I must admit, I am excited about the feature patch right now. Of course this might change depending on what will be announced in the next blog posts, but right now… I want patch now
Battle for Lion's Arch Open Issues and Tips
in Battle for Lion’s Arch - Aftermath
Posted by: Moon.7310
Remove achiev : Six Minutes to Knightfall
in Battle for Lion’s Arch - Aftermath
Posted by: Moon.7310
“Lore people” will play fractals once or twice and move on to roleplay in divinity’s reach while more dedicated players will get bored because it will lack any sort of challenge except bigger numbers.
What should be done is to severely decrease the number of scales, the difference between 1 and 9 is trivial. Introduce complex mechanics for higher tiers (not just numbers) and make those god kitten cinematics skippable. Obligatory reset included.
I am so tempted to be hyper critical on this post but I won’t, as it isn’t this single comment that has been frustrating but instead a culmination of posts in the CDI.
Suffice to say this post emphasizes why this CDI has been pretty good and not great. In my opinion there have been to many posts that have either not been well thought out or the poster has not taken the time to get educated in the discussion before putting pen to paper, and more specifically too insular in terms of goal resolution instead of thinking about the broader audience.
I will leave it at that.
I am still interested in continued discussion around your boss/encounter mechanic ideas, Rewards and ways in which the fractals could be evolved moving forward to provide new types of challenge.
Cheers,
Chris
Thank you for this post Chris, it is nice to see that other people are frustrated too., by opinions about “lore people” and having more story in fractals…
Nevertheless, I am still posting about my wished
Alternate Shiro fractal:
Story setting:
This is an alternate Tyria history, about how Shiro Tagachi slew Emperor Angsiyan, defeated Vizu and the Kurzick and Luxon Champion becoming the new Emporer. In this version Shiro did not go into the temple alone but brought some trusted friends.
Encounters:
Emporer Angsiyan: Since the Emporer has powerfull magics granted to him by Dwayna, he would have a strong heal, which would be indicated by his casting, which would need to be interrupted by either stunning, pushes or fear (I think with that every class should have an ability to do it). He also would call on to guards, which would lead to having extra mobs to deal with, which would need to be careful balanced, so that they are not too easy but still annoying enough that they need to be killed (perhaps they could do some confusions, stuns etc, to really annoy )
Archemorus/Viktor: It would be fun that while fighting them, they would sometimes bicker a bit, since even if there were peace negotiations, Kurzick and Luxons were not the best friends ;-)
So for the actual encounter the bosses could use different “ritualist ghosts”, where some heal them and some do damage to the players. But there would be a twist, so that these ghosts could only be damaged while having a buff. One buff for killing healing ghosts, one for killing damage ghost and you could only have one at a time. So the group would have to manage this encounter while some focus on one kind of ghost while the rest on the other kind and of course the bosses also would need to be killed. Perhaps there could be even some buff on the bosses, which makes one stronger when the other dies. But this should be like “if you kill them at same time, it makes it easy for you, but if you can’t do that, the fight is still winable but a bit harder”.
Vizu: Since she is an Assassin, she would do a lot of bleeding damage with her knifes, which needs to be taken care of. It woud also be cool if she could hide in the shadows and there was some mechanic where the players would need to grab on some sources of light to undo her shadow refuge, to damage her again. There could be some mechanic that she jumps some group member, dealing massive damage if that is not done fast enough
Sorry, if these mechanics are perhaps not the most interesting, but I am not really good with inventing things like that, I just would love to fight side by side with Shiro
And no, even if this is Lore, I would not only play it once and than move on to roleplaying, since I don’t even roleplay, I just like having a story in my games -.-
Knights are too much of a gate to Scarlet now
in Battle for Lion’s Arch - Aftermath
Posted by: Moon.7310
So how do we all rate the end of LS season 1
in Battle for Lion’s Arch - Aftermath
Posted by: Moon.7310
All of the following are weapon skills you can use that don’t apply Conditions.
Scepter Skill 3
Axe Skill 2
Staff Skill 1
Dagger Skill 1
Dagger Skill 2
So Necros just use staff and spam 1 for perfect mindless experience
(warning: don’t take this answer serious, I just could not resist)
What kind of fun ideas can you come up with to help allow us to get more story into the fractal experiences, without the cost of slowing down the core re-playability of the game play that is at the heart of the fractal content?
I think their could be different ways to add story to fractals:
- Dessa could talk to us more while we are doing the fractal, at the moment she only says something in the beginning… Like “It seems this is an alternate Version of Rata-Sum, something terrible must have happened. An experiment gone wrong? …” This would give us infos and not hinder processing at all
- There could be storymodes of fractals, with cut-scenes and NPCs etc, you would just talk to Dessa in the fractal entrance and choose “Story-Mode”
- Also the library idea someone had before is quite cool, so everyone interested could just visit this and read / see more about fractals
- I still think some hidden documents in fractals would work or NPCs to talk to, since in my experience it is not a problem to find groups if you clearly advertise before “We are doing story, with watching all videos etc”. Normal groups would just skip that.
- After doing a fractal for the first time, Dessa could sent us a letter, telling us more about what she discovered while we were doing it.
I like the first three best, but all would be possible I think. I’ll think a bit more about this on my way home
Using fractals to tell story:
Proposal Overview
Fractals should be used to tell as more about the lore/history of Tyria.
Goal of Proposal
Increase the amount of lore used for the fractals and creating new fractals which story and background informations. This is such a good oppertunity to tell us about things that happende before GW2, things that could happen in the future, things of an alternate version of Tyria.
Proposal Functionality
Existing fractals:
I think the fractals should have some more story, like what is this underwater fractal thing, what happened in this strange rata-sum version, is it ascalon we are over-running? It would be great if we got some more informations about them while doing them, either by getting more informations from Dessa or by some writings found in them or NPCs you could talk to.
New fractals:
- There could be fractals which tell us about events that happened between GW1 and GW2
- Fractals that tell us about things that happened even before GW1
- Fractals telling alternate versions of history: I would especially love to see a fractal where we help Shiro to kill the Emporer (still a great fan of Shiro )
- Fractals about a possible future: Everything is overrun by Scarlet (sorry, I just had to write that here, since I like here even if so many hate her^^)
I’ll complete the list here with this examples, since I could go on about this for a long time.
Associated Risks
Of course people might not care about lore/story, making it a bit of wasted time for you devs, but I still think many would think it a nice addition and if it leads to new fractals everyone should be happy.
Improvement of existing fractals:
I think it fits to throw this all in together in one proposal, since most are small things.
Proposal Overview
A few points which would improve the existing fractal experience and bring some of them on par with each other
Goal of Proposal
- Lengthen Swamp fractal
- Shorten Dredge fractal
- fix problems
- make rewards not random
Proposal Functionality
- Swamp fractal: I think there should be a corridor after the first part with the lights, before the actual boss. The reason should be obvious, the fractal is much shorter compared to other fractals, which is why almost every group just chooses this as beginning fractal making the other tier 1 fractals useless. Also this is one of the fractals there you are fightning almost no mobs, so including a corridor with enemies whould increase drop-chance for mist shard materials.
- Dredge fractal: I realised that I don’t need to write about this again, there are already many good proposals for this here in the thread.
- Problems: There are some things I would like to see fixed. For example the maw still targets pets and minions, which is really annoying, so could you perhaps program the AI that these are not included in the death-ray targeting? Also I discussed this a lot with people ingame and it seems that the shock-wave achievement of the molten-flame bosses is bugging and it would lessen frustration if this was fixed, since getting this fractal to come up, avoiding the shock waves and then not getting achievement is meh…
- Rewards not random: I would like to see a change where you could trade the mist materials you need to upgrade your ascended rings for the daily fractal relics. This would help people to increase their AR the normal way (infusing rings, adding better AR). Of course I know that you can now just add all AR to weapons and armor, but still I think the randomness of the upgrade materials is a bad design.
Associated Risks
I don’t think there are much risk, except for a possible kitten storm when swamp fractal would not be the easiest and fastest one anymore
Scarlet is unanimously held to be the worst character ever created in media ever.
I can see that a lot of people in the forum hate her, but I – you can hate me for that ;-) – like her. I think she is a fun enemy and I like her craziness. And also, most people in my guild also think she is kinda cool
Okay, then explain me the following scenario:
1. People waypoint from LA to Sparkfly and end up in an overflow.
2. Those people ask in guildchat for taxi.
3. Those people get invited to party.
4. Those people right-click the portrait of someone in the party who’s on the main map and chose “Enter Sparkfly Fen”.
5. Those people get a short loading screen and are on the main map.The fact that they end up in an overflow means the map is softcapped. The fact that they can get to the main-map with right-click-transfer means that it works. Or did I miss something?
Now that you say you’re in TTS… maybe people who are guesting can not do that? Maybe people who guest need to use the other method? If so, then “native” players indeed have a bit of an advantage over guesting players already.
What you are missing is that we’ve been telling you THERE IS NO OPTION TO RIGHTCLICK-JOIN when you’re trying to get into a main (non-overflow) map! Check it when you’re playing again. There. Is. No. Such. Option. You can rightclick-join your friends in overflow but NOT in main maps. The only option to get through soft cap is join someone in a party who’s already in the main map and then zone in onto that map from an adjacent zone and hope you’re lucky. There is no other way.
Did you even read what I just wrote? Point 1 to 5? It appears for everyone in the Tequatl-guild of our server, there IS such an option. We are using it EVERY DAY. I myself did so last time yesterday, because there already was an overflow when I entered Sparkfly. But I had no problems at all to right-click taxi onto the main map after I got invited into a party with someone who’s already there. Maybe you guys have another client? Or maybe it’s just like I guessed, and it has to do with people who are only guesting maybe not being able to right-click transfer to main maps, but “native” players being able to? It baffles me how you insist that this option doesn’t exist, when me and 90 other people use it on a regular basis.
You are right there, I experienced this myself. When on my server I could use the right-click option without a problem, but when guesting on another server and landing on an overflow the option is not there. Meaning this taxi-option is only given to the native players of the server.
Part 3:
5. Achievement Progression:
I think it was very cool to add rewards to the achievement points, since these points are a kind of character progression since it shows what your characters have done / visited / accomplished. Just one small things I hope you could change. Please limit the points you can get by dailys to 5 or 10. The reason is that I know some people who have a kind of “Guild Wars 2 burn out”, since they were trying to always get all points. This leads to more and more time needed to invest into this, since you keep adding dailys (which is good, because you have more variety what to do), meaning that they are stressed all time, have no time for guild events any more and just can’t play relaxed. And this is not only people who are top of leaderboards, there a a lot of people you just want / need to complete everything, now that there are points and a reward. Of course this is probably just an issue with a small number of people, but I would really appriciate a change here.
6. … :
Hard to find a phrase to summerize this topic. When I am playing a game, I want to experience all the content and will perhaps event do it with a lot of alts. But for my progression of feelings towards the game there needs to be some new exciting things to explore or else I will get bored. Of course the living story updates are nice and they add a few hours to do something new, but in the last month I had the feeling that something is missing, and most of the time I only logg into the game because of either doing the new living story (but normally everything can be done in a few hours) or just to be online, talk to my friends and guildmates and see if we can do something together. This is seldom because someone needs something and more of a occupational therapy since we want to do something together. And while it is still fun, sometimes you wish there would be a reason to do things. (In GW1 we did Thunderhead Keep in the beginning two to three times a day, because everyone needed it and then we did it often again for the bonus. Of course it was sometimes annoying, but it was also fun, it gave us a bonding and nowadays it is just legendary)… We even talk about how it is not a good thing that you don’t have to do the story mode of dungeons with every character (I know we are a bit crazy ).
But the point is, here in GW 2 there a not many things that need to be done after completing your first character, exploring the world, fo course leveling alts, but this gets boring very fast, since the first time everything was exciting, but now you just run around alone and do all heart quests, vistas, skill points absent minded. So in my opinion this game has reached a point where it needs a big “expansion”, not necessarily a new continent (even if Cantha or Elona would be nice), but at least a big territory with several zones in it. Like the Dessert, or the Maguma Jungle or the Far Shiverpeaks. Something which has a fresh feel and is not done in a few hours (if you play exploring everything and not speeding through). Something big,
Conclusion: We need something big to come, several zones, something new.
7. Alt progression:
I love playing different characters, but honestly bringing them all to level 80 is just boring. And since you can do all content with every character and since most pug groups prefer you to be warrior or gurdian, the motivation for leveling for example my thief tends to zero. I would love to give you some creative idea how to solve this, but to be honest I can’t see one, since this is very complex. Of course you could give out more skill tomes, so that you could just click your alt to level 80 but than I would have the feeling of not being able to play it in a good way. And the problems with groups is something that probably can’t be changed. So no real ideas here, I just wanted to mention it, since it is an important part of the game.
(Btw. please make warriors harder to play so that not every “idiot” can play it. I have people in my guild saying “I will come with my warrior, then nothing can happen and I don’t need to pay attention so much, since it is so easy to play” when asked what they want to play for dungons /fractals. As a warrior loving person – I always play the combat guys with sword/axe/hammer regardless of the game – this is a tick annoying) ;-)
Ok, I think I covered the most important points, I hope this helps you devs to integrate some new and cool features into the game. Thanks for reading.
Part 2:
And another point, why is the ascended gear account bound, so that every one has to level the crafting professions to max. There are people in my guild who hate crafting but love farming and have tons of gold. For example when I was visiting a friend he logged into the game so that I could level his cooking profession because he hated it too much. And then there are people who think that crafting is fun but are notoriously broke. If the armor was tradeable one guildmate could produce them, another would give them some gold for it and everyone would be happy.
What also falls under this category is that progessing my character by getting ascended gear feels really grindy. When I leveled my artificer, I ran out of wood planks very fast. Since I am not much of a farmer I decided to run a round (Frostgorge, Southsun, Malchors and Cursed Shore) once a day, collecting all the ancient wood and orichalcum. This let be craft one exotic weapon a day, so you can imagine how long it took me to max the profession and than of course collecting enough wood again to craft a wand. Of course I could have farmed more, but this is boring and I hate wasting my play time on boring things and honestly the materials needed for the ascended gear are just excessive. And then I realized that the wand looks awful in orange (my opinion) and that a green one would have been really cool for my necro… but no, this time consuming weapon comes with a colour depending on stats, so to have the nice one I would need to collect all materials again, build a green wand and then buy a transmutation stone from gem shop… hooray, you can image how happy I was…
In regards to the ascended materials, someone said that in WvW there should be more dragonite ore, I agree with that. But there should be also more empyrial shards in PvE since jumping puzzles yield almost no shards and farming dungons all day for 20 shards is very time consuming, also not everyone likes dungeons.
So in conclusion: Ascended gear is just grindy, needs a too excessive amount of materials, the time gating is annoying and making it account-bound as well as making skin colours of the weapons stat bound just makes me … (fill in whatever negative word you like, I don’t want to get an infraction) And all this makes it extremly unfriendly for people with many characters.
3. What progression system did you like:
To answer the question, I was very happy with the Guild Wars 1 System. Of course by the end there were just too many skills and while it was fun to play with them, I imagine that balacing this must have been a nightmare. So I hope that you will introduce some more skills in GW2 of course slowly and not too much. Perhaps a few more utility skills, or some interchange able weapon skills (an alternative for some skills which are useless in some situations) Of course changing could only be done outside combat, perhaps also having a cooldown. Perhaps there could also be some more traits to choose from. Here I would like to mention the wish to have the ability to save builds. It could still cost some silver to load them (perhaps you could only load them when paying the skill trainer or something like that), but not being able to save builds really reduces the play variety. It would be nice to save some builds for WvW, some for PvE events, some for dungeons etc. depending on how you want to play the character at the moment.
4. Personal Progression:
This is a bit diffuse, but I would like to have some personal progression where you can see that what you did had an influence. Like killing Zhaitan and cleaning Orr. Why can’t it begin to change, for people who are new to the game this could be put into a retroperspektive, I am sure the asuras could build something and if not a well like the one in the hall of monuments in GW1 would work as well (Not going into more detail here, since this is just at the edge of progression and perhaps more about the GW 2 world).
What I would also like is to have some useful things for your home instance. Perhaps as a kind of progression you could offer personal “quests” to change it, add more things etc. (and no I don’t mean more gathering nodes, I am talking about fluff ;-) ). Give me a reason to visit my home instance because it is fun to do so.
I will divide this subject into different paragraphs, telling the most important points in my eyes.
1. Horizontal Progression:
I really love the idea of horizontal progression. And for me this means no upgrading gear etc, progressing is getting harder content which you can achieve by becoming more skillfull. I think old Guild Wars did a good job of it, but here in GW2 Fractals were a good starting point. Fractals get harder with higher levels so people looking for a challange can have it and others you just want to have some easier fun can just do lower levels. So this concept was good, but than you add a “gear check” by adding unavoidable agony for which you need gear which just depends on luck. Sure if you do fractasl often enough there will be a time you get the materials for infused rings or directly an infused ring, but repeating the same levels over and over until you have that luck, is just annoying and not helping with progressing. So in my opinion the idea was good the implementation not so…
Another point of horizontal progression for me is rewards. These should be in my opinion skins and while some should be easier to obtain others should take a longer time (like the armor of the Fissure of Woe in GW1). Here the problem is, that all skins are very easy to obtain, since dungeon tokens are easy to come by and the only armor which took at the beginning longer was cultural because of the gold time gate (and btw I find it really offensive that an 120g armor is only rare and not exotic so everyone who wants one needs to buy transmutation stones in your gem shop – bad desicion in my opinion). And before someone says, ascended armor is taking longer… I will come to that later, but just let me say here, I am talking about just skins so not gear with higher stats you “need” to have if you want the best gear available. So for long term progression there are only legendarys, and these are again depending on luck or massive farming (grind in my opinion) to get. I don’t mind working for a skin, but just farming gold to buy precursor is annyoing (hope the treasure hunt comes soon) or for example these silver dublons for the hammer, who the heck had this idea? This is just random.
So conclusion to the first paragraph, I wish you would introduce more challanges which can be achieved by getting better ingame. And I wish there would be more skins you can achieve as long term goals (btw a wardrobe to store skins would be nice )
2. Gear progression:
So lets go to the ascended gear. I wished that there would be no gear progression in GW2 since I hated that in other MMOs and was happy that GW1 did not have it. But ok, I can accept that many people want a gear progression, so perhaps it is necassery and since the stat increase is not that huge, I can still do everything in my exotics. Of course if you added challanging progression like I talked about before, it could become a problem to not have it or it could become a different challange like playing all way to Droknar with your Ascalon Armor and only with Henchmen ;-)
But I really don’t like that this gear is time gated. Whats the use of this? Why can’t people who want it craft it in one day of they farmed all the materials? It is not like they can’t have the armor in one day at the moment, you just go buy the materials in the auction house, so why not allow crafting them in one day? Perhaps you don’t want economy flooded with the ascended materials, but honestly I don’t care, it is just annoying.
If I understand what people are saying, and I may be wrong, many people are treating ranks as more of a lifetime achievement. That is certainly something to consider in regards to the future reward system replacing them.
Yes! This is exactly my feeling. I love having this lifetime achievement think, which I can work on whenever I want and not some timebased ladder system which is only lasting for a specific amount of time. Why can’t we have both? I don’t see it hurting the game if the rank system is kept, because it is basically just numbers and some finishers. (But importent numbers and finishes )