Guild Wars 2

I’m more irritated that (other than the few blogs or dev posts in forums) ANet dispenses what information they do give out everywhere but on the official site. I’ve seen way more forum posts by players about something someone from ANet said: on Reddit; in an AMA, on facebook, on twitter, on some third-party site, etc. than I;ve seen official information released on the official site. That’s bassackward.

I’ll stick with my version of the classic grind. Grind in a game is performing actions I don’t particularly enjoy over and over and over because there is no alternative means to progress towards my objective, which is usually to play the whole game.

Using this definition:

• WoW raids with the tier gear system were grind
• GW2 has no grind

Endogenous, huh.

So all those NPC’s in other MMO’s who did nothing but stand there; who told me to go there and kill ten rats, then come back; then go back there and kill ten gophers, then come back … they were all helping me get immersed in the game world? Who knew?

As to NPC’s talking while you loot. If they’re talking to each other, that helps me immerse. If they’re talking to me while I’m doing something else, how does that break immersion? I guess the OP has either never been married, or stops what he is doing to listen attentively every time his wife talks.

Seriously, though, immersion is a personal experience, and as such no one can say whether something is going to be immersive for someone else. Fortunately, the OP was just sharing his opinion of what works for him.

emikochan.8504:

The fights should be failable, and affect the zone in some oppressive way like a dragon commander showing up would.

TW did something like this in Rift, with their Invasion events. Quest NPC’s would be dead, hubs under enemy mob control, rifts everywhere. Guess what happened? “I can’t turn my quest in… can’t sell my drops… etc.” So the devs changed invasions so they just disappeared after about 20 minutes. Unfortunately, without anything better than DE rewards, you might find that GW2 zones remained conquered until a large-enough guild had enough people who wanted to do zone completion and took it back. You’d also find plenty of people whose motto is, “When the going gets tough, the tough get going to the forums to complain.”

Back on topic…

Another Jormag anecdote. At one time, the elementals and Icebrood had decent drop rates — frankly, better than the chest. At least on my server, I’d see Jormag land behind his wall, and most of the players there would kill the adds instead of actually doing the event.

DeathPanel.8362:

Being a part of a guild and doing guild events requires MORE time spent than just doing dailies, since you are also most likely doing dailies ON TOP of guild events.

Time spent is a cost.

^^^

Maximizing the yield from guild missions is going to impact your time spent — probably more than most people think. Peoples’ ability to maximize the yield of guild missions is going to be impacted by how organized or disorganized the guild is.

In disorganized guilds, you’d better be online a lot. When the mood strikes them, they’ll pop a mission and go. If you’re not on as often as the leadership, you risk being left out. Even in an organized guild, there’s no guarantee that a scheduled mission will fit your schedule.

1. Inquest Grenadiers; if ANet is worried about AoE spam, they should look at these guys
2. Veteran Risen Nobles in quantity at scaled up events; players as ping-pong balls
3. Risen Plaguebearers underwater; these guys are necros, why do they evade like thieves?
4. Sorge the Zealot; hurry up and die, already!
5. Bosses that spam drop AoE on downed players; oh wait, that’s most of them >.>

Minion of Vey.4398:

I don’t really care how easy or hard things are to get. If I want them, I’ll get them always.

Time gating is just an obnoxious mechanic. With time gating, you can’t try harder at something and be rewarded. You just meet the minimum requirement and that’s it.

In this case, it’s a piddly requirement. I login after dinner and knock out the daily in 15 minutes…then that’s it. Nothing else to progress it further. Kinda silly.

Working as intended, I’m afraid. ANet tried no time gating at launch, and players raced through, got everything they wanted (except maybe a Legendary) and then complained about nothing to do. Since programmers cannot produce new content that quickly, they put in time gates.

If you’re logging in every day, even if it’s only 15 minutes, you’re still in touch with the game. Down the road, when they do produce something new, you might try it out. Some people pop back into games after months gone, but some don’t.

CryxTryx.9208:

… You may have different expectations of what a dungeon should be, and I say it sounds like you already have those dungeons in explorer mode. If you want better gear you can still get that through crafting or other means.

You have easier content yet you still ask to make the harder content easier. Why should all of the content be geared towards players who want it easier? Or people that rage quit after 10 minutes because they don’t they don’t want to learn something new?

Well it shouldn’t. And at least right now Anet agrees.

It really is all about expectations. Dungeons in GW2, at least while you are learning them, require more attention, more active participation and more skill than dungeons in most other games. Face it, the tank had to know the fights and positioning, the DPS didn’t have to know more than who to hit when, the heal spent all his time in fights looking at health bars and of course everyone had to know not to stand in fire. Those dungeons were easier because there was more margin for error. Once you learn the GW2 dungeons, you know what to do and when, but until then you need to be on your toes as each player has to learn most everything. If you’re expecting a “typical” MMO dungeon, GW2 is going to surprise you.

It should have gone without saying that “new” does not equal either unskilled, unwilling to go through the learning curve or doesn’t crave challenge. However, this is the internet and assumptions prevail. When referring to people who don’t enjoy the GW2 dungeon experience, I prefer to use the term, “prefers a more relaxed dungeon experience.” It’s a mouthful, but all of this discussion is really about preferences.

Dungeons are fun only if you are looking for a challenge. If you’re looking for relaxed, team-based, instanced content with a reward, explorables are not going to fit that bill. Both remain true until you’ve mastered the mechanics, at which point those looking for challenge realize on the umpteenth repetition that they are going through the motions. The relaxed-experience seekers, on the other hand, get their relaxed experience. Funny how that works.

If dungeons are not fun it more likely has to do with group composition and class imbalance than the difficulty of the dungeon. The little spiders in AC are reportedly a breeze with reflection. Five of 8 classes can bring reflection to the table. The spider queen is easier with a lot of condition management. All classes are not equal in that regard, either.

Edge.4180:

IndigoSundown.5419:

The proposed replacement rewards are not rewarding enough. Unless a buff is “too good,” people hardly notice them. Also, open world PvE is easy enough that such a this-zone buff is going to be seen as not worth the effort. Locking map areas away behind an event is an interesting mechanic, but the current manifestations of this are complained about (CoF and Arah, for instance). Adding more such will not go over well and will be perceived as a punishment for not doing the event rather than a reward for doing it.

My suggestions for rewards that might inspire players to participate in these events “for the right reasons” are just examples, and I’m sure any designer worth his or her salt could come up with many better ones.

That said, if these “lures” only attract 10-15 players to these events.. mission accomplished. I’m not looking to create a situation where players are coming from all over the world to participate in one of these events. That’s the problem we have now. And I’ll take quality over quantity every time. It’s not difficult to get roughly a half-dozen to a dozen players who happen to be in the zone to participate in an event.. I see this at practically any basic event already, and none of them offer boss chests as a reward. At any given time there’s probably around 5 players just adventuring in the area a boss event happens to spawn who are likely to jump in.

You know, a few months back I saw that Tequatl and Jormag were in their spawn window at the same time. I knew most people would go to Jormag, so I went to Tequatl. I was standing there on the beach looking at maybe 6 other players waiting for his spawn and, for the first time, I got nervous and excited about this fight. I was thinking “this is going to be fantastic.. finally a real fight with Tequatl”. I changed my traits and skills to be more group oriented and supportive, I started reviewing the abilities on the turrets.. this was going to be awesome!

Then Jormag ended and several dozen people from that event showed up on the beach before Tequatl had a chance to spawn. I sighed and switched back to my DPS loadout, waited for him to spawn, chose him as my target and hit my “1” key and sat back waiting to collect my treasure.

I don’t want 20, 30, 50, 100 people at these events. Especially when they’re showing up not to have fun and be challenged, but because of the all mighty loot carrot. There is enough content in this game to occupy people without sacrificing these boss events.

I understand your desire. However, I believe ANet did envision these events as something to entice players from all over the “world.” That vision shows in the title World Boss, versus the temples being “Meta-Events.”

As to rewards… while I’m sure creative people could come up with better, I’m not sure that the players would stand for a change at this point. Maybe if the rewards were new and extremely desirable. However, for many people that is going to translate to stuff, which means drop which means chest.

It might be more productive to ask for more limitations on chest use, though that also is not going to be popular.

Edge.4180:

critickitten.1498:

You’re the one who needs to visit Orr more often. On many servers, the temples remain locked for the majority of the game’s run time, until larger guilds come along to unlock the temples. I’ve done quick skims of Orr every time I’ve played and there is always at least two temples locked down on a regular basis, if not all of them. And my server isn’t a small server.

NEVER had a problem with temples except in cases where an event in the chain breaks down, which happens more frequently than it should. Always seems to be people interested in the karma vendor or just happening by and jumping in.

This may be server-related. The fact that these events produce chests has brought more people to Orr, but even so, there are plenty of times on HoD when all 5 are locked up and no one is doing them. State of the server on the temples is that it is extremely rare to see more than 1-2 uncontested during peak play times in the U.S. and all 5 locked up the remainder of the time.

Sardonia.8196:

Easy solution would be to make all ascened gear available through all play styles, such as dungeons, fractals, Karma etc, etc. This way a person could really truely play the way they would want to.
Some might say then people would earn it too fast. That is true and I do not care how fast some one gets their gear. If someone wanted to get everything in one day by marathoning it, fine good for them, but I would like to have that choice. Currenlty it is just a time gate which I do not think is very good for the game’s future.

Just bring it out for all forms of playstyle and let us grind out for cosmetics.

Just my two cents

Ascended was put into the game to provide a goal that would not be gotten quickly. ANet’s wording was something along the lines of “bridge the gap between getting exotics and legendaries.” The developers did this because the game was hemorrhaging players whose complaint was nothing to work towards. ANet decided that it was better for the game’s future to slow the process of getting gear down. Now you want to speed the process up.

Now, maybe ANet was wrong. At the time, a lot of people threatened to leave the game over Ascended. For all I know they did leave. Maybe the game lost more players with the addition of Ascended than they retained. Having already theoretically lost these players, what is ANet’s motive for speeding up acquisition? So people can get the items quickly, then turn around and kitten about nothing to do?

Danireathorn.2814:

IndigoSundown.5419:

The problem with the current state of the art in MMO dungeon design is the learning curve. People who enjoy the learning curve quickly master the mechanics and then say the dungeons are too easy. People who dislike the “pain” associated with the learning curve complain the dungeon is too hard.

I hope every single person who does dungeons will eventually figure this out. What you just said sums up the main idea of a GW2 dungeon. It’s all in the learning curve, especially for the new AC dungeon paths.

As Indigo stated, there will always be people who master the mechanics and say the dungeon is easy, and there will always be people who dislike the learning curve and say the dungeon is too hard.

I think the problem is not the dungeon itself, but the fact that in GW2, dungeons are not based on the idea of having the best armor and weapons to successfully finish the dungeon. Obviously gear helps, but communication and knowing what to except vastly trumps the gear aspect. In another thread in this forum, Quam made a great analogy regarding dungeons and learning : https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/game/dungeons/Fun-or-Just-a-Waist-of-In-Game-Money/first#post1597274

Like all things in life, you need to learn how to do something in order to understand how to achieve something. This is just common sense. The more you practice something, the better you will be at it.

Imo gear is not the biggest culprit. Players of other MMO’s are used to the trinity. It seems like a large majority of players in other MMO’s roll DPS. In those games’ dungeons, the learning curve is extremely shallow for DPS, consisting of knowing when to attack the tank’s target, when to AoE, when to move out of fire, boss mechanics — if they matter, or knowing when to transform one of the mobs. Even tanks and healers don’t need to know that much more. Tank the boss facing away from the party, use AoE heal … now, etc.

GW2 requires you to know which skills to slot before the fight, when to use them, which mobs do which attacks that you need to dodge, how to time this (don’t dodge Kholer when he starts to glow, dodge when his arm starts forward), what to do to help your team, when to do it. It’s a much more active experience than many players are used to, even from GW1.

I agree that the new chest rewards have caused problems. The solution proposed by the OP is going to create more problems than it solves, though.

Eliminating chests from these events would cement the idea in some players’ minds that ANet does not want people to farm. This idea is already fairly prevalent. Removing the most obvious concession to player demands for more and better loot would anger way too many people.

The proposed replacement rewards are not rewarding enough. Unless a buff is “too good,” people hardly notice them. Also, open world PvE is easy enough that such a this-zone buff is going to be seen as not worth the effort. Locking map areas away behind an event is an interesting mechanic, but the current manifestations of this are complained about (CoF and Arah, for instance). Adding more such will not go over well and will be perceived as a punishment for not doing the event rather than a reward for doing it.

Finally, eliminating world-event chests flies in the face of the fact that many players will not play content unless rewarded. While not true of everyone, it’s true of enough players to be a significant factor in design decisions — just look at the inclusion of Ascended to gauge the impact of this way of thinking.

I think something needs to be done about these event rewards, but I don’t think replacing them as the OP suggests would work.

The problem with the current state of the art in MMO dungeon design is the learning curve. People who enjoy the learning curve quickly master the mechanics and then say the dungeons are too easy. People who dislike the “pain” associated with the learning curve complain the dungeon is too hard.

An “easy” and “hard” mode would seem to go a ways toward solving both problems. However, no matter how hard you make hard mode, if it’s doable at all the mechanics will be learned and it will be back to being too easy. Also, easy mode should not be too easy, or the experience is cheap.

ANet has stated that story mode is “normal” and explorable mode is “hard” mode. The problem there is that story mode does not present repeatable instanced group content. Those wanting to enjoy a more relaxed dungeon experience worth repeating are just left out in the cold. Let’s face it, dungeons in traditional MMO’s are a more relaxed experience than a GW2 explorable, so there is some expectation that this type of “difficulty” in instanced content would be available.

As to level 35 v. 80… through the miracle of down-leveling my level 80’s in AC Explorable lose ~75% of their stats (e.g., toughness 162_ becomes 40_). The stat difference is not that large. If you are going to have difficulty with the dungeon mechanics on a 35, you will also be likely to have difficulty on an 80.

How players get Ascended items:

Rings: RNG used in FotM; lucky? get them sooner; unlucky…
Bypass RNG, iirc, by doing FotM daily for x days
Alternative Rings: 25 minimum (dailies + monthly) each
Amulets: 20 days minimum (dailies + monthly)
Earrings: 30 days minimum + globs (" + ") OR guild commendations

This design is an attempt by ANet to slow people down. People are using the term time gated. I would say, rather, time required. Of all of the methods available, only someone who gets lucky with RNG, or is part of a large guild and is fortunate enough to be able to participate fully in guild missions gets stuff “sooner.”

This all stems from their reaction to the “Nothing to work toward!” posts that were common in October and even in September. The words used in Linsey Murdock’s blog were, “…much sooner than we expected.” People wanted progression, now we’ve got it. It should not be a surprise that this progression is designed to take time.

It is in ANet’s best interests to keep people playing. They are trying to walk a fine line between giving people the goodies and having them leave because of nothing to do, and making acquisition costly in terms of resources and/or time and having them leave out of frustration.

We are players, and as a collective we will never, ever be patient, or satisfied.

While I might run the dungeon for the stats on the armor, I dislike the look. It’s easier to transform armor I’ve crafted than run a dungeon to them want to transform the armor I got as a reward.

10-12 players were doing the recapture Wren event on HoD last night. Risen hit points were out of whack. The event scaled due to our numbers, proccing lots of veterans and lots of mobs at +2 to +3 to player level. Veteran health was more like Champions. Mobs were more like Veterans. At one point myself and 4 other players were behind one of the buildings attacking one normal Risen Acolyte. Silver mobs in dungeons melt faster than that one normal mob did. Multiple people attacking a Vet resulted in a barely seen depletion of the hit bar.

At other Orr events since the new scaling was put in, mob health was nowhere near this. Hopefully, this is a bug.

Eerekai.9438:

-snip-

An interesting write-up. I would add one thing — too many bleeds. Spider queen procs bleeds, gravelings proc bleeds, troll procs bleeds, Kholer procs bleeds. As with everything ANet does, conditions are over-utilized.

/sarcasm on Maybe change the dungeon name to the Catacombs of Blood. /sarcasm off

On HoD tonight 10-12 players tried to do the Song of Lyss Event (one of the three seals of the Lyssa Temple Chain). When we arrived, there were a lot of mobs already on the seal. While we waited for everyone to arrive, more mobs spawned every 30 seconds to a minute.

There were nearly as many Veterans as there were players (3-4 each Abominations, Nobles and Acolytes). In addition, there were 2-3x player numbers of +2 to +4 regular mobs. One of the Vet classes (Vet Risen Acolyte, maybe) also spawned more Risen, including Plague Carriers. For a while, we burned them down, but the respawn rate was so high we made no progress. If anything, the respawn rates of the vets got shorter. Eventually, people gave up.

Has this been happening on other servers? Is it a bug? Is it perhaps a bug with the “new” scaling system? Is it the new scaling system working as intended?

I suppose they could make a weekly instead of a daily, but then the outcry against a kill count of 350 or gatherer of 140 would crop up. Also, a weekly would not help the OP, who plays 1 week a month. A monthly, well we have one of those. Put all the objectives in the monthly, give choice and put all the rewards there? I can hear the outcry against grindy monthlies. Eliminate time gating and ANet is back where it was in late October — with players racing to acquisition and complaining there is nothing to do. What other options are there which solve both the OP’s and ANet’s problems?

Kif, we have a conundrum!

I’m waiting for the outcry when a guild gets the bounty in Sparkfly Fen, and gets shunted to overflow because Teq happens to be up. ^^

I believe that the dungeon is doable with 35’s. They would probably be alts, though. 35’s who’ve never done an explorable, on the other hand, are going to struggle, and most likely give up.

This is why some guilds are scouting the NPC locations before they start the mission. I actually found Sotzz the one time my guild did a bounty and I was online. Took about 25 minutes and 8-10 waypoints. So what happens? He isn’t included in our mission… >.>

Freeburn.8135:

Jamais vu.5284:

I’m a casual player and I love the new difficulty. The notion that casual = averse to difficulty or unskilled needs to die.

Also keep in mind explorables were supposed to be the “elite” content. Story mode, with all it’s issues and feel of being kinda neglected, was to be the beginner difficulty for dungeons, even at the lower levels.

If ANet’s intention is for Explorable Mode to be considered elite content, I can get on board with that. I’m totally fine with continuing in story mode dungeons. I’m thinking I will be sticking to story mode with PUG’s, and maybe only try explorable with guildies.

That said, is it true that ANet’s intention is that Explorable Mode is considered “elite content”? What does that mean, exactly?

What they actually said was more along the line of “…for coordinated teams,” and “…skilled players.”

I’d be fine with story mode also, except that there are minimal rewards. Dungeons in every game that have them are repeatable content, and repeatable content with little to no reward does not get repeated. In GW2, only the explorable dungeons have worthwhile rewards attached to them. Essentially, only hard mode dungeons are worth redoing. This leaves a void for players who prefer more relaxed, team-based instanced content.

I’m also fine with explorables requiring a learning curve, but I can see why people dislike that learning curve. Re-learning the new AC has not been fun.

The problem with dungeons now is that the people who’ve gone through the learning curve and figured them out are now only doing them to farm. The people who haven’t learned them and are now trying to do them are in the learning curve. The “first” explorable, AC, is now harder for this demographic than the old AC. What might help these people is for experienced dungeoneers to teach them. I’ve been in two dungeons lately where I was the one with the most experience. Before those two, I’ve done 6-7 dungeon paths since my old guild faded back in October. I don’t blame experienced players for not wanting to teach. I understand that some experienced players do teach. That still leaves a lot of people trying dungeons and getting stomped. Face it, the learning curve can be quite painful.

What rangers can bring to team play (if I missed anything, feel free to add).

• Both greatsword and shortbow have a daze. Potentially useful on Graveling Breeders. other attacks by non-boss mobs that “should” be interrupted. Also useful for taking Defiant off bosses.
• Warhorn, Call of the Wild: grants 15s Fury, Might, and Swiftness to self, and nearby allies.
• Healing Spring heals self and allies, cures conditions on allies.
• Search and Rescue utility: pet will revive downed ally.
• Stone Spirit: chance to grant protection to allies.
• Frost Trap is also a combo field.
• Fire Trap is also a combo field.
• Spirit of Nature: can revive and cure conditions on downed allies.

I’m not going to weigh in on whether other classes can do any or all of this stuff better. However, players should know which skills your class can bring that will be helpful to a team. That way, if you find a group that won’t kick you, maybe you can contribute more than just your dps.

Chuo.4238:

IndigoSundown.5419:

Chuo.4238:

IndigoSundown.5419:

cesmode.4257:

Now we have:
-No grind. Not OK. There is a HUGE grind in the game for literally everything.

Since I don’t experience this, I’m curious. Legendary was always going to be a grind, let’s face it. Ascended was put in to “bridge the gap,” between dungeon sets and Legendary. “Literally everything” encompasses a lot. What else in GW2 is grind? I’m betting that a lot of the perceived grind devolves down to Ascended. I’m willing to be wrong, though.

It’s Ascended. I’d love this game if they stopped adding it. Legendaries don’t bother me because it’s just a skin.

Grinding for a skin I like is fun and rewarding (I have multiple obby sets in GW). Grinding for tier gear sucks. It’s a job, and I’ve already got one of those.

If they took BiS gear out of the equation, I think there’d be many more people happy with new content.

They’re not going to take away items people already played for. If you think the reaction to guild missions was heavy, the reaction to that would dwarf it. They might be able to get away with stopping at trinkets + back item. They’d be more likely to produce the full spectrum of Ascended, then not add more tiers. Then, if they do the discussed level increase, the existing tiers would have level x versions.

I didn’t say to remove it. I said stop adding it. Keep what’s there, but please no more…

Fair enough as to your meaning. However, what you said was, “If they took BiS gear out of the equation…” Looking at that wording, perhaps you can understand my mistake.

ZudetGambeous.9573:

I’m not sure if this has been pointed out or not, but Explorable mode dungeons ARE the hard mode. The “normal” mode as you called it is story dungeons, where you get the story and a toned down version. Explorable modes are the “hardest” content in the game, the hard modes of other games.

That is ANet’s PoV with regard to dungeons. One thing, though, dungeons in other games are repeatable content. Players will not repeat content if the reward is not worth the effort. If Story Mode is normal/easy mode, it lack this. So, Story Mode is normal mode but is not worth repeating. Where does that leave players who don’t want the Hard Mode (sic) of explorables?

Chuo.4238:

IndigoSundown.5419:

cesmode.4257:

Now we have:
-No grind. Not OK. There is a HUGE grind in the game for literally everything.

Since I don’t experience this, I’m curious. Legendary was always going to be a grind, let’s face it. Ascended was put in to “bridge the gap,” between dungeon sets and Legendary. “Literally everything” encompasses a lot. What else in GW2 is grind? I’m betting that a lot of the perceived grind devolves down to Ascended. I’m willing to be wrong, though.

It’s Ascended. I’d love this game if they stopped adding it. Legendaries don’t bother me because it’s just a skin.

Grinding for a skin I like is fun and rewarding (I have multiple obby sets in GW). Grinding for tier gear sucks. It’s a job, and I’ve already got one of those.

If they took BiS gear out of the equation, I think there’d be many more people happy with new content.

They’re not going to take away items people already played for. If you think the reaction to guild missions was heavy, the reaction to that would dwarf it. They might be able to get away with stopping at trinkets + back item. They’d be more likely to produce the full spectrum of Ascended, then not add more tiers. Then, if they do the discussed level increase, the existing tiers would have level x versions.

Tobias Trueflight.8350:

rizzo.1079:

IndigoSundown.5419:

It does take forever to get anywhere

There’s one point I forgot: I tried wvw for the first time the other day when one of the commanders asked for help since both teams were invading our borderlands. I was really disappointed by how much time was spent running around the map vs. time spent actually doing anything. Even if I liked pvp, I think just the sheer lack of wp’s in the wvw maps is a real turnoff.

That’s understandable. It’s to prevent one side from res-rushing.

For every action there is an equal and opposite reaction, or in this case, solving the problem you cite (which is a real one, don’t get me wrong) creates the problem of too much time spent running towards, and thus waiting to have, fun. Having the rez point closer to the action (e.g., much smaller map) didn’t break Alliance Battles in GW1. However, there are a lot of differences between AB and WvW as game modes.

cesmode.4257:

Now we have:
-No grind. Not OK. There is a HUGE grind in the game for literally everything.

Since I don’t experience this, I’m curious. Legendary was always going to be a grind, let’s face it. Ascended was put in to “bridge the gap,” between dungeon sets and Legendary. “Literally everything” encompasses a lot. What else in GW2 is grind? I’m betting that a lot of the perceived grind devolves down to Ascended. I’m willing to be wrong, though.

Halanna.3927:

Why? Why why why do PvP’ers want people who don’t like PvP on their maps?

Because the server with the bigger army usually wins.
_________________________________________________________________

GW1 PvP was fun. Teams were balanced numerically. It didn’t take forever to get anywhere on the maps. Build diversity provided a game-within-the-game. Coming up with new ways to kill enemies or to counter their builds was interesting. While choice of class was important at times, players had the option to have a PvP character slot, save skill builds and even gear choices. “We’re doing Ele-ball today.” Player deletes PvP character, rerolls at max level, insta-slots gear, leader pings build, slot, done.

In WvW, numbers are almost never balanced. It does take forever to get anywhere and face it, you will get ambushed when almost there and have to start over. Build diversity is not a matter of changing attributes and skills, it often involves re-gearing which can be expensive and time consuming. In GW2, skill choices often boil down to, “Take stun break, take condition remove, take reflection, take … oh wait, I only get three utilities.” The simplification of skills in GW2 has pushed a lot of what passes for build complexity to the team level. Class imbalance makes some classes less (or not) useful, even unwelcome. Not that I’ve seen much in the way of team build coordination in WvW, though maybe there is in dedicated WvW guilds.

Emissary Vex.5690:

Ok so there are two arguments.

Point one – Dailys are optional

Ok thank you everyone for stating something so obvious that it hurts. You mean Anet doesn’t have a gun to our heads forcing us to do dailys? Who knew. Now lets just pretend for a second that we WANT the laurels but we don’t want to do the daily. This has nothing to do with being entitled or lazy. We WANT to do the harder content in the game, dungeons, etc; which after doing only contributes to 1/5 or LESS of the daily.

Point two – Dailys are easy and you complete them just when ignoring them

So this so obscenely ignorant it hurts. You only complete them if you are the kind of person who does nothing but overland content. Try doing nothing but a dungeon and tell me how far you got along in your daily

My point

I have nothing agaisnt laurels or ascended gear being easy to get via solo content for most players. The problem is that people who want to enjoy harder group content AKA dungeons are being punished because they cannot get dailys without simply playing longer and doing easier solo content they dont want to do. From the people arguing to keep dailys exactly the same easy solo way for everyone dailys take upwards of 45mis to an hour. Now we have idiots saying that is barely anything stop whining. They are completely ignoring the fact that we arent even whining about it taking that long; the problem is that it takes that long on-top of the other content some people actually want to use, like dungeons.

Now how does wanting to be able to get laurels from harder content lazy and self entitled? Everyone keeps pretending like someone is arguing the laurels should free and effortless, such arguments are completely ignorant.

Game systems always put rewards in different places. GW2 is somewhat ahead of other games in that regard. At one point in Rift, BiS weapons were available only in PvP. You prefer to get them through raids? Sorry. That was fixed — eventually.

When Ascended first appeared, the only way to get it was in FotM. Promises were made about making the items available via other means. That’s still in process. Dungeon runners had two and a half months where their play-style choice allowed access to BiS that no other play-style could access. Now, maybe amulets will be made available via different play-styles going forwards. Maybe in 2-3 months. Maybe sooner, maybe never. In the meantime, if you have to have a BiS amulet now, you’ll have to do what non-dungeon runners had to do in November to get rings. You’ll have to do something you prefer not to do.

Isende.2607:

IndigoSundown.5419:

I think once ANet responds, small guilds will need to accept that guild missions are for larger guilds. That choosing to remain in a small guild means choosing not to do this particular content.

i am most curious why you believe this is a viable scenario. why you think that people who pay the same amount of money to purchase the game, and people who probably also buy gems to help support/promote the game, should be segregated and divided into a clearly separated group of the “haves” and the “have-nots?” why is it appropriate that the larger guilds be rewarded and cheered for being the “haves,” while smaller guilds are seen as lazy, or whatever, and must accept that they will be the “have-nots”?

or are you saying that arenanet is going to be so foolish as to allow this reprehensible situation to continue, and therefore, for that reason, the smaller guilds will just have to “suck it up”?

In any game, all content is not aimed at everyone. Explorable dungeons were aimed at coordinated teams of skilled players, which surely does not apply to everyone. PvP is not for everyone. I hope you get my drift. People are different and prefer different things. Development houses that do not diversify their game’s offerings are going to lose players. People who bought the game bought all of that content, some of which they might not be interested in using, or even be able to use.

Virtually all content in GW2 prior to this patch can be done by small groups. Other than meta-events, no content required coordination across large numbers of people. Even some of the meta events can be done by 10 (or fewer) people. People have asked for content for large groups, and ANet has put a lot of effort into providing what people are asking for.

The pre-patch information was abysmal and misleading. However, it only takes a look at what is involved in guild missions to see which demographic this content is aimed at. No, I don’t expect ANet to reverse course on this. We’ll probably get a blog outlining ideas as to how small guilds can participate with it. Most, if not all of those ideas may have already appeared in this thread.

What I’d like to see is some acknowledgement that they could have provided more information. I’d like to see them say that further guild missions will be available later, and that these will be tuned to allow smaller groups to benefit. I’d like to see them relax the alternatives for Ascended earrings. What we will see is up in the air, but it won’t be, “We’re sorry, we’ll scrap this large group content and redesign for everyone.”

@ SoLeciTO

Thanks for sharing. It’s refreshing to read a reaction that is not jaded and/or cynical on a game forum. I also find the game to be an exceptional value and enjoy it very much. I believe the game can be improved, and sometimes question developer decisions, but the only game I have enjoyed more was GW1.

Once upon a time, ANet designed a game where the only things people might choose to do that required time commitment were gaining a dungeon set, or a legendary weapon. Everything else in the game, and there was a lot of it, was for fun. ANet envisioned gamers choosing to do whatever they wanted because it was whatever they wanted.

Then their vision met reality, in the form of a horde of players who wanted the results as quickly and easily as possible. Said horde clamored for more, for progression, for something new to do, for more and better stuff. And so ANet realized what other MMO developers have known all along. A large percentage of players play for rewards.

You know, all that fun stuff they designed in the first place, the stuff that was supposed to be done for fun? It’s still out there. The only thing keeping people from doing it is their own choices.

1.) what made you choose and stay on the server you’re on?
Our GW1 Alliance chose a server at random because we liked the name. After most left, we stayed on the server due to inertia. Now, it costs.

2.) what will it take for the wvw players to get you into wvw?
For me, at least, there is little that the players can do. I do not find WvW to be fun. I’ve been in it quite a few times, and it was always a matter of one side grossly outnumbering the other. If I were going to PvP, I’d prefer a game where the sides are evenly matched. Winning because of a gross numerical advantage is no more enjoyable than losing because of one.

3.) wvw benefits your dungeon runs, do you not agree that helping us get the buffs you benefit from is the right thing to do?
People who want to do the dungeons will do so regardless of the presence or absence of buffs. My server was top tier once, now on the losing end most of the time at the bottom. I can’t say I’ve even noticed the lack of buffs.

4.)is it the repair bill that scares you out?(i know pve players with upwards of 200g, so the fact that they’re scared of a 10s repair bill is confusing)
Nope.

5.) why would a risen priestess of milandru be impressed with your Sunrise?
I doubt she would if I had one. However, if any of the anonymous invaders/defenders are impressed, how would I know?

6.) Can you grasp how much of a difference just 1/10 of your guild members would make if they were active in wvw daily?
I’m not on your server, but I’ll respond as this is as applicable to other servers as your other questions. I am well aware how much difference numbers make in WvW. I suspect that the reason that people on your server and mine do not participate is because they find the game mode not to be fun.

Sorry if this idea has been posted, but why not extend the one-chest-per-character-per-day so it applies across servers?

TimelessPanda.8207:

Firefox’s 2copper:
I believe the smaller guilds have to stop complaining and honestly the leadership has to stop being so bloody prideful. If you accept the idea of banding together and merging with other guilds, you could ALOT accomplish more. What is the point of asking for free gold and a solution to smaller guilds. I am completely pro:guild pride, however you can’t completely overlook the fact that you can’t do EVERYTHING alone. If you wish to play with your group of friends, consider moving as a group into another guild. No one says you have to disband your guild, but if you care ever so much for a name(guild), then roll with a bigger guild and slowly save up gold to buy influence for your other guild? This game was meant to bring people together,it’s not like you go around fighting your server in WvWvW. When you finally think about it, this game is about making friends and working together,isolating yourself in a small guild where you only play with your own group, just reflect on that before you go ranting about how “unfair” it is for smaller guilds. Guild Missions were meant for Organized and guilds with a fair amount of Teamwork and dedication.

I think once ANet responds, small guilds will need to accept that guild missions are for larger guilds. That choosing to remain in a small guild means choosing not to do this particular content. However, there is no call to lecture people for making that choice. Guild missions are not the be-all and end-all of GW2, they are just something new.

The only official announcement about this content says small guilds can use the content. There is no mention of how small, or what’s involved other than the bit about maybe needing to get help from others in a map. If you want to lambaste someone, lambaste ANet for incomplete and misleading information that created expectations.

It sounds like the complaints frustrate you. It may seem like forever that people have been complaining. It’s been less than a week. ANet needs time to formulate a response and people are hardly, without some official word, going to give up asking for something that was — albeit loosely — promised.

It’s beginning to seem that GW2 developers are providing more information on third party sites than on the forums and in official blogs. That’s fine, but why does the “News and Announcements” sub-forum not have a short mod post that says. “Colin Johanson talks to Massively” and provides a link? Why are such notifications on the official forums the province of players kind enough to happen to link these articles? These links are also spread out across multiple threads rather than consolidated in one place. If Cryptic can do this, surely ANet can.

prometheus.1723:

There is an interview by Dragon Season, in which Colin mentions “Hard mode” instances, harder than explorable. Imagine the nerf threads after that

Source:
http://dragonseason.com/Front/tabid/124/EntryId/211/Lunch-with-Colin-Johanson-Part-II.aspx

For those not inclined to click the link:

“Are there any plans for a ‘hard mode’ for dungeons?

Colin: It’s interesting, we might do that. Right now we actually talked a lot about it and our biggest concern with it is it’s already hard to find a group to do a dungeon. When you add a hard mode on top of it you’re further fracturing the player base between story mode, three explorable modes and now three hard modes, and it can become extremely hard to find people to play with if we did that. For me, I always felt explorable mode was supposed to be hard mode, and I would like to see us fix the dungeons to the point where they really fall into the category, more than try and add another mode on top of it. So in the February release –we haven’t talked a lot about this- but we actually rebuilt all of the bosses of the Ascalon Catacombs, from scratch. All of them will be brand new in the February release. I remember the encounters have all been re-done as well. And we’re in the midst of going through all the major bosses in the game in 2013 and try to make them more fun to fight against, making them more challenging. Now that’s a huge project. That’s going to take us a really long time to do that. But just in February alone, we’re rolling some of that out and for a lot of people I think their answer for playing the game has been “it’s really fun but there’s not enough challenging stuff for me to do”. And I think that for people looking for a challenge we need to build in a lot more of that optional content that is challenging. I think “optional” is the key – we don’t want to make it so that a casual gamer feels they can’t play the game. We’re trying to go back and rebuild a lot of stuff to just make it a lot more optionally challenging for people looking for that, and [Ascalonian] Catacombs will be the first place we do that. Some of the open world champions are also getting rebuild in February, just some of the regular open world guys. And we’re going to keep doing that every month going forward, just go back and find stuff to try to make it a bit more fun."

The only issue I see with that is a lack of repeatable dungeon content for those who prefer a more relaxed experience. If story is supposed to be normal mode, make it worth re-doing.

Bombul.2506:

This already exists, story is easy mode, explorer is hard mode. Many on these forums will argue that explorer should still be easy mode, but I guess lacking the “hard” tag has them confused.

Normal/Hard Modes in GW1 were the same content at varying difficulties. Rewards were better in Hard Mode. Other games had Normal and Heroic Modes where the same content was available at different difficulty, again with varying rewards.

Story Mode doesn’t qualify as an easier option for repeatable group content. Story Mode is just, well, a story that there is no reason to participate with more than once. Explorable has rewards tied to completion, making them worth repeating.

Dantos.1065:

Seras.5702:

I think the point of the ‘kill 40 Krytan baddies’ dailies is to get 80’s out of Orr and into other areas of the world. You head to a Krytan zone you don’t have 100% on and start killing. Then you come across a few others doing the same thing, a DE pops up, you all join in, kill a Veteran, finish that heart quest nearby while you’re there and boom…you’ve just immersed yourself in the game and community, broken up the monotany of farming Orr, and gotten something in return for your troubles. And you’ve also managed to make some headway toward other daily achievements and map completion.

I would think they would want to get 80s INTO Orr. Right now it seems like, on my server at least, everyone is in Queensdale farming the rapid firing events for monthlies or dalies. I hardly ever see 80s in Orr, except for the 2 base defense areas in Cursed Shores.

I’ve seen plenty of 80’s in Orr lately. They were doing, shockingly enough, the meta events with chests.

Somewhere in the middle of nowhere in the Straits of Devastation there is an event where four pact NPC’s are down. Once you raise them, an event spawns where one of them is to fix their aircraft. Waves of Risen come. The event is on a slider as the NPC fixes the craft. Today, with just two of us doing the vent, each wave consisted of 2-3 mobs, with one of them usually being a Veteran. The next wave was spawning before the prior wave went down. It felt like the old Star Trek ToS episode with the crazy captain phasering wave after wave of Yangs, then the captain retreats and tells Kirk, “I killed hundreds, and still they came!”

The result was that eventually the vent got away from us. This might be an issue with the new scaling system (so many vets with big health bars take time to kill).

Professions: I assume you mean crafting. Crafting gives you experience (virtually everything you do other than selling gives XP). There are online guides to leveling your crafting. IGN’s is concise and accurate. Basically, gather mats as you explore/level, use them to make stuff. You can craft items your character can use. At 80, it can be cheaper to craft Exotic gear than to buy it if you have all or most of the materials.

CAN I travel anywhere/quest anywhere: yes and no; due to downscaling, higher levels can go to any zone around their level or below and adventure, with some challenge and some on-your-level drops. Low levels are not advised to go to zones much above their level. I can typically handle mobs 1-5 levels up, but much more than that can be challenging, depending on your class. Once you reach level 80, you can go to any zone and be scaled to that zone

GW2 is okay, but it’s nothing more than a grind fest offering no real end game content: endgame content consists of dungeons, group meta events in various zones, dailies and monthlies. Your friend was probably speaking of a traditional endgame with a hierarchy of dungeons and raids, and no, GW2 does not have that. Whether GW2 endgame is any good is up to whether any of the things there are to do will hold your interest. I like to alt, so I do. I like to farm, so I do. I like to do open world events, the harder the better, so I do. ANet is experimenting with a new scaling system for events, and at the moment at least some of them can be quite fun. There is also World versus World, a realm V. Realm PvPvE setting, and Structured PvP if that floats your boat. Grind? There are long term goals: legendary weapons and Ascended Gear (a tier above exotic which offers minor stat boosts). While it does take time and effort to get these, they are in no way necessary. I suppose those who experience grind have to have what they want now or soon. If you can let go of that, there is no grind.

Gear is standard looking: There are armor and weapon skins for each of the 8 dungeons, various skins available while leveling — either through drops or as rewards for the personal story or crafting. So far, I’ve been able to find a look for each of 5 level 80’s. Not to say that I would not want more skins. For instance, male medium (leather) chest pieces that are not a long coat — well, I haven’t seen one; female light armor (cloth) that is not a robe or long skirt or skirt-over-pants is rare. Whether the existing skins are “standard” is a matter of opinion.

It’s just another generic mmo offering nothing new: If all GW2 offered was not having to compete with other players for resource nodes and allowing players to move while using skills, it would have indeed been something new to MMO’s. Fortunately, it also offers many other things, like down-scaling, widespread dynamic events (rather than 1 here or there interspersed with the standard quests), and combat in which choice and skill means something.

90% of GW2 is questing/leveling: I spend as much or more time on my 80’s as on my lower levels, so again, this is going to depend more on individual preferences than on the game.

Best of all, the lack of a sub fee means that my entry fee has garnered more enjoyment per dollar than other games at the same price. Even if all I had done was level one character (~120 hours for my first) I would have been ahead of other comparably-priced games (e.g. SPRPG’s). A t 1200+ hours, it just gets to be a better value.

Sowin.5187:

I have been trying to speculate why there hasn’t been very much response to this thread.

The patch hit more than halfway through the workday on Tuesday. With the build-up time for missions, it took days for a lot of guilds to get to where they could do the content. Once enough people are doing the content, metrics need to be collected and examined to see what is actually happening. Once analysis is underway … oh, look, the weekend — which hasn’t ended.

They also had other issues to troubleshoot with the patch. People unable to log in at all is going to get a higher priority than unhappiness, not matter how widespread. Also, with such widespread unhappiness, the response is going to have to be discussed, and then spun through PR. I don’t expect any kind of a response until middle of the coming week at the earliest.

NoTrigger.8396:

Tungsten Monarch.6058:

There is some reverse trolling here, the Dungeons are way over the top difficult for the average player. Those thanking the Devs for increased difficulty are trolling the average players.

There was no need to increase the difficulty of AC or any other Dungeon. If you want them difficult then add a hard mode, and for regular mode add a sixth member or reduce the difficulty by 40%.

Right now all paths, all dungeons are absurd, GW1 was nothing like this, and this game had so much potential.

I will be looking at ESO, leaving and not returning.
ANET does not have their act together. Yes you may have my money, but you won’t be getting my money from the BLTC.

Support roles are weak and underpowered.
There are no control roles.
DAMAGE Warriors is about the only viable build.

Anet, you lost your way.

just to let you know,
story mode is for the average player. explorer mode is for the hardcore player and guilds.
but explorer mode is still too easy.

right now all paths, all dungeons are a joke. because all you have to do to finish them is autoattack. there is no difficulty.
if u have a hard time doing ac explorer, then you dont understand the game and you probably dont know where your dodge key is.

a little quote here for you

“For me, I always felt explorable mode was supposed to be hard mode and I would like to see us fix the dungeons to the point that they really fall into that category more than trying to add another mode on top of it.”

“For a lot of people their answer for playing the game has been “it’s really fun, but there’s not enough challenging stuff for me to do,” and I think for people who are looking for challenge, we need to build in more of that optional content that is challenging. Optional is the key, right, we don’t want to make it so that casual players don’t feel like they can’t play the game. But we’re trying to go back and rebuild a lot of stuff to just make it a lot more optionally challenging for people who are looking for that"

While there is merit to these thoughts, the problems are:

• People have expectations about dungeon content from other games where just about anyone can do them.
• If anything, GW2 as an experiment has proved that people will not do repeatable content without rewards, and story mode offers little to nothing to entice people back once they’ve done the dungeon to see the story. Seeing it on an alt isn’t even enticing.
• Dungeons are being used to farm because people look to make as much gold in as little time as they can. Story mode doesn’t cut it for that, and harder explorable dungeons mean having to relearn mechanics. Add that to DRgate and it looks like farming is being nerfed again. Maybe chest reward guarantees will alleviate this over time, maybe not.
• One of the repeating complaints about GW2 is lack of content. Having a significant portion of the existing content with rewards that make them worth repeating as skilled-only means less content for those who don’t like the difficulty.

Doubtless, there are more issues, but those are the ones I think bear most on the issue.

I am not advocating dungeons be made easy. I think there needs to be content that skilled players can play and feel challenged. I do think there should be some group, instanced content for those who prefer a more relaxed experience. Maybe this can be done through easy/hard mode, maybe it would require different dungeons entirely, maybe story mode can be revamped to include incentives.

I do know that catering only to those who prefer easy or catering only to those who prefer hard is not going to be good for the long-term health of the game.

Yakumo Fujii.9548:

Now on to the main reason I came to the forums I am seeing a disturbing trend where larger guilds are offering tempory invites to there guild for a set amount of money (the one I have seen the most is 1 gold) just so you can play this new content. I find this trend a bit distrurbing.

This was inevitable. ANet needs to add someone to their planning sessions who can intuit how players will behave in relation to new content. They seem to have a more optimistic view of player behavior than that behavior warrants. Now, maybe in this case, they anticipated the behavior and have no issues with players charging for content. They certainly allowed it in GW1, albeit with a different slant. However, they did not anticipate the backlash from small guilds.

Karizee.8076:

Finished Tequatl and heading back to the lab when suddenly BOOM!

That DE seems to be scaling based on number of players in the general area rather than at the event itself. I tried doing it while waiting on the dragon. There were 50 people over where the dragon spawns — not doing the event. About 5 of us were doing the DE. 2nd or 3rd wave spawned, 2 Champions, plus lots of +2 to +4 regulars.

I’ve yet to figure out exactly which of the new Krait uses the AoE massive damage plus multiple conditions attack. That attack needs to be evaded or you’re looking at being downed. Might be the Hypnos, as I haven’t seen the Nimross or Damoss using it, but not sure, as I’ve yet to see a Hypnos on its lonesome.

The Risen changes seem tamer than that one Krait attack, although the Champion Abomination’s new bowling ball AoE line is nasty if you aren’t looking for it.