Guild Wars 2

Sleaze.3748:

I am starting to get the feeling that this is more of a carebear version of a real MMO, suited for very casual and non competitive players.

I agree.. I’m feeling the same way.

I gave a suggestion in a previous thread before.
I’ll share it here too.

Housing have the potential be be an excellent end-game/carrot for gw2.

1) To build the house and craft furnitures, players must collect and hunt for the materials (chop woods, hire builders).

2) It’s very customisable. They can add furnitures and decorations by player’s own will. (Sims-like).

3) Competitive nature. Since the game throw out competitive progression in pve and pvp, there’s really no end-game element in this game. Make it a way that players can compare how big or small and how beautiful their house is with each other from their efforts. Players can acquire rare materials from dungeons to craft rare furnitures. In a way, it’s also cosmetics but it’s uniquely different than other mmos.

4) They can also acquire optional trophy 3D items from bosses and showcase it in their shelves. It helps in making players feel special and progressed.

5) Every week, there’s an update for house furnitures catalogue. They can also put in timed rare furniture items in the catalogue. It keeps players anticipated and excited each week.

6) Make it mandatory to have guildmates to build/upgrade houses. It helps bonding and promotes the purpose of having a guild. There isn’t much purpose of having a guild these days. Please make a guild to be meaningful.

Remember that joyful experiences comes from the efforts we make. People appreciate something from efforts. If everything is spoonfed, there’s no fun in it. People will get bored fast and lead to another “no end-game disaster”. A good mmo should have some content that will constantly appeal players to log into the game. Since gear progressions are not feasible with this game design. They should add other elements into end-game. Something that appeals effectively. Cosmetic gears isn’t effective because all other mmos have cosmetic gears along with their gear progression. Therefore, the housing can be a good solution to the current end-game tragedy if being approached the right way.

I find my guardian to be better than thief in pve.

I let go of my warrior because I don’t like my 100B to be cancelled while walking.
I have a habit of walking/dodging while doing skills because I’m too used with my thief.

Thankfully, the rude players in this game is only a minority.
I experienced a couple of rude ones but they’re endurable.

I always give a “thx” to players who ress’ed me.
It’s because I know it feels nice to have players thanking me when I ress’ed them.

@Focksbot.6798, if they’re casual players, they wouldn’t care about being outgeared by other players. So I don’t understand why some casual players are against it badly. Gear progression is optional in every mmo. You’re still able to pve with standard gears and progress through the story normally and pvp with the given balanced gears in mist.

@Red Falcon, no need to go so defensive. >_> I’m only sharing what my friend said which I already mentioned that I partially disagree with him. I’m not trolling either. I don’t know why you had to bring up WoW. I’m not a WoW player. WoW isn’t much advertised and not a popular mmo in my country. I wouldn’t bother about that mmo because it’s very old and low quality.
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I agree that inbalance gears are not good in pvp. This balancing system is good for pvp. However, is anti-endgame gear progression in pve a wise design? That’s very subjective because there’re both pros and cons. IMO, the cons weigh more than the pros because it takes away the carrot for dedicated mmo players. Yes, it’s fair for casual players because they can laugh at dedicated players who grind fruitlessly. However, it isn’t fair for dedicated players who’s willing to grind couple hours per day but doesn’t progress further than a casual player. Casual players were not affected by this because they only play for the story and balanced pvp.

I’m curious about it too.
What time does the weekly updates occur? (+gmt too)

Off-topic: I was just chatting with one of my ex-gw2 friends an hour ago. He made a sharp remark saying that gw2 audiences are targetted towards “traditional losers of mmo”. I don’t want to adapt that thinking. But after seeing many people being very fearful of end-game gear grinding, it feels closer to the truth. They’re afraid of the humiliation of being outgeared by players who play with more effort. They want to be spoon-fed everytime with the excuse of having no time to grind. They’re afraid of hamsters having bragging rights. They want to be the same level as those who put more time into the game. Etc. It started to feel this way after reading some posts in the forum.

On-topic: If gear grinding isn’t feasible, there’re many ways to give players a proper end-game. Having only grind for gear cosmetics isn’t an end-game. Since all other mmos have both cosmetic+gear progressions, it cut down gw2’s cosmetic end-game effectiveness by a large amount. Cosmetics are just secondary in most mmo. It’s the reason why many players feel there’s no carrot. Therefore, I hope the devs create an end-game that sustain players.

I heard in the future, gw2 is going to have housings. If that’s the case, they have a very good opportunity to add the end-game/carrot into this. My suggestion: To build the house and furnitures, players must grind for the materials (chop woods, hire builders). After the house is built, they can customise it to their likings. Players can compare how big or small and how beautiful their house is with each other from their efforts. They can also acquire trophy from bosses and showcase it in their shelves. Every week, there’s an update for house furnitures catalogue. They can have many variety of it. Players constant desire to grind for mats to upgrade their houses, buy/craft furnitures, paint etc. Some of the materials are drop in dungeons. Making it mandatory to have guildmates to build/upgrade houses are good too. (It helps bonding and promotes the purpose of having a guild.) Remember that joyful experiences comes from the efforts we make. People appreciate something from efforts. If everything is spoonfed, there’s no fun in it. This is a good example of keeping players sustain and feeling anticipated every week. It’s what a mmo should be.

Tallis.5607:
Besides… I think that feedback (even the whiny ones) are important for gaming companies.

A whiny customer is a customer that tells you what they want to change. That’s a good thing for companies. Sometimes they can change things to satisfy these people.

I agree with this.
One of the reasons why I always give feedbacks and personal opinions towards this game is because I love the game I’m playing. If it’s a game I hate, I wouldn’t give any attention to it at all. These “complains/whines/feedbacks” (whichever it’s perceived as) are very important for gaming companies to know their players.

Non-gear grinding game is probably good for very casual players.
I agree on that.

I feel some people miss the point. Having fun isn’t the issue here. Every games are fun. It’s about the mmo elements to motivate players to stay. It’s important for mmo to allow players to dedicate themselves to one mmo. It’s not a 1-time ps3 game where people switch games after finishing each game. There won’t be any dedication to a single mmo and the game will realise there’ll be less players in months to come.

If there’s no gear grinding, will there be any alternative to make end-game players feel that their character is progressing? MMO isn’t just about progressing new content, new lore and stuffs. It’s about progressing the character. That’s what sustain players, a solid goal to achieve for personal self everytime. MMO is about sustaining “end-game players” to keep them occupy to achieve something. After achieving a goal, there’s another goal. Those cycles and progressions are the reasons why many people like mmo.

After 3 months, I started to feel everything is too democratic. Everyone is equal.
An example would be like the N.Korea system. Doctors and cleaners earn about the same. This makes their people don’t feel like making effort because there’re no solid rewards. This is why their economy is the worse among the world. Why? It’s because the people there don’t have motivation to move. Human nature are brought into mmo too because it’s a massive multi-player virtual world.

It may go like this:
1st couple weeks: Player play 8 hours per day till end-game.
1st month: Player play 4-6 hours per day on dungeons and grindings.
2rd month: Player play 1 hour on dungeon 2-3 times per week.
3th-?? month: Players only login once every few weeks to do timed seasonal events like Halloween and Christmas.
?? month: Player forgotten about gw2.

It’s something which I worry after seeing many people around me are starting to feel burned out. I like this game because of it’s dynamic events. It has one of the best quality graphics, voices, environments and aesthatic. I had so much hype on this game many months earlier. Now I have trouble trying to make myself stay in this game. I want to make use of my 4 hours free time on gw2. I can’t even last for an hour per day. I ended up logout or alt+tab to listen to music in youtube or read forums (like now).

I love this game. I want to stay in this game but there’s need to be something that brings my mind into it. I won’t ask for a whole system revamp. I hope for the developers to come up with good solutions to keep players stay for long term.

I’m really looking forward for the housing content too.
I hope they release the content as early as possible because the game is at it’s prime.

I want houses that are customisable, not like skyrim when everything is stationary.
It should have some “the sims” element.

1. The lack of rewards for the need of people to group up.
2. GW2 promotes the feel of a single-player rpg instead of a real mmo. If you read other threads, you know what I mean.

Grind can be a good element because it set a line between players who made more effort and players who play it one-time. GW2 still has grind but the rewards are only for fluff. I agree with the topic starter.

It’s really like sports or exams. People grind on homeworks and studies is because they want the effectiveness of the certificate. No one wants to study hard for a paper just to have looks/bragging rights but doesn’t give you any rewards or jobs.

For majority players (those who touched many mmos end-games), the rewards of fluff isn’t effective to keep players going. One element that made players in every other mmos going are faction raids with many people to loot raid equipments. The gears actually progressed and evolves the player. It has nice appearance on top of that.

Reward in GW2 = Appearance.
Reward in every other mmos = Appearance + Stats.

Therefore, many players feel half or a quarter rewarded in GW2.
The sastisfaction isn’t there. Players who tasted other mmo’s end-game raid gears will notice this more than casual players.

@Agemnon, yup. Every games should be fun. We should know that single-player and multi-player games are different in nature. Single-player are played short-term that can be switched with many games once each ended. Mmo are played long-term that players dedicate into a single game. Imo, multi-player games are fun because we play and compete with friends and players. Multi-player games are fun because it constantly allow players to evolve [to keep them attach to one mmo]. It’s fun to compare and having desire to be better than another. It’s also fun to group up in a guild and attend faction wars together with the the character we placed many efforts to build. Multi-player games are not fun when there’re no winners or losers. Multi-player games are meant to have winners and losers. It’s not a multi-player game if no one win or loses [fruitless progression]. It’ll be the same as single-player game because there’s no winners or losers but just for the leisure.

Sports are fun too. I don’t think there’s anyone who play sports and physical game activities without the desire to have fun. It’s also fun to have desire of climbing higher than individual’s limits. Those are the ones that give good memories. I feel it’s important for mmos to give this feel. Therefore, end-game is quite important in every mmo.

scootshoot.6583:

Naoko, you obviously want a hamster tread mill game with the carrot at the end of the stick. The endless gear grind game that is Panda Craft….

It’s all good man, GW2 not for everyone.

IMO, gw2 end-game feels like a hamster tread mill with no carrots at the end.
Having a carrot at the end is better than having no carrots.
If not, how is the treadmill going to run?

Panda craft isn’t the only mmo that uses gear grinding. Every mmo except gw2 has some elements of gear grinding because they know they need players to feel constantly evolve. MMO isn’t just about evolving the game. It’s also about evolving the players constantly. So I don’t know whether it was a wise choice to disregard end-game. I feel that it’s an important element that shouldn’t be disregarded in any mmo. Unless they came up with an idea that’s much better than gear grinding and faction war/raids, I don’t know how players are going to feel motivated in the long run.

If I can be honest in my post, a game that lack consideration of end-game or just tell us that “Lv1 is an end-game” will never be consider an MMO at all. >_<

MMO = A constant world where players play and compete with massive amount of people. It’s a multi-player game afterall. MMO is not only about the game evolving. Players must evolve through it too. A multi-player game is where people play and compete with each other. If there’s no end-game for players to compete, players lose motivations.

End-game mmos are like sports.
Atheletics feel motivated to train is because they want to surpass their competitors. It’s the same for mmo. They yearn to play more because they want to be better than average end-game players. That’s why they have gear grindings and guild/faction wars in end-game. The more they play, the more they’re rewarded to be better than average level-capped player. Gw2 structure is designed in a different way. No matter how much we play in end-game, it’s fruitless because our character will be the same as those level-cap players who stop playing. They can’t avoid human nature.

There’s a solution for this.
- Create a competiting end-game especially for end-game players only. An end-game where players can compete and compare with each other. SPvP and WvW is not end-game since any levels can touch it with equal fairness in combat. Costumes brawl (dungeon + legendary eqs) isn’t a solid attempt. It’s because any mmo end-game raid eqs have nice appearance on top of their better stats. Invent something different since gw2 is designed in a different way. Something that allows end-game players to compete. Something that make players feel special for playing more than average players.

I love this game, which is why I’m still hoping for the improvements.

I seen many people like the topic starter.
GW2 needs a better end-game content to sustain players. In any mmos, solid end-game is very vital to keep players feel anticipated and continue playing. GW2 doesn’t have gear progression or elements that make players feel special than other players. The game structure emphasized on equality and balance between players too much that no one desire to compete with each other anymore. In a traditional mmo end-game, a player feels rewarded only when he get better gears stats and feel progressed higher than other average players. Players compete for stats in gears farmed from guild raids. When there’s no competition, people will lose motivations.

I love this game but I find myself trying hard to motivate myself too. Since gw2 doesn’t have the traditional mmo end-game, I hope gw2 invent something that helps in players end-game. Something which the endgame-players can compete with each other. When there’s something to compete, that’s when players feel motivated to play. This comes from a player from played many mmos before.

In my case, I will feel bad if I spend money on cash items that doesn’t benefits me nor make me special.

I personally bought some gems before. I have that feeling thinking whether it’s worth or not. I feel this way more in GW2 than any other mmo. Maybe it’s because there’s no gear progression in GW2 end-game. I don’t feel like spending money on gems because it won’t make me stronger or special. In previous mmo I played, I feel my money was worth it because it made my stats higher than average players. It make me feel “special”.

In my opinion, your most of your general changes are good.
Your profession personal suggestions isn’t good though…

There has been alot of negative nerfing these days. It’s not good for the community mood. If the devs took up your suggestion, many people will complain and be displeased.

Downed State and Death
-Every class now has an ability to “go out in style”, prematurely ending the downed state.
-Healing a downed player will now be interrupted by direct damage.
-Downed players will now received a threat drop when downed and be considered a lower target priority by most mobs (exceptions apply).
-Defeated players can now only be resurrected when the player is out of combat.

The “go out of style” is good for impatient people who solo most of the time, but I don’t want it. >_< It takes away the teamwork. In PVE, it feels nice if someone just pop-out and heal you before you became downstate. There’re few times I thought there’s no one around to resurrect me. Suddenly, someone came out of nowhere and heal me. If this suggestion applies, people who goes down state will instantly premature suicide. People will develop that habit.

If healing a downed player will be interrupted by direct damage, no one wants to resurrect another player at the middle of battle. >_<

Guardian
-Downed State: Symbol of Judgment replaced with “Noble Sacrifice”.
“Noble Sacrifice” heals all surrounding allies for 30% of their HP, defeating the Guardian in the process. 3 second cast-time..

Guardian’s downed skill is fine as it is. Players who were resurrecting a guardian can get protected by the symbol’s heal. It encourages people to ressurect a guardian. It’s a team-work play. Players like me play guardian because it has better survival and not a suicidal class like warriors.

It’s the same for your suggestion towards other classes that “gets defeated” after 10 seconds. If everyone’s dies easily, it’s harder to ressurect them in a death state. There’s still a chance to ressurect in a down state at the middle of a battle. Warriors have this down skill is because he have a trait that can rally himself if he kills something. Warriors kill fast, which is why it’s feasible. It’s not for other classes though.

Thanks for the reply.
I feel playing what we love is important too. I really like guardian’s gameplay with greatsword more than my warrior. But I dislike Norn after playing it for quite some times.

I did further research and it made me more dilemma.
I just found out they nerfed guardian’s GS recently. They increased the cool-down for GS skills. It made me sad. I was comfortable with guardian before I started my warrior. Why can’t they stop touching nerfing the skills after it’s launched? It made my choices even harder. I only want a character that’s not “kill-first-before-getting-killed”. I don’t want a kiting character too. I hate kiting mobs or bosses. The guardian that I play have comfortable combos. I feel relaxed with it. I don’t know about now since they nerfed it.

Here’s my dilemma.

I have a Norn Guardian. I level’ed up until Lv50+. I started to dislike Norn’s big-sized because of the way it walks and the lore. Due to Norn’s big proportion, the way Norn walks feels “slower” in order to walk the same speed as smaller scale characters. I lose motivation because of the way it moves. I wanted to create a Human but it’ll be weird to have another Guardian of the same race.

I want to be a Great Sword + Heavy armor character.

After awhile, I created a Human Warrior. I level’ed my Human Warrior to Lv20+. I started to feel very annoyed with my Human Warrior. It’s “kill first or get killed”. The self-heal are almost non-existent. Warriors have higher hp than guardians but it’s useless if my heal only heals almost only 1/5th of my HP. I don’t know how am I going to survive with warrior in Orr, dungeons and WvWvW. I’m actually dying more than my thief. I just remembered that most of the characters I ress’ed are warriors during my thief’s journey. I read up that players with high traits on survivability on warriors are frown upon. They’ll not able to DPS well and will still die easily.

I regretted not making a human guardian.

I don’t know if I should make a human guardian after all these efforts:
1. My human warrior has Abyss Dye. I bought it for 5 gold from my thief (1st character) golds. I should’ve waited…
2. My norn guardian has jewelry and armorsmith up to 200+ pts and Lv50.
3. I spent some few golds to pump norn guardian’s jewelry stats.

I really don’t know now.
I feel like I want to play a guardian but I want to be a human race.
I want a character that can survive well in any situations and dish out damage.

Is it worth to reroll 2 characters worth of effort to create a human guardian?
(Ps. No charr, asura and sylvari because it’s not my personal taste.)

I started warrior afew days back because I wanted to play a 3rd character.
The reason I chose this is because I heard he’s the best with Great Sword.

I’m tired of thief because my full exotic cric thief was only able to hit 800-1.8k cric in Orr maps. My thief isn’t a burst cannon (using 30 stealth/tough), but died too easily in Orr due to the mobs homing long distance attacks and chasings. It gets irritating.

I also heard that warriors are able to hit 10k critical in a slice from 100 blades at Lv80.
Is this true? If so, which build enables me to reach that?

I tried making this 20/20/30/0/0 using a build simulator.
http://www.gw2db.com/skills/calc/warrior#7|0|11|65|317|318|246|20|836|1499|0|20|2363|1846|0|30|1895|1084|1491|0|0|0|0|0|0|0|0|0|0|0|28037|0|49965|0|0|0|0|0|0|0|0|0|0|

I’m going to use full Knight armors (pow/prec/tough) and (power/prec/cric dmg) for jewelries. I’m hoping to reach at least 85% critical chance.

Can I survive well in dunguens and PVE Orr while doing decent DPS?
I’m not pvp’ing with this since I have my thief.

No. Fewer waypoints can be bad.
It would be harder to reach the dynamic events when someone asked for help on the map.

Yes, I watch all vistas. GW2 has the best reality-like scenaries.

Yes, it’s worth it for me.
It’s the same price as any ps3 games I bought.

GW2 feels like a ps3 game than a mmorpg though. >_<
It’s great for the journey to end of story and level cap, but the end-game doesn’t pull me into it. I feel that mmo should constantly make players stay even after they reach the end of story and level cap. I’m waiting for them to improve on their end-game.

After reading all these comments, let’s face it.
GW2 is best for the journey to 80, and the weakest for end-game.
I personally feel GW2 has the best journey to level cap among any mmo I played.

In any mmo, the reason why end-games are favored is because people are rewarded for being at the level cap. At end-games in any mmorpg, majority players do raids for better gears while progressing their character. Some do guild/faction wars as a reward for reaching high level and gears. A good end-game encourages a player to go above his limits than his level cap. An mmo should constantly progress players even after their journey has end. If not, it’ll be just a solo-rpg ps3 or xbox game where the game is just for the journey to the end of the story and events. This is why I feel a good end-game is the most important factor in any mmo in order to constantly pull players to play.

GW2 is designed differently than a typical mmo. It’s designed like Skyrim and Dragon Age where the monsters scale-up to the player’s level. Those I mentioned are solo-rpg games. The reward are just for it’s exploration and story progression. Those games have no one to brag your characters with in end-game, nor anyone to compete your achievements with. The reason why some players find mmorpg more fun than a single-rpg is because they’re playing together yet competiting at the same time with their friends and other guilds. It’s a “multi-player game” afterall. Mmo games are like sports. If there’re no results/progressions for hardwork/efforts, people lose motivations. If there’s no competitor, people lose motivations too. It’s something I know based on experience and observation of human nature.

GW2 can still improve in their end-game.
Something that allow end-game players to compete with each other with actual rewards. (WvWvW and sPvP are not considered end-games because it’s for both new and level-capped player.) I still have faith in GW2’s future. They made great invention like dynamic and heart events. I’m sure they can think of something good for gw2’s end-game too. ^^

IMO, GW2 does feel like a hamster on wheel during end-game. There’re no reasons for me to grind and do dunguens because there’re no rewards nor significance in doing them. A good and long-lasting MMO must have good end-game contents that keep players. WvWvW and spvp are not consider end-game because anyone can play them.

I fully agree with the thread-maker. GW2 needs major improvement in their end-games and rewards. Changing skin with the same stats is not a reward to me. At the end of the day, Lv80 players who plays 500 hours in end-game and Lv80 players who plays 5 hours in end-game are no different. There’s no progression in end-game.

This feature was introduced in GW2 to negate the flaws of previously-made MMOs. This design help lower and higher level players to engage in activities together. Higher level players will be scaled down to the field level. So if a Lv50 player goes back to a Lv10 field to help his friend there, his level will be scaled down to Lv10 temporary. This was also introduced in order to avoid high level player “1-hit-kill” monsters in lower level fields. It’s a good feature.

There are pros and cons to this design.
Higher level players will not feel stronger nor superior. There’s nothing set in between low and high level players. In various MMO, players gain motivation to level-up so that they can compete with friends. Games are like sports. The reason you undergo training is to be more skillful and stronger than other players. In this mmo, everyone is regarded as equal no matter you’re Lv1 or maxed. This causes the lack of rewards for the effort you placed in to be a high level. There’s no feeling of “progression” towards the character’s strength. At most, a player can feel up to 1.8x stronger.

Here’s my suggestion.
Maybe the developers can only scale-down only on attack and precision. Vitality and toughness do not have to be scale-down. In this suggested concept, players can still find low-level areas enjoyable by not 1HKO mobs and bosses, yet they feel rewarded and stronger for having able to survive longer in lower level areas. They still kill monsters at equal amount of time and not be a juggernaut to low-level players. It’s a win-win situation. No one likes to be killed easily by a Lv40 veteran/champion even by making an effort to reach Lv80 cap. There’s no feeling of “reward” nor “character progression” for being a higher level except for story progression. The idea is to make higher level players feel that their characters have been progressed by their efforts of level’ing up.

Personally, I play a thief. Sometimes, I do get annoyed when I just head back to a level 60 map and have trouble surviving even with full-exotic. Let’s not say “challenging is fun”. It’s not a matter of the player’s skills either. The combat system feels more like “Kill the monsters fast before getting killed”. I do not know about other classes, but this is what I feel as a thief. I heard warriors and guardians survives well in PVE.

The developers can apply this only towards PVE fields and main story. Our game can still stick our current scaling-system to dunguen raids and WvWvW.

It’s really a good suggestion. I researched in some popular forums. There’re many players who voiced out against the idea of being scale-down. Yes, there’re pros and cons. How about we make it have more pros than cons with this suggestion?