Guild Wars 2

Vayne.8563:

Dindin.2378:

To expand on my post, progression is not the only thing lacking from the game. There is no rarity. Everything is obtainable and crafting is not the same as in other MMORPG’s. There is no excitement when killing a mob to drop a really unique item. Yes you can drop precursors, but I do not think these are enough. Maybe its tied to the lack of progression. If Legendary Weapons would REALLY be Legendary I would understand. But they are not, everybody is walking around with them. They have mediocre stats and do not make you all that powerful. There is no prestige or status left anymore with having one.

Boy am I glad I don’t play this game for status. There are skins that very very few people have btw.

99% of the players of the game probably don’t have pinnacle weapons. I have them and almost never use them. Because I just want my characters to look cool. I don’t need status to enjoy the game.

The status situation is what I dislike most about the addition of raids to the game. I thought the game was a better game before legendary armor became the new status symbol.

I would like to celebrate on this rare occasion that I agree with you completely on this one. Status symbols don’t fulfill people in my experience, but people nonetheless seek them as an attempt to fulfill unmet needs and then they don’t get what they want out of it. But they are a great way to prey on peoples’ unmet needs, whether knowingly or unintentionally.

And for those who want to fulfill their need for creativity with a greater quantity of options, the focus on status makes options more inaccessible, making it more difficult to fulfill that need for creativity through this game. That is just one example I know from my experiences where it can detract from the fulfillment of peoples’ needs rather than adding to it.

Well they can’t very well hold us over if we can’t access them, ya know.

Vayne.8563:

That’s the whole point behind a megaserver. You don’t need five hundred people. A hundred people in a zone is plenty. So is 50 in most cases.

If 10,000 people are playing at once, the odds are you can get 50 in a zone.

That’s not how odds work. It is dependent not only on who has access, but whether there are incentives to go there. Anet will not want people spending all of their time in old zones if they release another expansion, so any existing extra incentive in those partitioned off areas will likely be nerfed or trivialized in some way, along with expansion release.

50 might sound like an easy number to get ahold of when you pit it against a number like 10,000, but this game has a lot of different places for people to be spread out in. And that spreading out problem gets slightly more problematic in the long-term every time a new zone is added. In theory, you could alleviate said problem by maintaining steady playerbase growth and retention, but seeing as how aging MMOs typically go in the opposite direction (steady playerbase decline) the problematic nature of it is likely only doubled over time.

GW2’s megaservers are possibly the most effective approach I’ve seen in MMOs, in terms of making the most out of playerbase size, but they aren’t magic and they can only absorb some of the damage from a declining playerbase and spread out population, not avoid problems forever.

Vayne.8563:

It works because I play those zones often and there are plenty of people around. The fact that the core playerbase does log in every two months, which is all you have to do to unlock the story means most paid players probably have it.

And other people simply have the gold to convert to gems to not spend any real money. Others are used to downloading DLC and paying for it.

It’s not like all the zones dont’ have traffic, because they do.

I’m sure they have traffic now. As far as I’m aware, most of them are pretty fresh. I’m talking down the road, long-term activity. The argument I’m making is not outlining a dire scenario. They could probably wait 6 months or so from now, then let anyone with HoT access those zones, and it’d be fine. Too bad for me that way, but in terms of activity concerns, they could probably do it that way and avoid the long-term issue of it.

phys.7689:

Labjax.2465:

Hmm. Well that’s disappointing. Don’t really understand how that’s supposed to work for map population, locking new zones completely behind story chapters. HoT maps are one thing; it’s a paid expansion, like when you pay for the base game. But the story chapters are something you get for free just for being logged in at the right time. It’s a different setup.

It seems to me that they are dooming said maps to being well and truly dead in six months to a year. With the way turnaround of players works, they’ll steadily lose some of the people who had access at all and some who do have access will, by then, have no desire to go back.

I realize you can unlock chapters you missed with gems, but if they’re going for forcing you to spend gems (or save up your gold for buying the gems), then they can expletive my expletive. I just won’t visit those maps and the people who would benefit from some extra players around, like myself, will suffer for it.

I still have a fond perception of Bitterfrost Frontier though.

But this system of map unlocking, well… different kind of Bitter going on there. Bad taste in my mouth.

i also was missing some chapters, but i just sold some stuff i had saved and bought them, currently the cost is about 55 gold, which isnt horrible, but if i didnt have old materials that were newly expensive, i dont know if id have done it.

that said, you are right about limiting the map buy in in the long term though. They should probably just include LS episodes in the associated expansion cost, the current system kind of works against people returning, and newbies. Since i returned, my primary purpose has been story, so id imagine not having access to that would essentially diminish my incentive to re invest in the game.

tldr, 55 gold for story and zone isnt crazy, but most people wont bother, so less and less people will experience this content.

Exactly, thanks for understanding. Not everyone will do as I do and I get that (like yourself, you sold some stuff and bought them) but in my case, it just gives me one less reason to log in. I don’t feel any great attachment to story in this game right now, so the idea of investing a lot of time/currency in unlocking the chapters I missed just to get the zones doesn’t appeal to me.

Hmm. Well that’s disappointing. Don’t really understand how that’s supposed to work for map population, locking new zones completely behind story chapters. HoT maps are one thing; it’s a paid expansion, like when you pay for the base game. But the story chapters are something you get for free just for being logged in at the right time. It’s a different setup.

It seems to me that they are dooming said maps to being well and truly dead in six months to a year. With the way turnaround of players works, they’ll steadily lose some of the people who had access at all and some who do have access will, by then, have no desire to go back.

I realize you can unlock chapters you missed with gems, but if they’re going for forcing you to spend gems (or save up your gold for buying the gems), then they can expletive my expletive. I just won’t visit those maps and the people who would benefit from some extra players around, like myself, will suffer for it.

I still have a fond perception of Bitterfrost Frontier though.

But this system of map unlocking, well… different kind of Bitter going on there. Bad taste in my mouth.

phys.7689:

Labjax.2465:

phys.7689:

the point is the same reason we have to unlock skills and traits by leveling in core. To have progression again. To give you a real reason and benefit for exploring the new maps.
Mastery also serves this purpose, but mastery is only for the area its in, while you can take elite specs anywhere.

I honestly didnt have much beef with the concept of hero points, once they reduced it to 250, it was kind of foolish at 400, by the time you could use the specialization, you had already finished all the zones.

Ok… and what purpose does progression serve?

Let me guess, something like, “So people have goals.”

But why do goals need to be tied to something so essential to learning and playing your class, like access to your specs?

hmm thats probably because its the thing people most want to do. If i have to choose one thing thats going to make me want to do content its probably going to be new skills/builds/ways to play the game.

the next best thing is a series of challenging content progression thats fairly easy to start (10 man is a hurdle to me)

skins dont impress me, increasing damage is mostly so that i can better do challenging content, its not a joy in and of itself.

Gw2 is a lot about the maps, so they need some carrots to make people explore.

What is your general purpose in doing new maps?

Hmm. Thanks for asking.

I guess for me, I like doing new maps for the satisfaction of completion. The map completion system in this game gives me a feeling of satisfaction when I’ve filled out everything it wants me to do.

This is one reason why HoT was such a disappointment for me, because I’d traditionally done such map completion solo, and I couldn’t do that very well, if at all, with the way the hero points were made for groups.

Edit: The transmutation charge is a nice icing on the cake for me as well, since I’m into skins and fashion.

phys.7689:

the point is the same reason we have to unlock skills and traits by leveling in core. To have progression again. To give you a real reason and benefit for exploring the new maps.
Mastery also serves this purpose, but mastery is only for the area its in, while you can take elite specs anywhere.

I honestly didnt have much beef with the concept of hero points, once they reduced it to 250, it was kind of foolish at 400, by the time you could use the specialization, you had already finished all the zones.

Ok… and what purpose does progression serve?

Let me guess, something like, “So people have goals.”

But why do goals need to be tied to something so essential to learning and playing your class, like access to your specs?

Dawdler.8521:

If people cant follow simple instructions I fail to see why you need them in the guild.

Heh… from my experiences in guild leadership, you’d have no guild if you took that mindset to its literal conclusion.

Vayne.8563:

All the new maps after bloodstone fen have hearts…and repeatable hearts at that. Bitterfrost is actually my least favorite of the new maps. That’s because of the annoying things that freeze you for two seconds. Not a fan. I’ve farmed berries on the map, like everyone else, but I much prefer Ember Bay for farming karma and doing dailies and such.

Obviously if you need unbound magic fast, Bitterfrost is the way to go.

I haven’t been in bloodstone fen or ember bay yet. I think I might need to use a Teleport to Friend, since I don’t have ch1 or 2 unlocked of the next part. Apparently I logged in at some point to get ch3 and then more recently, ch4, but I missed the other two. I thought I read somewhere that you need the story to get there.

Illconceived Was Na.9781:

So I write again: gear progression is a standard mechanic in a lot of games that people find fun. That doesn’t mean it’s appropriate, let alone necessary, for this game. Those who want to see that change need to make a case for how it would improve things for the existing community, not just its proponents.

Fashion is the real gear progression in this game. Has been at least as far back as I started playing.

(Not arguing with you. Just commenting in relation to what you’re saying.)

It’s funny how perspectives can be different. When I log in, I always feel like there’s way too much to do that I could never possibly ever do and I get overwhelmed.

AliamRationem.5172:

Labjax.2465:

Pretty sure I understand what you’re saying. That if you can only use one elite spec at a time, it trivializes having more than one. Sure, it’s more options, but saying it’s more options as a justification for having to choose one or the other doesn’t make a lot of sense, considering you have 3 slots for choosing how to put your build flavor together.

Ultimately, it limits the kind of options you could have. Granted, for Anet, it’s probably technical reasons and it eases up on the number of combinations they need to balance for. But there’s no getting around the fact that if you have to choose one or the other, it means less of an expansion on build options than it could be.

Restrictions like this can actually expand diversity. Consider the current issue many classes have with only one elite spec: Since it is generally more powerful across the board, for most classes it’s difficult to justify a build that doesn’t include the elite spec.

If you add another elite spec and don’t limit it to one, you double down on that issue and further restrict diversity even while adding something new to the mix. We’re still limited to 3 specs, and now we have 2 of them that are very hard to pass up.

However, with this restriction we face a different scenario. Chances are good that you will still want to choose one of the elite specs. So if the elite spec is the base you build upon, you have now doubled your options.

In that sense it can actually make balancing easier as you are no longer balancing the elite spec against the original specs, but elite spec against elite spec. Diversity should increase and balancing should also be easier from the dev side.

I think it’s a smart move, personally.

In the context of elite specs intending to be better, I see the reasonability in what you’re saying, but that is a choice they made and kind of an odd one for a game with multiple specializations, to intentionally design one that is supposed to be better.

Cause doing it that way essentially means that certain builds that might have existed before no longer are relevant; builds to do with choosing 3 non-elite specs. Maybe it’s intentional to cut down on the total number of possible builds, but if so, it’s a sneaky way of making it look like options are expanded, when the number stays about the same, in terms of optimal.

Could be it has nothing to do with builds though; that making one intentionally better was to force peoples’ hand in buying the xpac. Wouldn’t be the first time games have done that sort of thing to pressure people into buying. It’s sad that it works this way, but some of the most customer-friendly MMOs on the market are also some of the sneakiest when they do choose to manipulate their customers.

Illconceived Was Na.9781:

Ok now I’m confused. What exactly are you proposing? A single chain of events that you do once per toon? I’d be okay with that.

(Your original description sounded an awful lot like what people asked for and we had for nearly two years: doing one event per trait. That was awful.)

As it stands now, I can do whatever hero challenges I want, whether everything in Core + a few in HoT or lots of stuff in HoT. I can go to WvW and use proofs of heroics. I have a lot of options. It just happens that it’s efficient to choose certain challenges and so some people feel it’s repetitive.

I’m suggesting that unlocking specs is no longer a ‘goal’ at all. You just get them once you’re high enough level. Including elite specs. And then at that point, HPs are repurposed to be something else.

I don’t really understand the point of making us unlock specs to begin with.

I don’t really know off the top of my head. $50 is a lot of money. And I’m still sore about the money I shelled out for HoT; I took a leap of faith with Anet that they would deliver and got burned. I don’t hate HoT, but it’s not really worth $50 to me.

I would have to wait and see in post-release gameplay what the expansion offers and go from there.

All I know is, the best way to sum up HoT for me was that it was an assortment of deliciously decorated cupcakes and cookies with sand in the middle. I don’t want to go through that again. I’m going to wait till I find out what’s inside.

From the sound of it, the best solution on Anet’s end would be to setup an option that officers/leaders/etc. can toggle, choosing to only let them complete it, or let anyone complete it. That way the choice is in the hands of the players and it doesn’t disrupt any existing ways of playing, apart from trolling.

If I understand you correctly (it sounds like you’re essentially saying “crafting is too expensive”) then I agree completely. GW2 pretends like its gearing system is easy, but I’ve played treadmill MMOs that have a friendlier gearing system.

But this is just one component of a system built on spin. For example, I distinctly recall them saying something along the lines of wanting to reward players with loot, where other games make it hard to get drops at all. So what does GW2 do? You get tons of loot, but most of it is recycle bait, or 1/10,000th of something desirable.

I don’t think GW2’s system is all that bad overall, but I don’t like being fed spin. Don’t try to tell me that you’re giving me a gift when you’re just giving me repackaged staples of the MMO genre. Show some respect.

The reintroduction of hearts gives me a touch of nostalgia. The flame mechanic in a frosty area with its warm glow makes me feel kind of cozy. And I’ve gotten some relaxed fun out of the events.

SlippyCheeze.5483:

Again, I’m gonna add to this by reminding y’all that other games cough WoW cough BDO cough StarWars MMO cough just discard XP at max level, more or less, and they didn’t die of it.

(Yes, I know that BDO doesn’t technically discard it, it just hits the diminishing returns curve so hard that nobody is past 68 to 69 or whatever, and the next step will be exponentially longer than that. No rewards exist for grinding toward it though.)

So claiming that GW2 is unique in all the world, and here but only here, will players quit because they don’t get rewarded for their XP, is a hard sell and requires some convincing proof about why it’s different…

The problem is that once you start doing X and then you take X away, people are usually more upset than if you never put X in, in the first place.

And this is a real problem with online games because they get changed and it’s not always in ways that people like.

Which brings me to…
(this other quote is from ProtoGunner… not showing his name for funky forum structure reasons)

Probably, but I tell you something about human behaviour: Our nature is to overcome challenges even though we don’t like it.

1. You either do the escort and you don’t have to worry about this issue anymore
2. You live with the fact, that Anet decided to make things how they are
3. You wait until they change it

I have to admit that it may be not fair for those who don’t want to raid. But if you have such big issues with it you probably have to learn that life and even life in a game may force you to do something that isn’t all a pleasure. I’d understand the constant moaning if you had to complete the whole raid or a harder boss. But it isn’t. It’s really not hard. People have to learn that they are not eligible for everything in life but if they want it they have to work for it. Yes, even in a game. Maybe I think this way be cause I play games since the good old Nintendo difficulty times; it was quite normal to not finish a game at all. In fact, I haven’t finished about half of all the games I had and it was okay. I always kept thinking that I was bad I had to be better. Not the other way around.

The ‘good old’ Nintendo games were not online games. What you got was what you got, no ifs, ands, or buts, and you knew that going in. With online games, what you get may be something else next Thursday. It’s a whole different mindset. Some people can have quite a lot of patience when it comes to waiting for changes and continuing to ask for them because they know it’s a possibility. Others will ask and forget, or ask and leave when the wish is not fulfilled.

But the mindset with regards to asking for change is rooted in a reasonable belief that sometimes requests will be fulfilled because sometimes they are.

Pretty sure I understand what you’re saying. That if you can only use one elite spec at a time, it trivializes having more than one. Sure, it’s more options, but saying it’s more options as a justification for having to choose one or the other doesn’t make a lot of sense, considering you have 3 slots for choosing how to put your build flavor together.

Ultimately, it limits the kind of options you could have. Granted, for Anet, it’s probably technical reasons and it eases up on the number of combinations they need to balance for. But there’s no getting around the fact that if you have to choose one or the other, it means less of an expansion on build options than it could be.

Illconceived Was Na.9781:

Labjax.2465:

I think they should do away with HPs being a requirement for elite specs and instead have them be repeatable content that gives map-related rewards.

Please no. I don’t want to repeat identical events for every character I have, to get elite specs.

Incidental, hero challenges are already repeatable content that gives map-related rewards. The difference is that we can choose any challenge we like, on any map.

phys.7689:

Illconceived Was Na.9781:

Labjax.2465:

I think they should do away with HPs being a requirement for elite specs and instead have them be repeatable content that gives map-related rewards.

Please no. I don’t want to repeat identical events for every character I have, to get elite specs.

Incidental, hero challenges are already repeatable content that gives map-related rewards. The difference is that we can choose any challenge we like, on any map.

huh? dont we already repeat identical events for every charachter to get elite specs? i though he wanted to remove hero points from elite specs completely.

Yeah, I’m just as confused as you, phys. I’m suggesting they are no longer required at all (except, I spose, for map completion, but even that… I thought about proposing that they are removed from the map completion requirement for HoT maps, since they would be even more clearly defined as cyclical content intended for groups in this way and map completion is traditionally something that is designed to be manageable solo).

Right now, you do have to repeat identical events for every character you have, to get elite specs. I’m wanting to get away from that irritation.

Illconceived Was Na.9781:

So the question we have to ask ourselves is:
Do we want legendary armor that badly? Or do we want it because it’s new & shiny?

Honestly? I want to wear it for a day. Just one day, decked out in full legendary armor and a legendary weapon. I think that’s all I really want from it, anyway; to experience it. Owning it is a whole other thing. The flashiness would probably lose its luster after a while and become a normal weapon/armor to me.

I imagine that it would be a nice feeling to own it, to feel like it was something I could use at any time. But I’d probably not use it as much as I would enjoy the feeling of being able to use it if I want to. It makes me feel powerful, which in turn makes me feel safer and more secure, to feel like I have access to things that are designed to have a barrier of entry.

I think they should do away with HPs being a requirement for elite specs and instead have them be repeatable content that gives map-related rewards.

Something like:

HPs spawn on a timer, like most events, and are set to spawn more often during lulls in meta periods and more rarely (or never) during the most intense meta periods (ex: the octovine in VB).

Completing them gives you pieces of mastery points, with you needing 50 pieces total to make one mastery point. The combat HPs give you 10 pieces, so if you do 5 of those, you get 1 mastery point. The non-combat ones (communing) give you 2 pieces and reset on a separate, daily timer.

If you eventually have used all the mastery points you can use and are ending up with excess pieces, you can, instead of combining the pieces into complete mastery points, sell them to an exchange merchant, who gives you HoT map currencies (ex: leyline crystals) in exchange for mastery pieces at a ratio of 1 crystal for every 2 mastery pieces.

This change could theoretically be applied fully to the HoT HPs only, at first. For the Core Tyria HPs, the only change would be that they now give pieces of masteries (the idea being to save time changing every HP in the game and plus, the HoT HPs are the ones that really warrant the challenge of repetition anyway).

Vayne.8563:

Labjax, it may be because you took a break from the game but I can assure you that people that play higher end content can survive the jungle in zerker gear. The people who follow the meta tend to get zerker gear, but I have plenty of people in my guild who use other options, because it’s a casual guild. They didn’t have to change their armor at all.

A lot of it really is just knowing the enemy to survive.

I was not intending to say that no one can survive in the jungle in zerker gear; probably 90% of my HoT play-time after launch and upon returning was in zerker gear, and masteries, I would argue, were a more significant factor overall in how well I navigated and survived, as the best form of gliding alone can do a lot for allowing you to simply avoid/bypass packs of mobs.

My meaning is that if one is struggling to survive in the jungle alone, part of the advice or conclusion would likely be to spec and/or gear differently, as it gives you a little more room to make mistakes, which is a much more palpable factor if you’re roaming solo. And that brings in problems with the difficulty in having multiple sets of gear in this game, as well as other factors I mentioned.

Note the emphasis on alone. As I’ve previously stated in the thread, the revive system trivializes most issues to do with trying to survive. And I didn’t mention this part before, but with the commander system and squads, being in a large group can mostly trivialize getting lost as well, provided the commander is keeping an eye out for stragglers.

Solo play is where these problems I’m describing are most felt. Same story with the ‘fight’ variant hero points in HoT; many of them possible to solo with the right class/build/skill, but certainly not built to accommodate the solo player. And that is what I’ve mostly been when I play GW2; solo play. I’ve done a lot of dynamic event content as well, but sometimes I just want to be on my own. GW2 prior to HoT accommodated that pretty distinctly in map exploration prior to HoT. I did every map completion in vanilla GW2 at one point or another and the only time that I can distinctly remember feeling like it was skirting on hard-limited for solo play was one HP in Orr and I think I ended up besting it solo anyway, with my Mesmer.

HoT ‘fight’ variant HPs are a whole other league. They are in the, “If you’re a master of defeating enemies solo in GW2 that aren’t supposed to be soloable then this will be a tuesday for you” league.

But I suppose this is really just a lot of words to say the same general thing: That HoT was a door slam for people like me who got joy out of solo map completion and aren’t masters of doing things you aren’t intended to be able to do.

And it’s still a door slam now, which is why I’ll probably have a little bit of fun in the feeling of freshness from being away and then leave again, as the hard-limited feeling starts setting in anew. I already got kind of miffed the other day that I wanted to unlock the elite spec on my 80 boost new character and had forgotten just how many HP points you need, if you go at it fresh. It’s even worse since I boosted and I didn’t get any dinky ones in leveling up along the way, in Central Tyria. So I boosted to 80 to meet a grind for my elite spec that I was looking forward to having as part of my character ASAP… that was an annoying feeling.

SepiaBrownie.7504:

As I’m diving more into HOT I’m realizing more of why people are complaining about difficulty. Don’t get me wrong, I like mobs having interesting mechanics and I like challenging maps. (although, I will admit HOT content is gett’in my sheeze but I think that’s because my gear isn’t that great) What I don’t like is being forced to learn certain things in a certain order in order to travel through the maps when before I didn’t have to. (aka the mastery system) I had choices on how I could do things in the other maps in the base game. While in these maps I don’t + if I want to learn certain mastery’s I HAVE to do them in HOT maps.

So far I feel like HOT stripped away a lot of the freedoms that the base game gave. So the difficulty and challenge isn’t really in the players hands anymore but game’s. Like before, if I wanted to do a dungeon, or a jumping puzzle (which I love). Those where challenges that are there and I can chose if I want to do them or not. If I didn’t want to, well, I wasn’t missing anything in terms of personal progression or story. Now, if I don’t do HOT maps. I’m missing not only personal story but also mastery points & features attached to those mastery points.

Idk, I think if they made it to where there wasn’t mastery points that you HAD the learn in HOT. I don’t think there would be as many complaints. ’cause than people can learn in other maps and than apply those skills in the HOT maps. Which would possibly make them easier to process for the player.

So after having played a bit more recently, I paid attention to how difficult the maps seemed. I compared my experiences now, (I think over a year later), to my experiences when I first played HoT with little to no masteries.

Note that before I quit playing a while back, I had unlocked all but leyline gliding, I’d unlocked nunoch wallows, bouncy mushrooms, and speed boost mushrooms.

What I found is that navigating around is much easier than the HoT I remember playing initially.

I also noticed that something as simple as having soldier’s gear on (which I had from finally using my level 80 boost token on a new char) made a significant difference in how easily I died. The zerker meta meant that a lot people went into HoT in full squish spec and gear.

The takeaway for me is:

1) To me, it offers more evidence for the idea you’re proposing that too much was tied to the masteries themselves. I don’t think the masteries ever should have been tied to essential navigation systems designed into the maps; rather, the masteries for HoT maps should have had more to do with zone-based bonuses or perks (or they could have just not had zone-specific masteries to begin with and made it all center around a central set of masteries). This probably would have been less immersive, but ultimately delivered a better gameplay experience out of the gate.

2) Gear has some issues. Namely: If you want to customize your appearance and not use an outfit, you have to use the transmutation system and so if you want to own more than one set of gear, you’re looking at a daunting situation for doing both appearance customization and gear setup. Then there’s bag space, of course… no one wants to lug around extra sets of gear.

The reason I bring this up as an issue is, the (what still seems to be standing) zerker meta means that most players are going to choose squish gear, so that they will be, on average, most effective, no matter what content they choose to go into. It is, in other words, the “standard” gear set. And with squish gear, you’re all that more likely to die from one or two mistakes in content like what HoT provides.

Or to put it another way: Survivability builds and gear are, one would think, the straightforward decision to make if one is going to be roaming around content like HoT maps a lot, alone. But it’s not necessarily as simple as “go make one.” Not only are builds themselves restricted by the need to unlock elite specs before you have your full range of builds, but by the time a fresh 80 player enters the actual HoT maps, they may have already carefully pieced together a set of orange zerker gear and spent transmutation charges on piecing together a custom appearance.

Now they are getting told, whether by another player or their own instincts, that they not only need to go revisit their whole set of gear… but they may also want to unlock their elite spec. Which partially means navigating the new zones, with no masteries, without their elite spec, to get access to the things that they feel, or are being told, are advisable to navigate the zones with.

phys.7689:

Labjax.2465:

Dashingsteel.3410:

I agree partially that HoT is designed to be more challenging but I feel that is in regards to the enemies you face and some of the semi-platforming elements. I do not believe that Anet intended navigation to be more difficult.

The great majority of maps in core gw2 have navigation that is clear cut. The only maps in gw2 that aren’t are the grove, rata sum, and the black citadel. The reason they aren’t is that they are mutli-tiered just like the HoT maps.

This IS a problem of the minimap not being compatible with multitiered maps.

Why even offer a revealed map and minimap if you intend for your players to memorize and learn the map?? I don’t think Anet intended to change the game in this kind of direction.

I am not talking about an undiscovered map. I am talking about a map that has been fully explored and revealed already.

I think I see what you’re saying and I’m inclined to believe it. That they did not anticipate the issues of a multi-layered map in their mini-map design.

i think that yall have a point, but yall missed the real meaning.
some maps are not designed to be easy to navigate via map, theyvare designed to be consistent with themselves.

rata sum, is in fact designed to be extremely convient, IF you know rata sum well. its very poorly designed if you dont.

black citadelnis supposed to be designed by a race who places powerful and agressive designs over ease of use. char dont particularly feel things should be easy.

verdant brink is not supposed to be a designed area, its a natural jungle thrown asunder by a crazy dragon tree natural disaster.

and yes exploration has way more depth in hot than in other areas. there is way more hidden things, and its easy to get lost. part of the difficulty in hot is that knowing the map is a huuge advantage. i dont think thatbis unintentional.

but a side effect of making these complex areas, is that the map is not the best tool for navigating it.

but that is a lesser consideration than the map itself achieving its goals.

really you guys dont like the concept of verdant brink and tangled depths, verdant brink is supposed to be a wild lands, and tangled depths is labrynth like.

which is fine, while having a few maps like this is a good variety.
because its all packaged in one expansion, people feel like the expansion was a waste for them, if they have this opinion.

good news is i dont think the next expansion is about a similar thing. it most likely will focus on having a lot of stuff spread out, and the travel is about doing it faster and getting new places, over unlocking the secrets of a small complicated area.

I think I get your argument (that the design choices are reflective of the theme for the area) but I disagree with that being a good idea, presuming that it was the motivation. At the end of the day, this is an MMO and functionality > theme. Because after being in a specific area for the millionth time, it’s the functionality that is going to matter to you, not whether it fits a theme that long ago became a scotoma.

I believe I addressed this point in some way earlier, in saying something to the effect of, “Sometimes emphasis on immersion can hurt gameplay.”

But ultimately, it seems that the defense of maps like Tangled Depths boils down to, “Some people like it.” Which is fine on an opinion level, with regards to who enjoys what, but I don’t agree with it being a strong choice on the design level for the majority of players.

BlazingPyro.3697:

Labjax.2465:

I never felt like Dragon’s Stand was designed with a lot of foresight in mind. Every map needs to be imagined with the scenario that it will one day be dead, with virtually no one doing it. The reason is just the sheer number of maps and the churning out of new maps, which automatically tend to take the majority of map population due to being new.

One side I would like to point out about this, Dragon’s Stand is the ONLY way to get Crystalline Ore, which is needed for both the 2nd Generation Legendary Weapons (Gift of Maguuma Mastery) as well as for Legendary Armor (Crystalline Heart) so I find it hard that the map will just die out and be dead.

Maybe so. I’ve been away a while, so I’m not familiar with all of the recent stuff. I played a lot in and after HoT, but then pretty much quit sometime in 2016 (I think?). Or maybe it was 2015 that I quit. These past few years have been something of a blur.

Sartharina.3542:

Labjax.2465:

I never felt like Dragon’s Stand was designed with a lot of foresight in mind. Every map needs to be imagined with the scenario that it will one day be dead, with virtually no one doing it. The reason is just the sheer number of maps and the churning out of new maps, which automatically tend to take the majority of map population due to being new.

Over time, it becomes harder and harder to access the content on a map tied to group stuff and the design idea that players can organically be a part of the content and complete it gets mucked up.

One way to alleviate this problem would be to put strong weekly or daily focus on particular maps. Something very in-your-face and easy to notice when you log in that indicates that it would be a wise idea to do X map today because you’ll get a lot better rewards than doing the other maps (things like double XP, for instance, or better drop rates for rare items). This could include a lot of older maps and would give people a more organic way to slip into content they need, without detailed planning and monitoring timers.

Some people have schedules clear enough for detailed planning and monitoring timers, but for some, the organic design is vital because they just log in when they can and play when they can, and if the content isn’t available when they can play, they’re out of luck.

“Daily Dragon’s Stand Event Completer” is already a thing. And, it’s on a World-Boss-Style timer, so it’s easy to LFG for.

Huh. Ok. I didn’t notice it, so either I’m living in durr central or it’s tucked away somewhere.

What’s the reward though? Is it much of an incentive? Cause what I’m thinking of would be more of a 24-hour kind of thing. Where people are incentivized to do that kind of content for as much as they have time to do on X day. That way, instead of the “daily rush” phenomenon where the majority of people get it out of the way early in the day and have no motivation to do it again, there’s an extended period in which people have reason to do it continuously, creating a more ongoing flow of players doing the content throughout the day.

Sartharina.3542:

You’re having issues as a warrior? Do you have your elite spec fully unlocked?

As a full berzerker, given the durability of the enemies, I’d suggest running something like Greatsword/Rifle, using Strength (Mid, Mid, Top), Defense (Mid, top, mid), and Berzerker (Top, Top, Bottom), with either Healing Signet or Blood Reckoning, Endure Pain (Stunbreak+damage mitigation. You also have this at 50% health for breathing room if things start going pear-shaped), Balanced Stance (Stunbreak+stability, and swiftness for getting the hell out of bad places), Wild Blow (Strong CC), and Headbutt (Strong CC and instant adrenaline).

With a Greatsword, you should charge the boss (GS 5 is a strong gap closer), hit it with Headbutt, Berserk, Arc Divider, Blood Reckoning, Arc Divider, 100 Blades. Use Bladetrail if you have to kite for a short period of time, or switch to rifle if you’re forced back for an extended period (Rifle works better with the healing signet, depriving you of the second arc divider and healing burst from Arc Divider+100 Blades). Whirlwind is not only a powerful attack, but also an evade and repositioning ability. There’s also an adrenal mushroom, though it requires going out of your way. Still, it’s good for resetting your panic buttons before going in for a burst again.

Of course, that’s just the strategy I used, and I love my GS warrior. There are probably other builds that work as well.

Also – Screw the pale tree. Too many mechanics on that fight. Canach’s is MUCH more fun. He just spams CC grenades (Which Eternal Champion and Balanced Stance negate), and is kinda tough in melee.

Thanks for the strategy tips. I’ll be sure to come back here for them if I get an urge to do the fight again.

Vayne.8563:

Why not just ask someone to come and join you. The fight is far more fun with more people and goes much faster. If you’re on a US server I’ll do it with you.

I appreciate you offering, but right now, I have basically zero desire to go back in there, with or without people along.

Dashingsteel.3410:

I agree partially that HoT is designed to be more challenging but I feel that is in regards to the enemies you face and some of the semi-platforming elements. I do not believe that Anet intended navigation to be more difficult.

The great majority of maps in core gw2 have navigation that is clear cut. The only maps in gw2 that aren’t are the grove, rata sum, and the black citadel. The reason they aren’t is that they are mutli-tiered just like the HoT maps.

This IS a problem of the minimap not being compatible with multitiered maps.

Why even offer a revealed map and minimap if you intend for your players to memorize and learn the map?? I don’t think Anet intended to change the game in this kind of direction.

I am not talking about an undiscovered map. I am talking about a map that has been fully explored and revealed already.

I think I see what you’re saying and I’m inclined to believe it. That they did not anticipate the issues of a multi-layered map in their mini-map design.

Vayne.8563:

Actually there are plenty of decisions Anet makes that are exactly they same and they said so. They expect people to have to learn certain fights and not master them right away. They said it about the marionette fight. They talked about, at that time, raising the bar higher and setting a situation where the community would have to come together and teach each other to get through the content. So yeah, they have had design meetings, and that’s exactly what they came up with at that time. Therefore, it’s probably not accurate to say that no design meeting ever went this way.

There have always been players that want everything spelled out for them, and players who are annoyed when everything is spelled out for them. However, getting around and learning a zone IS the game very often, as learning to get to a hard vista or get through a hard jumping puzzle was the game originally.

I know a lot of people couldn’t easily get to the vista at the end of the breached wall blitz jumping puzzle in the core game. It’s a vista and a hero point if I’m not mistaken. Want to complete the zone, do the JP, the entrance of which is no where near where those things are.

You either figure it out, or you look it up in the wiki or on Dulfy, or ask a guildie. There’s no tutorial for it. That’s how it was designed.

Anet figured, now that many people have been playing the game and have the basics down, they can do more for the people who play a bit better, or the people who don’t want to have their hand held through every single section.

I personally get annoyed when I’m doing a story and a giant red arrow on the minimap tells me where I need to go…sometimes even when there’s only one way TO go.

Saying that no company designs content you have to work your way through is simply untrue.

Oh, also, unless you’re going to tell me you were in the room for those design meetings, I don’t think you understand how it works. I hardly think the meetings consisted of, “Players will learn. Next.” There is a huge difference between a design philosophy to do with progressive learning and a carte blanche excuse that confusing or challenging doesn’t matter because “players will learn.” I’d be amazed for any of them having jobs if they tried to make it that simplistic. The whole process is long and detailed, and, like most creative endeavors, easy to screw up. And it is a process, not a magic eight ball.

Vayne.8563:

Actually there are plenty of decisions Anet makes that are exactly they same and they said so. They expect people to have to learn certain fights and not master them right away. They said it about the marionette fight. They talked about, at that time, raising the bar higher and setting a situation where the community would have to come together and teach each other to get through the content. So yeah, they have had design meetings, and that’s exactly what they came up with at that time. Therefore, it’s probably not accurate to say that no design meeting ever went this way.

There have always been players that want everything spelled out for them, and players who are annoyed when everything is spelled out for them. However, getting around and learning a zone IS the game very often, as learning to get to a hard vista or get through a hard jumping puzzle was the game originally.

I know a lot of people couldn’t easily get to the vista at the end of the breached wall blitz jumping puzzle in the core game. It’s a vista and a hero point if I’m not mistaken. Want to complete the zone, do the JP, the entrance of which is no where near where those things are.

You either figure it out, or you look it up in the wiki or on Dulfy, or ask a guildie. There’s no tutorial for it. That’s how it was designed.

Anet figured, now that many people have been playing the game and have the basics down, they can do more for the people who play a bit better, or the people who don’t want to have their hand held through every single section.

I personally get annoyed when I’m doing a story and a giant red arrow on the minimap tells me where I need to go…sometimes even when there’s only one way TO go.

Saying that no company designs content you have to work your way through is simply untrue.

Your whole post is predicated on something I didn’t say.

I stated, "If the go-to defense for the maps being complicated is ‘you eventually learn them,’ that’s not a defense that would fly in any design meeting I could respectfully be a part of. " Meaning, I would either argue the point, or leave the room having lost respect for my fellow designers. Which is a point I made in response to players arguing that HoT maps are fine “because you eventually learn them.” I then expanded on my point in detail, explaining the reasoning behind why I feel that way about it.

And I further added, later in the post, “That being said, arguments over design choices I welcome and I’m not right about everything when it comes to games. But this stuff about ‘you eventually learn’ is not a good argument.” To make it clear that I am open to alternative arguments surrounding the subject, but “people will eventually learn” is not a good one.

I did NOT say that no game has ever made such a decision, intended or otherwise (???).

You are just confusing the issue with your post, turning it into a rebuttal of an argument that wasn’t made, so that you can try to dismiss the point.

Feanor.2358:

Labjax.2465:

MMOs do have a learning curve a lot of the time. I get that kind of defense. But it isn’t a carte blanche excuse for complexity or confusing design. It’s possible to make something too complicated or too confusing.

So basically, never make any cool/exciting map design because you’ll confuse players at first? That’s a cowardly stance which I’m glad ANet didn’t take.

No, it all comes back to how you do it. I’m confident that some of the most complicated systems created by human beings were almost never perceived as complicated because of how they were done.

As an example in film because it’s the quickest example that comes to mind, critics have lauded Mad Max: Fury Road for the cinematography. The makers of the film took what had great potential to be an insanely confusing visual experience with all of the intersecting action going on and used camera tricks to make scenes flow together better visually, producing a more naturally seamless experience for the eye.

AliamRationem.5172:

The game provides numerous examples of niche gameplay. What you find too complicated or confusing, others consider a great feature of the game. There are 4 maps in HoT, and only one of them really pushes the envelope on this. You say it’s poor design, but as TD is my favorite map and I’m dying to see at least one more like it in the next expansion, I have to disagree. They didn’t make all of the maps so confusing.

I can’t really disagree with this, as it’s factually true that some will like what others don’t. For every criticism that an artistic project gets, if you involve enough people, odds are there will be some people who like it, if not love it.

Doesn’t stop me from giving constructive criticism though.

In response to the point about learning maps:

1) If the go-to defense for the maps being complicated is “you eventually learn them,” that’s not a defense that would fly in any design meeting I could respectfully be a part of. There’s a reason that complex features often have tutorials to go along with them; to use the reading analogy that Vayne brought up, you don’t just hand a child a book and tell them to learn how to read. Reading is also a poor analogy as a defense because reading can take years to learn and that’s with heavy guidance and instruction. So if learning the maps is like learning to read, it’s way too difficult.

2) Some people have a poor sense of direction. Even with a map, they can get turned around easily. I am one of those people. No amount of playing the maps changes this fact. Instead of instinctively navigating spaces, I more or less have to memorize parts of them. This takes time.

3) The difference between navigating the HoT maps with most-to-all gliding mastery (and some non-gliding, like nunoch wallows) unlocked versus navigating it with no gliding mastery unlocked is night and day. And once again, this takes time to do. Meanwhile, you’re trying to unlock the masteries in the very maps that would be less confusing and difficult to navigate if you had the masteries. It’s a bit like having you play in the NBA, so that you can qualify for college basketball.

You might be inclined to skim over these points and go, “Well see, it all comes back to if you spend enough time, you’ll learn.” If so, you’re missing how poor of a design philosophy that is. You have to assume that people are going to misunderstand things, get confused, get frustrated, and that many will silently leave if they can’t figure out what to do. Because that’s what a lot of people naturally do when faced with an optional piece of recreation for which there is no obligation to stick with it.

As a contrary example, some will keep going as a matter of pride, or because they want the challenge. But many won’t and I guarantee you the many that won’t make up the majority of the gaming population. The gaming population isn’t a small, devoted crowd anymore. It’s a monstrous behemoth of a spectrum, with wildly varying skill levels.

But more important than that is the fact that… good design makes the player feel smart for doing virtually nothing; good design teaches the player how to be smart and instills confidence in them; good design is like an invisible mentor that stays with you, no matter how good you get. The point being, if you’re going to get defensive about how something is designed, you better have an argument that’s stronger than “people will get over it.” Because if your hope is that people will get over it, you’re about saying, “Yes, the car is on fire, but it will burn itself out eventually and then I can drive home.”

By the time the problem has resolved itself, it’s too late to fix the issue.

That being said, arguments over design choices I welcome and I’m not right about everything when it comes to games. But this stuff about “you eventually learn” is not a good argument. If I’m a filmmaker and release a movie, I don’t want it to “eventually” become a box office hit; it needs to be one now and it’s got a small window in which it can pull that off.

MMOs do have a learning curve a lot of the time. I get that kind of defense. But it isn’t a carte blanche excuse for complexity or confusing design. It’s possible to make something too complicated or too confusing.

flog.3485:

I understand your reasons, but I disagree so much with your perception of what the game should be. First of all, HoT was never supposed to be the core experience that you describe. They marketed the expansion as being challenging, they provided beta weekends for it and they always said that HoT was supposed to be end game content that the game didn’t have before. And quite frankly, do you really believe that they would create only 4 for maps that you can breeze through as easily as core tyria maps? Maybe you like that perspective, but to me it would have felt like a rip-off. Imo the easy nature of core maps only work because there is plenty of those. Second of all they have always pushed for more difficult mobs and content. You don’t breeze through karkas and silverwaste mobs the same way you breeze through core levelling maps. The thing is, even in core levelling maps there is content that require players to know more about skills, traits and weapons. These are called current events such as the anomaly, the bandits and the bloodstone crazed creatures. Even defending the colony of ascalon in gendarran fields is quite hard with no people around you (and to be honest I have already failed twice at it though I need it for a collection). Let’s not forget that Orr maps was harder at release also. And seriously, to conclude, what is the point of having this fantastic combat system if we can just breeze through easy content without having to take notice of what we need to do ?

Again though, it’s not just about breezing through or not breezing through. It’s about how the maps are designed. You can have a map that has difficult content in it, without arranging it in a way that makes it an exercise in frustration for casual exploration.

Part of this has to do with waypoints and them being contested or not contested. It ends up with the meta taking priority over getting around. Frankly, you should be able to waypoint into a contested waypoint if you want, just with the risk of dying and that’s your choice to take that risk. Even if it’s on a cooldown, so you can’t just zerg an event. It should at least be an option, for those who just want to get around the map and don’t want to wait for meta progress, or take the long route.

And again, there’s a difference between punishing design and challenging design. Punishing design can be challenging, but challenging doesn’t have to be punishing.

I think back to some of the old maps and what I remember is dangerous areas, but also a lot of open space where you aren’t going to get immediately attacked by anything. Maps can be challenging, without being too crowded by mobs. It doesn’t have to be one or the other. Some of the old maps did it fine; you would have areas that were dangerous, some of which you’d have to go into to complete certain parts of exploration. And you’d have large spaces that were not dangerous at all and which you could just stand in with ease, while you planned your next move.

I get that HoT maps are supposed to create a sense of danger because you are going straight into mordy’s domain, but at a certain point, prioritizing story immersion can damage the gameplay experience, if done the wrong way. It’s like the example of a repeated dialogue phrase from a companion in a single-player game; you have to be careful about choosing something that isn’t going to drive the player crazy.

Similarly, designing maps in such a way that they can quickly exhaust people seems wrong-footed to me.

I never felt like Dragon’s Stand was designed with a lot of foresight in mind. Every map needs to be imagined with the scenario that it will one day be dead, with virtually no one doing it. The reason is just the sheer number of maps and the churning out of new maps, which automatically tend to take the majority of map population due to being new.

Over time, it becomes harder and harder to access the content on a map tied to group stuff and the design idea that players can organically be a part of the content and complete it gets mucked up.

One way to alleviate this problem would be to put strong weekly or daily focus on particular maps. Something very in-your-face and easy to notice when you log in that indicates that it would be a wise idea to do X map today because you’ll get a lot better rewards than doing the other maps (things like double XP, for instance, or better drop rates for rare items). This could include a lot of older maps and would give people a more organic way to slip into content they need, without detailed planning and monitoring timers.

Some people have schedules clear enough for detailed planning and monitoring timers, but for some, the organic design is vital because they just log in when they can and play when they can, and if the content isn’t available when they can play, they’re out of luck.

Vayne.8563:

Except that if you get hits on an event, and you can’t get back to it, most of the time you still get credit anyway. It’s just not as punishing as you say.

In fact, I often get credit for events I’ve barely touched in HOT, just as I’m passing by.

Event credit isn’t really the issue. Though ironically, you’re describing tagging events and getting credit, but some of them in HoT are structured with such gaps in things happening that it’s easy to have participating credit lapse even though you’re actively trying to contribute.

But that’s not what I was referring to anyway. I’m more referring to the fact that if you are roaming solo, mobs are merciless and there’s no way around it but to group or be very reactive and prepared. I feel like I remember reading that they nerfed them a little bit at some point and they were even worse than they are now, at release.

One of the things I remember enjoying about this game in the past was exploring maps and completing them on my own, at my own pace. It was kind of relaxing and gently fulfilling in an entertaining way. HoT maps, you can barely stand still without aggroing a group of mobs that will quickly kill you (if you aren’t sufficiently reactive/prepared). There’s just no room on those maps for relaxed exploration. When I paid for HoT, on some level, I thought I would be getting more of the thing I liked and I didn’t. And that was upsetting.

And it doesn’t help that with how the maps are laid out, I have to pull my map out a lot to figure out where I am and where I need to go, which means I now have to “pause” and stand still. I did some maneuvering around a map tonight in Tangled Depths and was spending half my time checking for a “safe space” or taking a 1-2 second peep at the map, like I was in a warzone and expecting to be shot at any moment. It was tense and frustrating, and I felt relived when I logged out.

I am not what I’d call a “casual gamer” either. I used to be very hardcore in one game and my first instinct is to look for the depth in game systems. But I never played this particular game for that. I played it for the more relaxed, flowing experience. And HoT did not provide that.

phys.7689:

actually guild wars always required skills, just not in the open world. And your analysis that twitch and thinking are opposites is incorrect. You can negate some attacks, but they dont give you enough evasion to negate all attacks.

The instances in GW2 are not so much easier than HOT maps. Hot maps are actually more clear with their mechanics really. People just got carried, or someone simplifying their part in the plan. like tequatl, they came up with a system where a few people do all the work, and most people auto attack till they die. Fractals past a certain level also needed plans/skills on the level of HoT.

Also your theory about people not liking learning from punishing games is completely wrong. Have you hung out with any kids these days? have you looked at what they play on their phones/tablets? you know one of the most popular games is undertale? Teaching people by letting them fail is still going strong. its a game, a test of skill or ability or challenge, its not real life. dying in a game isnt the end of the world for most people who play games, 20 years ago, or today.

I’m not saying hot has no problems, but i think its hardness is over estimated. I think its mostly confirmation bias. People are told HoT is hard, you are going to fail because of HoT, not because of yourself, and when they fail they blame hot.

Id say a bigger problem with hot, than enemy difficulty, is how unapproachable the level design is when you have no masteries, combined with how difficult that makes it to get masteries by doing events, when you cant even figure out how to get to the events. Also hero points with enemies are designed for 2+ people so if you are soloing its a lot harder to do.

I don’t think we’re on the same wavelength regarding punishment. What you’re describing sounds like “failing until you succeed.” I don’t have anything against that.

When I talk about punitive, or punishing, design, I’m talking about games that make it harder to get back up and try again when you fail; the message being, to put it in that quirky militaristic way, “Failure is not an option.” That’s the message punishing design sends.

Design that is not punishing, or at least much less so, sends a message more along the lines of, “If you failed, here, have another go at it. You made progress, now continue where you left off. Your effort was worth something.” Or at the very least, “You lost some of your progress, but you can start over simply by clicking this button, in exactly the state that you were in on your last attempt.”

To put it in a rough analogy to real life, punishing game design is sort of like if, in real life, you were trying to learn how to skateboard and every time you lose your balance and fall, you break an arm and have to wait for it to heal. It’s discouraging because you have to stop and let your arm heal before you can try again.

So the issue with punishing design, though in my mind it’s partly an ideological issue, it’s also just impractical design for a lot of people because every step you make in being punishing is another chance that the player will just say “kitten this” and give up. Because punishment structures only work on a large scale when there’s a power hierarchy and the threat of consequences. If the player has no obligation to keep playing because, after all, it’s just a game, punishing mechanics are, more often than not, going to drive them away.

Vayne.8563:

I agree with this. HoT is more punishing of mistakes. The problem is the game prior to this has not be punishing enough and people don’t know how to play the game. They don’t know their professions. If the game had been more punishing people would have learned. They haven’t.

So they think HoT is too hard. It’s not. It’s punishing of mistakes that shouldn’t necessarily be made, at least not often.

I don’t find myself dying or running back a lot in HoT on any profession, and I’m not exactly a pro player, or a min maxer. I make my own builds. I don’t have ascended on most of my characters, except jewelry which is relatively easy to get. Even then some people only have exotics.

But I learned to play the game, so I don’t make that many mistakes, and so I enjoy HoT.

What people are really saying is that the game has failed to teach them how to play.

Yes and no. Punishing people generally doesn’t teach them how to play in the first place. It works for a dying generation of gamers who are into punishing design, but in the mainstream, it really doesn’t appeal. And I think you’d find that in the niche market where punishing design is desired, those are the same sort of players who take their punishingly-designed game experiences very seriously and will go seriously, super duper hardcore in figuring out how the game works to eke out every little advantage.

GW2 has always suffered from having a confusing combat system. The framework of it has some depth that would appeal to the super duper hardcore crowd, but the framework is also weighed down by a number of interlocking systems that don’t quite mesh.

Dodge, for instance, is a mechanic that basically allows you to trivialize any attack in the game if your timing is right (and provided it’s not on cooldown). It’s that simple. So on that level, the game seems insanely simple and if you’ve spent most of your gaming hours playing FPS titles, excelling with GW2’s dodge will probably be a breeze. It’s not really a thinking man’s mechanic though.

You go past dodge and it goes right into depth city. Gear stats, traits, abilities, etc… all the standard trimmings of a thinking man’s MMO.

Then you go to the revive system and with large groups, we’re back into twitch land and simple mechanics. Timing again (timing when to try to rez yourself) or timing of other players rezzing you in time. There’s a little thinking in it, in deciding whether to keep attacking to go for the rez-kill, or try to rez yourself, but it’s still very simple. While you’re downed, most of the thinking man’s complexity is nonexistent. And because, with large groups, it’s easy to get rezzed, even when dead, there’s little motivation to care much about dying.

So in a nutshell, GW2 is a thinking man’s game sandwiched in-between twitch mechanics that partially trivialize and undermine the thinking part of it. That’s why so many people know so little about their classes, their abilities, their gear, etc… because in most aspects of the game, there’s nothing even nudging them to bother. One might think that the obvious conclusion is that GW2 should have been harder and thus would have taught people better, but it may not have gotten the population it did if it was.

The fact is, the situation we ended up with is that there were a bunch of players who were happy with the style of the game (that style mostly being “you don’t need to bother”) and then HoT came in and said, “No, you definitely do need to bother. And if you don’t, your play experience will be miserable.”

Naturally, this miffed a lot of people.

To sum it all up, basically the game sends mixed messages: Think about everything, don’t think about anything. Maximize your output, no stat meters allowed (I’ve been away a while, I wonder if that’s still a thing?). Learn your class and gear, in large groups it doesn’t matter because of sheer volume of player pressure.

zealex.9410:

The base game makes a terrible job scaling the difficulty of the open world up until hot and since ppl wanted more challenge the hot maps ended up being harder. You said it your self “last night i gave zhaitan a beat down” thats not supposed to be the case its a god kitten elder dragon and it you litterally glitter it to death. I say hot does a nice job showing how dangerous should a jungle be and how devastating an elder dragon as well as his minions are.

I understand your frustration but its not the hot maps and story thats garbage its the core tyria that poorly balanced and overall facerol easy.

I don’t remember Zhaitan being easy when I did the final mission on my Mesmer. It just was more forgiving of mistakes than HoT is. That’s the main difference. HoT content punishes mistakes with swift, harsh retribution. The reason grouping makes it more bearable is because of how the revive system works; with enough players around, you can alleviate the punishment of mistakes with quick group revives. But it still doesn’t make the content any less punishing of mistakes.

Take HoT content and give it a revive system more like a classic MMO, where you can only battle rez every 5-10 minutes on a timer, or worse, you have to do a corpse run. No one other than niche die-hards would play it. The only saving grace for HoT content is the ease of rezzing downed or dead players and that only comes with being in a group.

People can argue about how objectively difficult HoT content is, but what can’t be refuted is that it’s inherently punishing of mistakes.

I guess this is me asking for strategy tips for the bosses, though I don’t really want to. I logged in and decided I’d finish up the story on my warrior, and then move on to the next part of the story that has come out (or at least, whatever is unlocked for me?).

I really just wanted something to dink around in as a distraction for a bit and then get back to RL work type stuff. Wasn’t looking to get deep into mechanics and builds and numbers and gear that I’m rusty about and don’t have the energy to study.

Instead, it seems that so far, the fight is much as I left it when it came out. The bosses are HP sponges and the fight isn’t built to be done solo. It favors some classes over others. It doesn’t prepare you in any way. And there still isn’t a repair stone in the penalty box, so that if you fail a lot, you can repair, instead of leaving all of your progress on the bosses to repair.

In most other games, I’d be saying, “Well Labjax, you went in on a warrior in a glassy build with berserker gear. What did you expect?” But I never used to have that kind of issue with the story in this game. I guess I forgot how much things changed.

Just kind of disappointed, really. I wanted a distraction and I got frustration. The prospect of learning how to beat the bosses doesn’t even excite me. I know I could do it eventually, but there’s clearly not much to learn. It’s mostly twitch mechanics, going in with the right build/gear/class, and not making too many consecutive mistakes. That’s not fun to me.

Oh and I guess if anyone wants to provide encouraging strategy tips, I chose the ones that make you fight Eir and Pale Tree. I beat Eir after, like, 10 minutes or something of slow as molasses fight. Pale Tree was a bit faster-pace, but overwhelmed me at the end. I remember now that Canach is supposed to be easier than Pale Tree, but that would mean going back and starting the whole thing over. I don’t feel any impetus to go again against the Pale Tree though. The mechanics are apparently just “progressively fling more stuff at you in a tight space until you win or die.” I don’t find it intriguing or interesting in any way. The prospect of doing it again is boring.

Whatever I once liked about this game is clearly not in the Hearts and Minds fight.

Sister Saxifrage.7361:

Maybe there’s a lot more warping and twisting visible around the waistband with pants? Or somewhere else on the legs, IDK. Skirts and long coats create a forgiving bell-shaped bubble from the waist down.

You know what, thinking about it some more, I bet it’s the butt. Because virtually every armor set that isn’t a trenchcoat has a buttcape. There must be some bad graphical problems happening in that area that they don’t want us to notice.

Definitely clipping issues. The few med tops that aren’t trenchoats clip pretty nastily if you match them with the wrong thing (or at best have a jagged cut-off line).

It’s anyone’s guess as to whether that’s the why though. More likely is its a “safe” decision, based on fear about rocking the boat and moving too far from the base theme. Thus, we get the extremely rare exception, but the theme is the standard.

It’s a pain if you like to be creative with making your own outfits. And for those of us who really enjoy that, it’s kind of annoying that the MMO market seems to be chock full of games that do really well in one aspect of outfit customization and then do poorly in another. Like GW2 does dyes really well, but then you need transmutation charges to actually change the armor and GW2 has little thematic variety in armor. Some games allow you to change the armor look for a cheap gold-like currency cost each time and/or have a lot of variations in armor styles, but fail supremely at having accessible use of dyes. And some don’t even have a wardrobe slot at all.

It’s frustrating, I tell you. Like being given half the ingredients in a sandwich.

I don’t have any vested interest in this game at the moment, but I do try to be helpful when I should be doing other things and am avoiding them:

I skimmed the red posts in this thread, using the arrows, and I have to say, the first post was solid communication. After that, I feel you’re being too confrontational with people. Focusing on the negative and calling attention to it makes you look bad in my eyes.

It’s not that I think you’re bad at what you do or something. It’s that on a fundamental psychological level, seeing most of the red posts focused on refuting player concerns adds up to something negative.

You made a tough decision – cool. You explained why – even cooler. You don’t need to justify it after that point. You can extrapolate if you feel you didn’t explain things well enough. You can commiserate. You can do as you did and focus on refuting those who are upset and are making arguments that are detrimental to the product you worked so hard on. But it won’t make you look good, of that I’m sure.

This is something I’ve seen more than once from different Anet staff members. I know it’s not what the thread is about – delete what I’ve said if that bothers you. I’m only saying it right now out of a genuine urge to be helpful. Maybe you don’t realize what it looks like.

Talking about something you love to people who are upset is a very difficult thing to do. What you gotta remember is… the people who are going to be upset are going to be upset, no matter what you say. How you handle their reactions says far more than the tough decision itself. Some people just aren’t going to be on your side, but this isn’t a comedian against a heckler in a podunk comedy club… here, you look stronger by letting those people spin their wheels and focusing on your message.

Every red post that gives negativity airtime over positivity is just giving a voice to the negativity. And by negativity, I don’t mean constructive, well-thought-out feedback. I mean, hateful, mean-spirited (and often exaggerated) comments.

It’s one of the first things I learned about the internet over the years from hanging out on internet forums. The best way to get a topic of conversation to die is to ignore it. The best way to ensure that more people see it is to fight about it.

From a game design standpoint, giving players a breakbar would be sort of like giving them a second health bar. With all balancing said and done, you more or less come out to the same thing.

The reason that breakbars make some semblance of sense on enemies, is that those same enemies are usually built for group play (e.g. higher ratio of players to enemies). So there is the expectation that a lot of CC is going to be coming at the enemies from the player. Breakbars are a way to regulate that CC in a way that is meaningful and adds to gameplay.

But player-player combat has no guarantee of an imbalanced ratio. Players can easily end up against each other one on one, where the concept of pushing through an arbitrary CC bar would quickly became an exercise in redundancy and stalemate. King against King, on the chess board, to put it one way.

In short: Big enemy up against lots of players – simplicity of breakbar works because of the inherent imbalance.

Players up against players – simplicity of breakbar would turn into another extraneous mechanic to tune that doesn’t necessarily add anything meaningful to gameplay.

And finally, players against NPCs with both having a breakbar… now you have a situation where you need to make sure you give NPCs enough CC that their CC toolbox can have a meaningful impact in player/NPC combat. Again, it becomes a matter of “too simple” for a complex series of interactions. You would be endlessly tweaking things to find the sweet spot between nullifying the point of NPCs having CC at all, and frustrating players with sudden stuns and vulnerabilities.

Ampa.2749:

Female cloths are crap. Clearly the target demographic is 14-18 year old males.

I gave up long ago and just bought a Jungle Explorer Outfit.

http://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/Jungle_Explorer_Outfit

I don’t believe that the cause of girl gamers is served by this sexist bias. Just my opinion.

I’m pretty confident that target demographic has jack all to do with it. Someone in the art department (or someone who hands down orders to the art department) has an obsession with buttcapes.

There’s nothing particularly sexist about creating different styles based on gender. Most, if not all, societies do it and it’s not always a matter of fully-clothed versus skimpy.

If you think GW2 light armors are targeted toward young males, go look at TERA for a dose of perspective. Most of the time, the closest GW2 armor comes to “skimpy” is some belly or sideboob showing. And there are plenty of super-easy-to-unlock light armors that cover every inch of skin.

The issue is the distinct lack of variation in style. Somewhere along the line, somebody decided “this is the style each armor is going to follow for gender and armor class” and they’ve stuck with it, with very few exceptions. So light armor has 99% buttcapes, medium has 99% trenchcoats, etc. For a mix and match system, it gets very repetitive.

The Mountain That Rides.4685:

Let’s say they become far easier to obtain. What happens? Oh, they become super cheap and far, far more common? Kinda like the core skins you say nobody want to use.

Guess why nobody wants to use the core skins. Hint: b/c they are common. Take the crystalline and sephis axe skins in this game. Few use them, yet they were some of the most sought after in GW1. Why? Because they were rare in that game.

Not really true. Most of the prettiest designed skins with the clearest level of detail work put into them are not easy to obtain. That’s intentional. Rarity is only part of it. Just compare some of the rarer skins with others and notice how the most eye-catching, fancy ones sell for more, even when the rarity is the same.

There’s no reason the pendulum needs to swing completely in the other direction. Making BL skins mildly more accessible/appealing to more players isn’t a slippery slope. That’s what economists are for.

I just want to say, can we retire the “it’s optional” argument and try for something a bit more eloquent and context-specific? That argument is so overused and so ill-fitting so often. It’s like the Blue Steel of half the people who post on this forum. “Alright, you call my bluff… but I’ve got an ace up my sleeve! Four of them in fact!”

“None of those are aces, or even pairs. It’s a 2, a 5, a 10, and 3.”

“No, they are definitely aces. Four of them. Now give me the pot!”

“I’m not giving you the pot. None of those are aces.”

“Well… I suppose it is optional. I do say that.”

“Yes. Yes you do.”

Tommyknocker.6089:

IndigoSundown.5419:

I’d like the see those claiming HoT is not challenging link videos of themselves soloing stuff like, say, some of the Hero Challenges, maybe the one in VB with the Vet Teragriff, pack of wolves and mender. We might learn something.

Even if we do get a poster or two that can do such a thing, it means next to nothing (or should).

Those 1%ers will continue to speed run arah naked while watching youtube and eating dinner only to show that everyone else should GIT GUD & L2P. If only means that a very small portion of the community can do it, it doesn’t mean that they need to make all future content suit them, nor should ANet do so.

As has been said, challenge is subjective but building around only the best of the best will make for a very empty game full of only the elitists IMO.

One thing to remember is that when someone talks about soloing champs, for example, they might act pompous after the fact, but they didn’t necessarily succeed on the first try. Or the second. Or the twentieth. Some people don’t have the patience for banging their heads against such a mob and those who do can oftentimes be forgetful of how long it actually took them to do it, or perceive their numerous attempts as simply “part of the process,” making them blind to how it differs from the guy/gal who tried solo once or twice and gave up forever on doing it that way.

In other words, perception is the bottom line of all of this and sometimes it’s a difference in peoples’ experience with what challenging means, more so than it is some kind of god-given talent that some have and others don’t. John Doe “is used to doing hundreds of attempts to get past a small portion of a video game” is probably not going to see HoT as much of a challenge. Bob Dole “is used to one or two attempts to get past, if he makes a big mistake,” is probably going to see HoT as a series of mountainous hurdles.

It’s not so much skill itself (though that of course factors in) – it’s what people are willing to do and accustomed to doing.

I believe, from what various Anet people have said in various ways over a various period of time (I know I know, I’m being so scholarly with my source material here) that what it boils down to is basically this:

Anet Devs (the game developers, not community managers, support employees, or forum communications people) have the option to say things on the forums or on reddit, but it comes out of their own time, is not considered part of the job (so it’s hard to justify doing it during normal work hours), and it is completely up to them where they post, if they do at all, forums or reddit (since both are “official” platforms).

And let’s face it, this forum software is crap and no one knows it better than Anet. So if you’re a tech-savvy dev who wants to say something, which are you likely go for, the ancient outdated forum or the up-to-date with ongoing updates Reddit? On top of that, some devs are probably “redditors” themselves (as in, they use the website a lot in their free time).

Edit: Gaile beat me to it and she actually knows what she’s talking about LOL. Never mind!