Guild Wars 2

Rabe.2456:

Rauderi.8706:

Thanks for the map, Rabe. Think you could do us all a tiny favor and put the coordinates on them too?

Because you asked so nicely here are the coordinates.

I gratefully applaud the extra effort! Thanks!

I don’t mind the repair, I suppose. I do mind, now that we don’t pay for it, that anvils and repair NPCs don’t repair automatically.

Ardid.7203:

This again?
Ok. Summary:
1- Some people like mounts. Some people don’t. Arguments come and go always the same.
2- Mounts could be a great cosmetic addition to the gemstore, say someone. They will contibute to the visual clutter that already drowns the game, answer someone.
3- Mounts couldn’t have speed boosts because that would destroy the balance in the exploration part of the game, explains someone. People who plays only combat oriented despises this reasoning and use recursive arguments to say mounts with boost being non-combat only should be ok.
4-Mounts could look so cool, says one. They will stress up the servers, accuses another. Technical discussion about processing resources, graphic properties and toggles ensues. Not conclusive.
5- Someone mention cosmetic mounts already exist, in the form of travel toys like the flying carpet. Mount fans don’t like that solution and recognize they want speed boosts anyway.
6- People began to post lush examples from other games. WOW fans shine. WOW fans are encouraged to go back to play that.
7- Someone says Anet already said they never allow mounts. Someone says Anet never said that. No sources are given on any of these claims.
8- Back to 1 a few times.
9- Topic get merged with the big one.
10- Lots of dead horse beating gifs and images.

Rather complete summary, but it misses the “zomg mounted combat would be so cool” that eventually shows up.

Glad to see this suggestion hit the forum again. Since conditions were fixed, we’ve yet to see boons get similar treatment, except for the tweaks to Stability. Regen and Poison aren’t really comparable anymore.

Regen would need a rework, of course. Possibly a reduction in potency to counter how easily it’s acquired. And yet, stacking regen might convince me to bring banners again.

Ayrilana.1396:

I was talking about an actual class 2 rift and not the device. Using the device doesn’t change a class 1 rift into a class 2 one from what I have seen.

Ah, right, yes. The upgraded device does add more teleport options, but I don’t think anyone’s seen a Class 2 rift yet. ANet needs to save a little something for the suspense.

Ayrilana.1396:

Rabe.2456:

I made a map of the class 2 rift locations, if anybody was curious.

You mean locations that the second device takes you? The class 2 rifts are not available yet the last that I heard.

Some of them are available through a class 1 rift. Example: (VII, VII) takes you to the top of a krait tower near one of the bloodstone shards. The list that players have gone through is likely incomplete until the rest of the locations are released through content, but you can go to a few different places with a class 2 device.

Thanks for the map, Rabe. Think you could do us all a tiny favor and put the coordinates on them too?

Ok I Did It.2854:

I and many guildies have given up on this event, you’d think after 4 years ANET would realise that making players stand about waiting for something that may or may not spawn, and may or may not work when it does, is a bad idea.

Bloodcrazed bosses and almost all of the Current Events items say otherwise. The most acceptable wait time of the bunch was for the bandit bosses, since ~10 minutes is the most a player should be expected to wait for open world content.

On player housing: Do want. Not expecting.

I’d definitely like to see the home instances plot out the locations for nodes a little better. It’s just weird to see where some of them live, since they were shoehorned in post-release.

And yeah, being able to add some scribe furniture would give me a reason to make some.

Tenal.1546:

Does one really have to APPLY now to RP? Have people become so really insane…as in more than I am…and believe me, I have issues which take me out of reality sometimes but not in a bad way…in order to RP with what seems to be the same people?

Roleplaying is something of a personal affair. It’s generally best to ask in whisper first to join. And even if they were first to respond, they could have been much more polite about it and told you it’s a private scene. (lol, private even though the /emote range is stupidly ridiculous. All of Rata Sum can hear your lame barfly chatter…)

The guild I’m with, when we used to be heavier in to RP, we’d be glad to roll with a scene if someone interested game by or if someone wanted to watch/shade us for the scene. We haven’t in a while, but I do suggest following the earlier links to find good and pleasant RP guilds.

OP, the people you’ve run into are likely rather self-important and crave the public RP in order to be seen doing it, trying to make their 3edgy5u scenes some display of drama.

I think it’s cool if groups do NOT want people included in their story. It so, then put the story into a PARTY OR SQUAD context. Use a guild chat for it if the story needs a tag which my lord, that must be a large RP group. If it’s larger, then, MEH, get a TAG for it.

That’s how I feel RP is in GW2 as I’ve tried to experience it in the last six to eight months. Your positive feedback would be appreciated.

Bolded part, PLEASE. If you’re not open to public participation, don’t make your RP public.

Ayrilana.1396:

Maybe make it like infantile mode in SAB?

As much as it would amuse me to have a blood red cloud with dead eyes and a sadistic smile floating in a corner, it’s probably not all that necessary. :P

RoseofGilead.8907:

Veto to the “Feats of Strength”-type change. I enjoy having my achievement points and the rewards they got me. Now, I’d be all for just ditching that leaderboard, though.

I’ve made the Feats of Strength suggestion before, but only sarcastically. It riles up the Top-50 ragers. :P

For the GW2 community and the actual rewards, it’d be unfair to veterans and those with fond memories of the one-and-done events of the past.

I don’t even object to the leaderboard all that much. It’s something for some very committed players to jostle for position on. It keeps them engaged. What I highly disagree with is using leaderboards as justification for a change the rest of the community has to drag around, like the Daily cap.

hardy.7469:

I like platformers but I found the mechanics of GW2 never did JP any favours.
I also don’t like when things are developed in a way that you are fighting the system rather than a genuine challenge.

“Oh, let’s see, I’m suppose to jump on this little crevasse that wouldn’t realistically hold my character, so I have to figure out where the invisible collision detection starts and ends so I don’t fall off, all while fighting a platform unfriendly camera system.”

Accurately defines one of my major issues with jumping puzzles, and occasionally, exploration in general…

Oxidia.8103:

Maybe anet should strip seasonal AP content and all other content

Excellent suggestion!

Or, y’know, just delete the achievement ladder. It’s a useless construct with its current design. I suppose the only good thing to come out of it is we got much better, easier dailies after all the whining from the upper .01% about “needing” to do all the dailies every day.

DeceiverX.8361:

Thing is, GW2 doesn’t have a case of perfect imbalance, or even close to it. It’s just imbalanced.

And there’s the 1,000,000 gold piece statement.

We can banter about skill cap differentials, talent synergy, risk-reward, and “incomparables”, but as it stands, GW2 weapon skills and talent lines are still littered with things that range from:

• questionably-useless chaff
• combination potential that leads to “the one good build” (coughFGPScough)
• “that PvP-only talent” which is mostly useless in PvE (and vice versa)

Illconceived Was Na.9781:

Just a flesh wound.3589:

If you happen to have bought the Lava Lounge pass then you will be ported right above 3 apple trees. I bought the 2 week pass and found out it’s useful for this. Port to above trees, grab an apple, glide and run to lava tube, glide to Hal. Port back to above the trees and repeat twice more. If you put the pass in a account wide slot you can do this on your alts, even low level ones.

An exploit that isn’t exploitative! Well done Even 3/day on a single toon for two weeks gets you close the achievement. Also a good way to amortize the cost of the pass

Fruit refreshes per character, possibly per map, so there isn’t a hard limit on how much one can do in a day. (Except 50, because then you stop. :P)

Swapping characters for the extra fruit did get me to stumble onto something else. The repeatable hearts seem to refresh their Petrified Wood purchase per character, not per account. So if you want the fast track to that metal-AF molten skull backpack or the Choose Your Own Accessory, bring all the alts!

Tigaseye.2047:

EphemeralWallaby.7643:

It already exists. It’s called Perfect Imbalance. Its ever-changing effects helps keep the game interesting.

~EW

You should be a politician.

Or, actually, you shouldn’t – we really don’t need any more of that type of whataboutery.

Imbalance isn’t “interesting”, it’s just bad design.

Um, actually…

Thaddeus.4891:

That’s the thing. Why it should be solo progression? Why is it wrong that about 20 out of the 250+ hero challenge are group challenge?

Only a portion of the hero challenge are group content and you don’t even need to complete those to progress your character. Personally, I hated most hero challenge except those that were group content. They were more fun, it gave us a reason to play together to regroup with my guild, to make event to help others. I would prefer that all of the hero challenge were like that tbh. But I know that some people prefer to do those alone so have only a portion of them (and make them optional) seem like the best compromise for me.

It’s a very fair question, and I might need some time to suss out a really good answer.

I’d rather not hit the old refrain too hard, but there is the notion that MMOs are mostly “level alone, raid together”. People expect to be able to complete objectives (builds, map completion) without dragging other people into it. I probably resent Balthazar the most out of all the HoT HPs.

But your fun with guild members and doing the challenges together is equally valid. So it’s a tough call, even though I know what I would prefer. The champ challenges do give a little reward, so perhaps there could be scaling of that as well based on the number of participants and the champ’s scaling?

There’s definitely a need to consider making them solo friendly, since not everyone has time to wait for a HP train or cavalry to call upon, and timing against meta events is rough.

So yeah, gonna think on this a bit more, but I’m definitely farming suggestions on how to best deal with it.

Djinn.9245:

Complex /= “good design”. I’m glad that there are varied quest mechanics in the game. It doesn’t bother me at all that this one is very simple. Its not like the game is filled with this mechanic.

I agree, actually. Complex designs aren’t inherently better, if their complexity doesn’t add any depth or purpose.
I’m not even blasting it for being simple. Others and I take issue with the obvious padding via boring repetition.

Heh, I really ought to save my game design rants for something more significant. :P

Ayrilana.1396:

What I feel is and isn’t good design is irrelevant which is why I don’t list them.

It was actually very strictly important, because of the word “opinion” being a very critical refrain. If you can’t even quantify what was “good” about the Hal achievement, then the defense of it is flawed.

The issue that I have repeated over and over to you is that you’re using your own personal opinions about what you prefer in achievements and then passing them off as facts about what is and isn’t bad design.

You wanted “industry standards”. I gave you a series of concepts that are generally considered when designing games of this genre. As MMOs are inherently a creative endeavor, I can’t say “give the player 400mg of Fun and 10g of rewards”. Insisting on absolute metrics is a flawed argument, but even in qualitative analysis, there are rubrics and benchmarks that are considered to be semi-scalar. Failing to provide rubrics means your assessment was ill-conceived.

I have read what people have wrote. Have you also? The most common request when someone complains about something being badly design is to call for a reduction in grind. That’s a common theme that you, and another person, has although you do make other alternative suggestions. None of which would really matter as those complaining about it being badly designed, for the reasons of it being a grind, will still complain that it is badly designed in the end.

Does the grind have a purpose? Does it encourage participation in events, thereby keeping players within the community and showing a presence? Or does it remove them from participation while still being close enough to scale them, making it harder for everyone else.
Lots of people complained about the grind in Verdant Brink, et al, but those currency grinds served a purpose, and they could be completed from any participation in the zone. Hal has no such considerations.

So turning in 1 Apple is over-rewarding which makes it badly designed? So turning in 50 apples isn’t worth the AP, single MP, and title? Exactly what quantity is it worth it to you?

“I have read what people have wrote.” You claim, but you prove otherwise with this question.

Most collection events have no more variation, narrative, and exploration than the Hal achievement. They typically require you to go around collect these items on the ground or kill these enemies and collect these items to turn in. Each iteration after the first one doesn’t add any value to the player as it’s exactly the same as the first. Something you claim to be bad design in regards to Hal. And yet the only difference here is that you typically don’t turn in 50 items for a collection event which brings us back to grind.

You mean rep quests? The things I can finish in 5% of the time it’d take to feed Hal? That I get rewarded for each time the task set is complete? Sure, catching a rock in a bucket isn’t individually rewarding, but it also has a better iteration time, or I could participate in events, or I can fly around doing something else. Variety is the spice of life, even in MMOs.

Edit: Anyways, this is like the 4th iteration that I have made of my points. I’m really getting no value from each time that I’m posting so I’m going to stop. This discussion must be badly designed. Anyway, it was great having this discussion.

Uncountered points made so far:

• Hal achievement is a Grind
• People have “Opinions” that coincide with professional philosophy
• Hal is an unfun achievement to do
• Questioning direct questions is the same as answering them

So, yeah, certain points represented here have been really repetitive.
Some people must like the grind.

Thaddeus.4891:

Well someone could say that you can’t compare Maguuma Hero Challenge to Tyria’s because they are worth 10 time more points, so it would make sense that they take more time or be more challenging to complete than the Tyrian’s one.

You only need 648 hero points to unlock everything on your character. You gain 398 just by leveling to 80 and there is 200 point in Tyria from challenge. That leave you only 50 pts left or 5 Magguma hero challenge to complete. There is far more than 5 easy single player hero challenge in magguma.

What I think is the problem is that people don’t want to complete 205 easy hero challenge, they complain because they would prefer to only do 25 hero challenge that give 10 pts each.

I don’t mind them being appropriately challenging. I do mind that they require 2+ people to be in the same area for something that should be solo progression. That’s gone around as an argument for over a year.

The champ combats could be scaled better to make them challenging for solo players without making them too easy. As it is, minion classes/builds have a much easier time with champs because there’s sufficient time to take the heat off and recover, whereas most others can’t sustain 2-3 straight minutes of full boss aggro and no way to interrupt them because their defiance bars are too large.

It’d probably be just fine if the hero champs were downgraded to Elites. Those still tend to hit hard but are left vulnerable to CC, which means skillful play still prevails.

Ayrilana.1396:

Snip: repetitive arguing

Translation:

I don’t know enough game design concepts to identify what, in my opinion, are “good” design elements or how they apply to the Hal achievement.

I know I said I wouldn’t, but I’ll HALp you with your homework.

Narrative
Hal sits on his butt in a weird place, even though he could easily get off the rock and get food. A character that has food, could offer him some, but he just grouses and won’t take any. He requires a very specific, far away food. For no reason.
It could have been an escort quest event or anything Zoltar and I suggested as improvements, but Hal is a wasted opportunity.

Immersion
Because of its lack of narrative, Hal isn’t exactly immersive. His poor attitude, weird position, and specific demands all make him stand out as an oddity in the world. The only immersive thing that might happen is if someone likes zoning out during the monotony, but I won’t claim that Hal was well-conceived because of it.

Reward schedules
Could be better, as outlined earlier. AP can sit as it is. Mastery should be first iteration. Title at 50th.

Mechanics / Execution
The mechanics are simple enough. Get apple, fend off threats while having no weapon skills, glide to Hal, done.
…Eh. Interesting as a puzzle, once, and then the novelty wears off.

Mechanics as Narrative
The mechanics themselves betray any sort of narrative, though. Why doesn’t the apple go into our inventory, like everything else? We ought to be able to bring Hal a bushel, if we wanted.
Hal is a thing. If not for the MP and title, his presence might not touch any of the game’s systems at all.

Pacing
Good gaming experiences have peaks and lulls in action and progression. Drone #2 – #50 is just lull. It’s the equivalent of an HP-sponge boss, except you can walk away from it after it bores you too much.

Intrinsic vs Extrinsic reward
Extrinsic rewards are definitely what drives this tripe. An extra-long stick for the carrot.
The only ones finding intrinsic value in the Hal task are those who still giggle at thermal propulsion/gliding and those who do it to zone out.

Agency
Agency, or “control” in other words, is critically important to something being a ‘game’. There is none here. No choice points or multiple-and-viable tactics. It’s grab thing, avoid mobs, deliver thing. At best, ‘control’ is limited to teasing out an optimal travel path to get it over with as soon as possible.

Exit Points / Humane Design
Hal gets one point! The task is easy to pick up or drop whenever. No progress is lost and there aren’t any meta-events to complete to make it available.

Conflict / Conflict Resolution
What’s the conflict presented by Hal’s dilemma? While part narrative, conflict is also present in challenges required to fulfill the objective. My challenges so far? Slippery collision detection, pocket raptors, and jade constructs. Two make me realize that all I’m doing is running away, and two make me realize that the game wasn’t playtested enough.

Randomness / Variation
There is none. It’s the same task from start to finish. Sensory satiety is easily reached under those conditions, which most people call “Boredom.”

Fantasy
I don’t mean the milieu, but rather “what is the player supposed to feel while doing this?” What fantasy is this task guiding us toward? Mighty warrior of the burning wastes? Benevolent savior of a man too weakened by hunger to save himself? Errand boy to an ungrateful fop?

Replayability
I’d call it One-and-Done, but it’s Fifty-and-I-Hope-ANet-Never-Does-This-Again-But-I-Know-They-Will.

Negative possibility space
“No way something would be here- Wait a minute, there is!” One point for Hal.
Finding Hal by exploring and discovering the apple connection makes for an interesting enough puzzle. Once.

All of what you have been passing off as good design have been reductions in grind.

Do you ever actually read what people write? That statement is seriously just being uselessly argumentative, after others and I have given specific alterations that would have made the achievement more engaging.

Let’s say that you only had to turn in 1 Apple to complete the achievement. If I were to create a thread calling it bad design, would you side with me? Likely not.

Wrong again. Predictive validity is lower than chance.
If it were 1 turn-in for 8AP, a mastery point, and a title, I’d question that it was over-rewarded, which is [gasp] not good design. Over-rewarding your players gets them quickly jaded and sets precedent. So yeah, it’d be bad design.

What about collection events?

Variation. Narrative. Exploration. In general, has reasonable exit points. Gives goals and motivates to participate in the game’s events with other players.
Gee, sounds like good design.

Illconceived Was Na.9781:

ANet: please stop adding achievements like this, that involve simplistic tasks repeated identically dozens of time; everyone I know finds them boring. Worse, I find it dispiriting, as it seems to devalue other achievements and accomplishments.

In the future, please add some depth or breadth. Just because something is fun or interesting to do a dozen times doesn’t mean it’s four times as fun to repeat it 4 dozen times.

Succinctly put. I’d make that my new signature, but there’s character limits.

Ayrilana.1396:

Opinions

Since it’s so subjective, we’ll test it against the Ayr-chan rubrics for what constitutes “good design”. Go ahead and list them out. Then see how many of them the Hal achievement fails.

The Hal achievement can be obtained through the normal course of play as you do your dailies or simply doing events on that side of the map just like playing WvW and fractals normally. Or players can focus specifically on a particular achievement and grind it out.

False. Ohoni already clearly identified why.

The Hal task requires not participating in other events in the zone, because it removes the character’s weapon abilities and requires bouncing through potential event zones, possibly while up-scaling them.
The only fortunate part is if one, somewhat ironically, already has the mastery points needed for thermal propulsion, which makes getting to Hal’s perch a little faster.

Players would still complain of the grind regardless. That’s what it comes down to: grind. Some people just don’t like it.

Players will still complain about anything. What matters is giving them less to complain about by using thoughtful design.

At least it has reasonable exit/entry points. It gets one good design mark by default.

Again, I’m not arguing for bad design.

Yes, you are.

Why must a subjective value be added to each iteration? Let’s say that you only needed to turn in five apples. Would you be posting on here that the last four iterations were a waste and that it should be dropped down to 1? Doubtful.

So, by implication, five (5) iterations is considered reasonable?
Yeah, I’d take that. I did that last night in between alt-tabs of chat. But I wasn’t engaged with the game.

Why must a subjective value be added to each iteration?
Because that’s good design. You reward players for a task. Actually, “better” design would to give a reward on a variable release schedule. It could be 1 apple one time, 5 the next, and 3 the iteration after. But only if the reward also meets certain [risk/resource]-reward thresholds.

The value comes from the reward. Is it worth returning 1 apple to him for a few AP, 1 MP, and a title? How about 5 times? 10 times? 50 times?

1 AP and 1 Mastery point: 1 iteration. That’s equivalent to what’s been present in the HoT zones.

Other AP? Per iteration. 5 / 10 / 50 is acceptable.

Title. 50, sure why not? Go nuts. AP hunters and title lovers will do it.

There, I just fixed the reward scheme for Hungry Hal.
Well, not entirely, because it’s still lacking any actual replayability.
And theme.
And fun.
And utility.

So other possible improvements:
Hal is a miner/logger. Hal works hard in this weirdly profitable, but dangerously inconvenient spot.
Hal would like a tasty dish the players can make. Blueberry pie one time. Zucchini bread another.
Every time you feed Hal, he gratefully gives you a special reward of unbound magic or a petrified log.
If there’s worry about the reward becoming too prolific, Hal eventually gets full, so he stops taking food.
We’ve now given the players a more interesting (ie, variable) fetch quest that incorporates lesser-used recipes in Cooking and products on the Trading Post, and Hal is now quasi-infinitely playable content. Hal also has a backstory, and thus a pixel’s worth of lore, but he’s now more woven into the world. Hal is grateful, rather than a surly ponce, so the players feel good about helping him.
All of the above use good design elements.

If the rewards are not worth it to you for the effort needed then don’t do it. Just like how there are other things in the game with unique rewards that players have chosen not to do because it isn’t worth it to them. That in no way makes it “bad design”. If you disagree then link me the industry standards for what is “bad design”.

The answer is actually rather simple.

Good design motivates.
Bad design demotivates.

Because game theory is, at its heart, a subset of years of psychological study on motivation. And I’m not, wait for it, motivated enough to do your homework for you.

Ayrilana.1396:

You have identified what you feel is bad design. What someone feels is bad design doesn’t mean that it is bad design. All it means is that it doesn’t work for what they prefer. That is all. Unless you can find a list of design principles taught by a credible in stylization as to what is bad design, all you’re going on is your biased opinion. Most things would be considered good design so unless you can present evidence to the contrary that are not based on personal opinions. Nothing will change that.

Well enough. The achievement exhibits no elements of good design:

• Engaging task
• Furthering story/lore which is essential to the RPG experience
• Variation
• It barely adheres to alternate variable reward schedules, and that only exists because it has multiple achievement steps with gradually increased spacing in between recognition.

With the absence of good, that only leaves bad. Maybe neutral or “necessary evil”, which are acceptable in small doses or after sufficient scenary changes.

If you’re arguing for those who love to zone out to running around and farming things, you do them a disservice by supporting content with a poor reward scheme. Those players could be farming somewhere farm more productive than wasting time feeding Hal the Ingrate.

It is not grind for grind’s sake to stall rewards. It’s a single achievement that isn’t tied to any meta as being required. I guess the WvW achievements are bad design since they’re stalling the rewards. I guess the fractal weapon collection/achievement is bad design because it’s stalling the reward.

A deliberately obtuse exaggeration. WvW achievements are gained in the normal course of play, while participating in the exact goals of WvW. Same with Fractal achievements. They are woven into the multi-faceted aspects of playing through the broader content.
Hal is a single, monotonous task repeated far more than it should have for its entertainment value.
It’s sad that comparing WvW/Fractal achievements even exists.

I seriously doubt it being more engaging would really have changed your position. If it were to have the player go to 50 different locations on the map for various reasons, you and the others would still be complaining. It comes down to simply that you don’t like the grind.

Wrong.

A moving Hal would engage the players by encountering him in different locations. A moving Hal would get players to explore the zone more. A moving Hal would have given players a laugh as we find him in increasingly impossible locations while still carrying that godsbesotten flaming apple.
But he didn’t move. Players are even offering to help him move, mostly by shoving the lazy bum off a cliff and telling him to glide and get his own ruddy apples.

And if you’re arguing for bad design just because the players not wanting to grind an unappealing task for an hour sounds like “entitlement” to you, at least be honest and say it directly. Don’t give carte blanche for blatant padding of monotony.

Also, third time ducking the main point, and once after it was explicitly asked.
What has been added by the extra 49 unnecessary iterations?

KestrelGirl.9267:

RyuDragnier.9476:

Its name will most likely be Scylla, based on the sea monster of Greek mythology.

Female Elder Dragon. Hell yeah. Remember the people who wanted Jormag to be a gal?

No, but I can remember when I wanted Jormag to be pronounced properly. >.>"

Ayrilana.1396:

I’m not going to “study basic design principles” when you haven’t established that it is bad design. Grind is not bad in MMO’s and actually intended. It’s one single achievement that isn’t required. “Bad design” is thrown about quite a lot and used as a phrase to gain support for the connotations that it brings.

Except I already have identified the bad design principles that have gone into that achievement. So have several other players. It’s not my fault some would choose to ignore evidence for the sake of being argumentative. Nor is it the first time I’ve seen positions laid out that way. So when the words “bad design” come out, you can bet there’s a reason. It’s subjective, of course, but there’s a reason.

It’s not grind for grind’s sake just to stalk rewards.

Actually, it is.

It’s a single mastery point and title that isn’t required for the meta. All of the other rewards that you can obtain from the release also do not hinge on the player completing this achievement.

The achievement doesn’t have to be done in one sitting. A player can casually turn in a few apples as they do their dailies and cclkplete it over a week or two. There are other ways they could have done that but that is the same for every single achievement in the game.

Again with the “but you don’t have to” trope. It’s lazy. The question that should have been asked was “How could this failed achievement been made more engaging?” Instead, the question that was asked in development was “How much of this monotony can we expect players to choke down without a revolt?” They miscalculated at 50.

And yet, the main question has been dodged at least twice.

What has been added by the extra 49 unnecessary iterations?

Ayrilana.1396:

So anything that is repetitive is bad design? Even in a genre that often requires it? This achievement is not different than other forms with the exception that it can be done solo. It’s still a single achievement that isn’t required. There are players that enjoy these type of activities. There are other players that do not.

Earlier in this thread

Study a few basic game design principles, and you’ll see why this is lazy, lousy execution.

I’m not here to do all your homework for you. Claiming “it’s not required” does not excuse bad design. And, other forumites have made suggestions on how this achievement could have been improved.
Someone else pointed out in another thread (in forum/reddit, I forget exactly where) that just because a “few people enjoy it” doesn’t mean it couldn’t be made more engaging and evoke more positive feedback from a larger population of players.

Yes, MMOs survive by creating repetitive content. MMO developers cannot create content fast enough, so they rely on the replayability of their content to keep players engaged. But grind for grind’s sake, just to stall reward acquisition, is a cheap excuse to include it.

Also earlier in this thread

It adds nothing.

Hungry Hal adds nothing beyond its mastery point and some AP. Anything could have gone in its place. Map completion would have been a more worthy task for a mastery point and some AP. At least the currency grinds in HoT maps give a reason to interact with the broad expanses of the maps and participate with other players. Hungry Hal’s achievement bogs a player with a pointless hour of pathing the same cycle for no other reward. Are there any “Good Apples” still feeding poor, lazy(ily designed) Hal? I’d be surprised if that number exceeded zero.

Ayrilana.1396:

Many games have quests that are simply fetch quests. Are those bad design then?

Not-good game designs can still be used quite often. Either because the content is old (as with WoW) or because the designers needed a fast (some would say ‘lazy’) approach to generating content.
I hesitate to call fetch quests as a whole “bad” design, simply because they’re a staple of every RPG ever. But they’re not “good” design, either. They’re fairly passive, un-engaging tasks that exist to expend time and give the illusion of progress.

Hal is actually bad design because of the repetitive nature of it. Doing it once might have been rewarding a clever/perceptive player for recognizing the apples and finding the NPC. But that’s where the novelty and reward end, until the roundabout task is repeated another 49 times.
If Hal’s dialog changed with each apple, perhaps that would have been sufficient intermediate reward for bringing him more, but all that happens is a little tick mark on the achievement tracker. It could have been an opportunity to expand on lore, but it wasn’t used that way.
If Hal had changed positions after each delivery, at least players would be going to different locations, possibly one iteration requiring to survive carrying the apple across the map to get to him. But that didn’t happen either.
If the achievement only required 10 deliveries, there probably wouldn’t be much grousing at all. Task repeated to the level of competence and no further. Instead, it takes a reasonable number and magnifies it fivefold, into the realm of pointless drone-work. Nor does adding on an extra 40-49 iterations add anything to the gaming experience. It adds nothing.

A moving Hal would have at least gotten us exploring the zone and limited the iterations to a reasonable number.
A Hal that pined for various cooking recipes would have gotten us to use Chef recipes and the Trading Post, possibly for an extra petrified wood or unbound magic reward.

Ayrilana.1396:

Rauderi.8706:

Ayrilana.1396:

OtakuModeEngage.8679:

Ayrilana.1396:

OtakuModeEngage.8679:

I really hate this achievement. Not only does it take 2-3 minutes per apple, running back and forth over and over again, but there’s not even enough apple trees to do it in one day, so you have to come back the next day, and the next. So so sooooooo grindy. I don’t want to feed the lazy bumb, I want to push him off the cliff?

Oh, that would be cool! Make an alternate achievement, where if you press f while you don’t have an apple, you get the chance to send him to the grave. I mean seriously man, I’ve got a couple gliders in my backpack, take one and go get your own apple your lazy bumb!

You can hop to another map instance. It takes about 4 instances to complete it. It may also work by swapping to another character but I didn’t do it that way.

It’s still way too grindy. Making something long, overly repeditive and tedius does not make it hard, just makes it annoying. Achievements like this are what people hate about MMOS, and only serve to incite player irritation. There’s just no need for so many apple runs.

Really no different than a lot of achievements that Anet creates. Wait until Halloween and Wintersday.

Thus, it’s worth highlighting that as a problem, not a feature. There isn’t even an economical reason to blame, as there would be for the Wintersday boozefest or candy corn. Bad design deserves to be exposed and shamed.

“I don’t like it” is not bad design.

Agreeing with bad design does not make it good design.

Study a few basic game design principles, and you’ll see why this is lazy, lousy execution.

Dawdler.8521:

Coldtart.4785:

Goatjugsoup.8637:

i dont know what is with this perception that pve has to be single player content.

Precedent.

Map completion has been single player content since launch.

Yes.

Precedent.

Have you tried solo endgame content in Orr, such as the champions at temples? I bet thats about as hard (or easy, depending on how you look at it) to solo as the post-endgame champions in HoT.

So your point is?

You can’t compare temple events to hero challenges. Because those are not parallel. Temple events are meta events, like VB’s night phase or Tarir’s defense. The actual hero challenges in Orr are fairly simple.

Ayrilana.1396:

OtakuModeEngage.8679:

Ayrilana.1396:

OtakuModeEngage.8679:

I really hate this achievement. Not only does it take 2-3 minutes per apple, running back and forth over and over again, but there’s not even enough apple trees to do it in one day, so you have to come back the next day, and the next. So so sooooooo grindy. I don’t want to feed the lazy bumb, I want to push him off the cliff?

Oh, that would be cool! Make an alternate achievement, where if you press f while you don’t have an apple, you get the chance to send him to the grave. I mean seriously man, I’ve got a couple gliders in my backpack, take one and go get your own apple your lazy bumb!

You can hop to another map instance. It takes about 4 instances to complete it. It may also work by swapping to another character but I didn’t do it that way.

It’s still way too grindy. Making something long, overly repeditive and tedius does not make it hard, just makes it annoying. Achievements like this are what people hate about MMOS, and only serve to incite player irritation. There’s just no need for so many apple runs.

Really no different than a lot of achievements that Anet creates. Wait until Halloween and Wintersday.

Thus, it’s worth highlighting that as a problem, not a feature. There isn’t even an economical reason to blame, as there would be for the Wintersday boozefest or candy corn. Bad design deserves to be exposed and shamed.

I like having my Howler, but yeah, totally agree with this thread. The howls are faint in comparison to the actual horn noise (perhaps replace the horn sound with a louder howl?), and the visual doesn’t travel with the horn, so using it while on the move just looks weird.

RoseofGilead.8907:

No, it’s not a wvw/pvp map. Part of the story requires you to obtain items that temporarily make you appear as an enemy to other players, but no one can attack you (nor can you attack anyone else).

No, but you can heal other players when they go down and get event credit.

Lethalvriend.1723:

They could also add a boat to the fire islands that sails to any of the map(s?) that gets added. They can do a check on the dialogue to see whether your character can go there or not (finished story once on the account for example, own hot etc.). Lion’s Arch is still a port.

I would have preferred a ship/gate, but I’m okay with scrolls, honestly. Instant access that I can shove into a shared slot isn’t such a bad thing.

One thing I’m hoping for is a compiled item after all the relevant content is released, so there’s one (1) item to act as a teleport vector, rather than three or four. It’d be easy enough to do with a mystic forge recipe.

The simplest thing would be to disallow use of the items within a certain range (300?) of anything that can be interacted with. No one needs a bank vendor so badly that they can’t take 5 steps in another direction, anyway.

Cecilia.5179:

Who do we sacrifice to protect Aurene?

Caithe. Gladly.

What if Aurene is corrupted anyways?

Well, she does have a bit of her daddy in her.

Maybe we would hate the dragons like we’re supposed to

The dragons are Force of Nature villains. It’s difficult to “hate” them, per se. You can spite a hurricane and dread the damage it causes, but do you really “hate” it on an emotional level?

Death should be unexpected and cruel. meaningful. Expected or unexpected, it should have meaning and drive something forward. But no fridging. Fridging is bad.

Hm.. it has potential. But more as a tonic with no “remove transformation” button. Keeps the character’s appearance, but changes their names to stuff like:

• Flame Legion Traitor
• Nightmare Court Fop
• Svanir Moron
• Councillor Phlunt

And it flags the character for PvP. Still can’t hit non-flagged characters or fight back (no skills), just turns you red to the world and green to that one faction. But I’ll admit, I mostly want it this way so that the “Bweeheehee I’m evil ‘roleplayers’” could get steamrolled by passersby. :P

Randulf.7614:

The link below is why the skip dialogue button isn’t currently in the new style story journals

https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/game/gw2/Please-allow-us-to-skip-cut-scenes/first#post4604049

Like Healix was saying, I think most of us realize the technical limitation, so a fast-forward button would be a dandy compromise without much threat of breaking scenes.

Ayrilana.1396:

or the instance’s difficulty needs to be increased to compensate.

That’s not a bad thing, honestly. It leaves room for more epic-feeling fights where the player must balance his end of a fight while supporting his allies. Or vice versa, being able to go full-bore damage because the allies do something useful like giving boons and holding aggro.

It’s almost as if that’d allow for more complexity in combat design.

Stitch.1794:

Rauderi.8706:

Stitch.1794:

I think this episode suggests that the dwarves are a head.

And most of a torso.

Finally. I was beginning to think everyone had taken my post seriously (or maybe they were just ignoring me and hoping I’d go away and take my puns with me).

Glad to see that had someone in Stitch(.1794)es. :P

And make this “Skip All Dialogue” button retroactive in Season 2. Please?
I dreaded the thought of trying to farm it for achievements, so much so that I spammed LFG for Triple Trouble instead!

Really though, without exaggeration, if achievements are going to be a thing, there needs to be a way to bypass lengthy scenes and reset certain fights/tasks after a failure.

Ayrilana.1396:

mauried.5608:

Theres really no differance in outcome to being helped by an NPC than being helped by another player.
The monsters that you are fighting dont get buffed if there are 2 players fighting them, so I cant see any problem in having NPCs who can actually help rather than being there just for show.
If the NPC is really useless, how about players being able to give NPCs better gear just on a temporary basis for the duration of the fights.

There is because not everyone wants the game nerfed even more so that the content is more of a faceroll than it already is currently.

And yet not everyone agrees that the content is “faceroll easy” either. You lack perspective.

I didn’t have any problems/deaths beating the content, but I run with high survivability, so I can understand if other players, especially on squishier classes, have trouble with some of the fights.

I can also understand that it’s a bit insulting and frustrating to have these “legendary” individuals flail around and do nothing in combat. It’s bad for immersion, theme, and feel of the story. Not to say that NPCs ought to be able to finish battles and objectives, but they shouldn’t be worthless, either.

Stitch.1794:

I think this episode suggests that the dwarves are a head.

And most of a torso.

I’m waiting for its fussy teenage phase where it grows grass over one eye and listens to angsty music.

Aeolus.3615:

@OP, dont like it? ignore it, its a skrit trap…

Naw, they’re carnies. It’s a different kind of rip off than a skritt vendor trap.
Just be glad it doesn’t involve a pay-for-glitch minigame to earn them.

Just a flesh wound.3589:

Mitch.4781:

Btw..how do you get that mastery point in the lava. You can’t focus on it cos u keep getting interrupted.

There is an event at that spot where you kill a Champ Jade. Once it’s killed you can get the mastery point. (You’ll need a whole lot of people to kill it).

Similar issue with getting to one of the volcano POIs. There’s a volcano cave near one of the rep quests, and going through there leads to a big space around a lava pit. If the boss has been beaten recently, there will be updrafts that go up to the top, take the thermal hop over, and there’s POI.

Problem is there is no indication a boss should be there. It’s an easy boss, but my problem was that if I had just been exploring and not following a guide, I would never have known, because that spot is just a dead end. That’s it, all there is to see, moving on and possibly never exploring that spot again.

It’s something ANet hasn’t realized about how players work: that if it’s not present or there is no indication given, the opportunity is lost on the first encounter with a set piece, the odds of coming back to it again are drastically lower.

Djinn.9245:

zwei.9073:

So how are new hearts implemented: at reset time, you loose all progress.

What?! Why would they do that? Especially since existing Hearts save progress. Where was the notice about this? So I ran around Ember Bay participating a little here, a little there KNOWING that my participation was saved because that’s how it always has been, and now its all wasted? If I had known, at least I could have chosen to complete the Hearts instead of letting my progress be wasted.

When I saw the repeatable hearts, I just sort of assumed there would be an accidental misstep like this. My plan from the onset was to finish the rest of the zone first, then do all the hearts in one playthrough.

Really hoping they patch this quick.

skeeman.3140:

I enjoyed both the story and the map. But there are five simple words that are driving me nuts.

“No valid path to target.”

With the way the terrain is modeled, even if I am standing in melee range, whacking away at an enemy, I can’t activate Symbol of Blades because the enemy is on a rock a couple inches higher than my player. If some of the terrain could be smoothed out a little, that would go a long way.

Your statement and this zone reminds me of why I hate mountains and slopes in MMOs. GW2 seems particularly prone to elevation/slope/collision issues, and the way Ember Bay is designed highlights this distinctly, and it’s not helped by our characters’ inability to hop more than about two feet in the air.

King Cephalopod.7942:

Rauderi.8706:

I can appreciate this perspective. Rather than wishing for some ultimate, uber-imbued mobs, having sections of the zone where some skills are more useful than others would still encourage build-tweaking as preparation. Note: one of those preparations is bringing your best Stability skill to the NW portion of Ember Bay.

I kinda want them to make the destroyers teach people what it’s like to have 10+ bleed/burning/poison stacks. Hoooo boy, smells like wvw.

I’m heavy on condi clear, but the story instances have insured that I’m never without a red box in my status bar. :P

Random side note, I found a lava cascade on the island and tried to go through it, in case there was some secret behind it. No secret, just 20 stacks of burning. o_O

My only complaint about the execution is that it ruins map completion. If the system could remember that I did it once and have a different indicator (i’unno, silver instead of gold), then at least it can save my progress.
I don’t mind the vendors being locked, since the rewards are bonus petrified wood and access to the other vendor items, most of which are things you buy once anyway.

LOLNO

Granted, I found it hilarious when I got to that point in the story. Since I was immune to enemy involvement but could still interact with players, I ended up using my invulnerability to save some poor mesmer who was fighting 4v1 against some veteran jade constructs. And a few other people that got downed.
So I saved three people while getting attacked by 10 others.
I got event credit for healing, by the way. XD

But, that aside, no. Keep PvP in the two game modes where it belongs.