damage to players in massive bursts, inescapable AoE etc.
3.5) Let’s make the screen shake, stun lock your character and/or have massive gouts of particle effects so you can’t possibly react to what’s happening, even if you happen to realize you’re supposed to.

And all too often it’s all of them at the same time.

Not fun.

I’m a reasonably good game player and highly experienced. 30 years worth in fact, so I’m far from a “badie” or “nub”. And this was with guildies with voice chat mind you, not a pug with nothing but text.

Dungeons need serious work in the fun and challenging departments in this game.

so tl;dr – they’re all “too many” at the moment.

It’s kind of “meh” for me. I gather everything, and have since I had enough copper to buy my first set of tools but I’ve never been able to gather enough materials to make a level appropriate item in either leatherworking or huntsman except the bags (which by the way are poorly implemented due to materials cost and scarcity of leather drops), and cooking is quite frankly just a beat down with pretty poor rewards.

I have a bank full of intermediate “stuff” that I don’t want to throw away because getting the ingredients is so costly/grindy, and I can’t get rid of them because of the way discovery and gathering works. 8 bajillion ingredients that you find 2 of per year.

I gained something like 4 whole levels using materials I had gathered along the way, so it was never really a “grind” to me, but it’s far from rewarding to spend my time and silver doing it, so… meh. I check the crafting station every few days to see if I have anything gathered up for sigils or runes or whatever they’re called.

If I’ve lucked into getting enough claws, or blood or whatever, I’ll make one and “discover” with it, but other than cooking, I’m not discovering anything. I already know the recipe. I just have to gather the mats to be able to do it.

Meh.

I just rolled up an engineer last night and only had like 5 minutes to play, so I haven’t even tried any of this yet but…

Seriously, they target at random?
They have multiples SECONDS of delay between shots?

Lol. I mean just… lol, between tears of sorrow.

I’ve never even played with one, but I’ve played this game. That is useless given the speed and mechanics of the encounters in this game.

I’ll still play the toon to check it out, but I’m not looking forward to it nearly as much after reading this.

I went back to Lornar’s and the Hoelbrak starting zones the other night and noticed that I was getting mostly drops for that level, but this led me to something else that cheesed me off a bit:

I carry Orichalcium (e.g. VERY EXPENSIVE) node tools and I forgot about it until I had used half a stack happily gathering up copper, iron, onions, soft wood etc.

At 4s per stack, I spent something like 6s in tools to gather what? Maybe 1s worth of stuff?

Although I have to admit, I did sell 4 onions to some desperate crafter in /map in Lion’s Arch for 50c later since TP was down.

But… shouldn’t a strong, expensive tool like an Orichalcium mining pick be able to handle a LOT of wimpy copper ore? I mean… is it such a weird idea that if I have to use the hardest material on Tyria to mine Orichalcium or mithril AT ALL, that it should basically never, ever wear out on lesser stuff?

/rant off.

So… since it’s very clear that about 1,000,000 things in this game will change over the next few month, I’m tempted to stop playing for a while.

But I kind of like some of what’s happening and don’t really want to stop. But I have to admit, I’ll be upset if someone starting three months from now has a better system to work in than I do as a first responder.

Example: I finished the personal story on my main today and received vendor trash for the dozens of hours I spent.

I suspect this will change later.

But I’ve already spent my time, so if I come back in three months and find that people just starting the game get a sack full of exotics… I’ll be displeased.

So, those of you who definitely plan to stick around: what’s your motivation?

So… that’s three posts by a designer that didn’t answer the question.

Let me up the ante then.

In order to salvage high level items, I equip high level tools. Orichalcium.

If I need a few pieces of soft wood or copper, I either spend money on the TP (when it works) or use my incredibly expensive tools or carry multiple sets of tools.

So… is this what you wanted?

It’s a simple question really. If you wanted these things to happen, say so. Then I can decide how my philosophy fits with yours.

If you didn’t intend it, say so. For the same reason.

And lastly, where do we find wool at 80?

I’m sorry man, but if you spent a half hour within hearing range of any vendor and most npc’s in this game, you’d know it.

“You have gold?”

“Some have to fight so all can have freedom.”

“You break it. I break you.”

“Hail weapon bearer.”

“Nothing sings as sweetly as my hammer.”

“Welcome traveler.”

“May xyz bless you.”

“I haven’t taken leave of my senses!”

“You have wisdom to share?”

And on and on and on.

I may be misquoting them, but if so it’s only for the same reason I can’t duplicate the sound the overly loud air conditioner in my office. It’s always there and I’ve managed somehow to tune it out but deep in my mind, it’s there, scratching away, always.

"

I’ll be brief.

The end of personal story was a painful death zerg grind with lots of shaking screens and explosions and no chance to develop a strategy except through repetition.

Ran my first explorable dungeon: CM. Um… no.

This game was apparently designed for a level of experience MONTHS away from what we actually have. What I mean is, the difficulty was deemed appropriate for alpha players who truly knew their character and probably each other, and more probably, the tricks of the trade in higher level content.

I wasn’t in alpha and didn’t get paid to learn.

So for me, as a player, this needs tuning to say the least.

It’s not hard. It’s just a visual riot and a “logical” hash.

I’m seriously disappointed.

My $.02.

I’ve learned to just esc/logout/go to character select.

Outside of the cities, there are very few safe places in this game. It’s exhausting honestly because there’s no place to just take a break and breathe in the game’s beauty.

Sure, you can happen upon them (and vistas are generally a good spot to chill out and relax for a minute FYI), but overall, I never, ever feel safe anywhere in the game other than the cities.

So I workaround it by leaving the game when I need to afk.

Let us help you guys fight the spam, botting etc.

Let us apply to be game guides and grant us limited GM powers and access to your report queue.

I volunteer. I can put in a few hours a week in the evenings and wouldn’t mind helping out.