Guild Wars 2

“… I am rather annoyed and bored with this game right now, witch is really ashame, its been a great start, but after getting a full t3 cultural gear set, and doing world completion, now what am i supposed to do?”

I get your point. Here’s a thought, If you have a full set of TIre 3 cultural armor at this point you are in a small percentage of players, very small (those who could shell out 120g for it). The fact that you have this already is likely the result of broken systems ArenaNet has been working to fix.

Perhaps chill for a while, go play another MMO (If you can find one as entertaining) come back in a month or so.

“,,, There needs to be more incentive for people to actually group up strategically and less like an unintelligible mob of single players. There needs to be more reason and depth to the areas so that people will go back and play in them.”

I agree 100% with this.

Regarding the rest of your post, mostly disagree. To pull out a few things: Personal Story is the vehicle that moves you forward in the story. It is a replacement for Missions in GW1 they are better voice acted than GW1, the writing is pretty good. The only thing is they can be ignored and a lot of people are.

Primary quest would be replaced by dynamic events. These tell the world story

Hearts are like seondary quest.

There needs to be more incentive to play together, but as far as having a clear path through a story that gives you a reason to want to fight Zhitan, Personal Story is the only answer.

It seems a server-side spam filter is needed to

1. Block any chain e-mail that’s not sent between guild mates (sometimes officers want to send out form e-mails). This action would stop 99% of it

2. Filter all e-mail pre-delivery for keywords (considering how obvious some of the content has been it’s obvious this is not happening

3. Prevent URL posting to map chat. Add gold selling keyboard filter to map chat.

Good post, enjoyed reading it. I have a character at 80 but have not completed the game with that character and instead have taken an interest in leveling an alt and I’m enjoying the fresh experience….

robot.9134:

Most mmo’s die because they don’t seem to be prepared for all of the issues post release and fall behind…deeper and deeper until I am sure they have great intentions to address all of the issues….they just can’t do it in time before players lose attention and leave.
…

The good MMOs that die (it’s sad to see SWTOR on life support) do so because they don’t plan for the cycle. You have the Zerg of new customers who rush to shinny new MMO and grind to level cap within 3 weeks of play and then scream for new content. They also usually complain about other things (story, social aspects). They are looking to replace their experience in some other MMO from the past. Maybe they were in a good legion/guild whatever in game X and they played it for months, developed friends, etc… It seems the expectation these days is for all that magic to happen within a few months of a games release or it’s time to get angry an move on.

The smartest thing a studio can do is have a years worth of new content in queue and ready to go on release. Address your community within a few months of release on what’s coming and then keep it steaming in.

I guess we’ll know soon enough if ArenaNet is following that model.

1. Add a Mystic Forge all it’s own with unique behavior. Perhaps make it so the WvW forge recopies will only work under certain conditions (e.g. x number of keeps must be under your servers control).

Create a special kind of Forge Token that drops from player kills that must be used for all recipes. Use the Forge to provide exotic and legendary weapons that are WvW specific .

2. Add “win scenario” WvW objectives that cycle every three hours. E.g. have a timer in WvW counting down from the three hour mark when it reaches zero have a large scale PvE event (something along the lines of the Clar of Jormag, but not with a dragon, et al). Make this an instanced zone that cycles every 3 hours that only members of the winning server can enter. Perhaps have a smaller scale alt event for the loosing server so they can have something to do during this time. Have the loot dropped from chest at end of event be in part based on player contribution over the past 3 hours in WvW. Consider locking all structures and sealing supply chains during these events.

Porky.5021:

SamTheGuardian.2938:

veritech.1048:

The goal is to control everything on the map. How is this so hard for you to understand? The benefit is tons of buffs for the realm.

There’s your reward.

I think it’s fun, but for longitivtiy it needs more. How man times can you really go through this cycle of holding keeps, protecting supply chains, doing repairs, etc… before it gets old without anything more than just “oh it’s fun”. It’s not just that there are no individual rewards, it’s that there is no scenario for a win (to be fair perhaps I’m missing it?). I guess technically that’s not true since servers are ranked, but I question if that’s really enough.

Would you sit down in the middle of a game of chess and play for 5-6 turns, capture a few pawns and then drop off? With WvW that does seem to be how it works. You come into this never ending battle scenario.

Yea, after months of this, I usually stop and think, “It would be great if all this effort got me a sword that does an extra +5 damage”.

Then it’s all worthwhile cuz I got me a shiny!

So it’s Friday night. You sign in. You go into WvW. You’re coming into the middle of a never ending battle. It’s exactly the same thing you did last weekend when you played WvW. You’re capturing a few structures, protecting supply chains, etc.. all so they can only be captured again within a day or two (usually hours).

You mean to tell me you actually see yourself doing that over and over and over again with no real win scenario and no individual rewards “just for fun” as a good system for long term commitment. It’s really a form of grind with absolutely no reward outside the overall server benefits which you get little individual credit for.

You talk about a game (any game) at a fundamental level it’s about a series of challenges that you must overcome that lead to a win/loose scenario. In WvW I just think there needs to be some more tooling there. You can take these small victories as challenges won and create in your head your own win scenario. “yeah, we finally took the keep. We’re done, I’m off to bed”. But it doesn’t really work that way. At least not in my experience. Perhaps if the guild were organized around WvW exclusive play and my team had just accomplished it’s goal for the guild… that would make more sense.

Perhaps the experience in a WvW guild is a lot different. If you’re in a WvW guild I’d like to know more about the dynamic going on. Explain what you find fun about it, where the challenge is and how you get to a “win” scenario where you can leave WvW and feel like you accomplished something. Aren’t these fair questions?

Why do you assume my recommendation would be only in unique gear?

veritech.1048:

The goal is to control everything on the map. How is this so hard for you to understand? The benefit is tons of buffs for the realm.

There’s your reward.

I think it’s fun, but for longitivtiy it needs more. How man times can you really go through this cycle of holding keeps, protecting supply chains, doing repairs, etc… before it gets old without anything more than just “oh it’s fun”. It’s not just that there are no individual rewards, it’s that there is no scenario for a win (to be fair perhaps I’m missing it?).

Would you sit down in the middle of a game of chess and play for 5-6 turns, capture a few pawns and then drop off? With WvW that does seem to be how it works. You come into this never ending battle scenario.

“… I watched a football game and my team won, the game was exciting I had a few beers and spent time with friends and other fans, I had a lot of fun, unfortunately afterwards I was not given a present. Therefore I must rate the whole experience a 1 out of 5.”

Instead of attacking I just want you to think about what you wrote… Think about why you watch football. It’s not just about two teams facing off, it’s about one of those teams winning and progressing to the eventually finals.

Imagine the game of football if NFL existed without any long term goals or rewards. Teams just playing against one another for the kitten of it, without any long term goal. No finals. No Superbowl. Perhaps you would still be a fan? You get to a point in these sort of conversations where people just think differently and there is no more discussion to be had.

Mrpopo.4593:

it’s not that im not having fun it’s just not fun when there isn’t anything to do :/

WvW is something to do. Do you not find that fun?
Dungeons in explore mode require focused team play. Do you not find that fun?

ArenaNet has stated they intend to change the world by slowly removing scripted dynamic events and adding new ones. That is going to be their primary means of delivering new content between expansions. If you’re thinking “I don’t really want to keep running around the GW2 world finding new events” and you don’t think of dungeons or WvW as fun, I think you’re safely at a point where you can say this isn’t the game for you.

There is plenty to do. If you only define endgame as raids then there isn’t move on to a game with raids perhaps.

Greyfeld.7104:

Ordika.9513:

Honestly I was going to say not many modern, but in all honesty, I can go back to Baldur’s Gate and Fallout and safely say I hit level cap long before I got to the end of the game.

This is more a nature of the “sandbox” RPG subgenre, in which the storyline isn’t nearly as important as the freedom granted the player to explore and interact with the world. Following the narrative in any RPG is going to lead to game completion long, long before you ever hit the level cap.

GW2 is not a sandbox MMO. I believe there are a large population of players running around the game avoiding personal story and dynamic events only doing Hearts and thinking the story sucks (even a few pro reviewers seemed to not grasp the concept of story delivery in this game) . It’s not sandbox MMO because players can’t make lasting changes in game and players don’t really control the economy (who sets the exchange rate of gems to gold conversion?). Also, although it appears you have multiple paths there really isn’t. In GW2 you a single path through YOUR story, that’s Personal Story chapters. That’s your single path of progression that takes you from level 1 tutorial all the way to the beaches of Orr. You ride that wave until level 80 then dymamic events get you to the final dungeon where the final boss awaits.

Many players have chosen to ignore personal story, clear zones, grind dynamic events and dungeons for XP to max level, then go to Orr, get to the final boss and scream about lack of endgame content and lack of story. I’m beginning to wonder how much fault can be put on the player for doing that in a game that so easily lets them.

The player should not be allowed to exclusively do Hearts, or only dynamic events and ignore PS. You are encouraged and expected to mix these things up at your own pace, but people are still focused on the level cap as goal #1 and they quickly determine the story as throw away. Thinking this is just like all other MMOs they wonder why story isn’t being delivered through Heart/quest. The only one of the three progression vehicles that’s really required is Personal Story, because it’s a linear path. Without it you are just running around the game world really. It gives meaning to the events you see going on around you. I don’t understand why the game doesn’t require this.

It seems the developers want the story in this game to be very important to you, but they’ve made it so players can choose to ignore personal story altogether (a contradiction of design I don’t understand)

I think ArenaNet should lock zones until certain Personal Story chapter are complete. If you have a level 70 personal story chapter that delivers some important information the player needs to know before going to Orr they should be required to play through that. This non-linear approach to design leaves players having finished the game and ignored the story altogether.

Question: “Are MMO players trained to play for progression.”. Answer: Yes and they are determined to turn GW2 into that type of game.

“About 15 of us went after one of the towers close to the enemies port in. We took it and held it all night (our sides zerg saved us a few times.)”

What kind of rewards were given out for this? It seems to me the play mechanics are there, the reward system is what needs work…

Don’t need mounts, don’t like the aesthetic they add to the landscape, don’t think they make functional sense in a game like GW2 with waypoint travel and swiftness boon options. If I want to get somewhere fast and don’t want to spend for I I equipt my staff (symbol of swiftness) and Retreat! strategically dropping the symbol for party members to run through ads a mild bit of entertainment value to moving across the massive landscape…. If I need to get somewhere really fast I use WP travel and pay the cost.

On some of my characters I can freely change which guilds I rep, on others I can not change it. This would be on Yaks Bend.

“…When you look at the art in our game, you say ‘Wow, that’s visually stunning. I’ve never seen anything like that before,’ and then when you play the combat in our game, you say ‘Wow, that’s incredible. I’ve never seen anything like that.’
Again pretty much the same thing as before. The combat part is too subjective to discuss – note: this doesn’t contradict my above statement as to how combat is active. It is active, but it depends on whether you like being restricted to 5 skills and some utilities or not…”

You are not restricted to just 5 skills! You have 10 through weapon swapping + your utility skills which you often swap while moving between combat. Also the trait system modifies the collective build strategy. As a Guardian I may choose to add traits that make Spirit weapons last 50% longer or dual 10% more damage, etc… I may add 50% to retaliation and put my build together around that . It seems to me a lot of thought/design went into making the system simple but powerful.

I don’t see the huge grid of skill options in games like WoW and AION are a benefit. I think it’s more cluttered. In my experience you have a grid of skill and several of them do something very similar. The trait system + weapon swapping + reduced skill in HUD make for a situation where your build becomes dynamic. I’m often switching utility skills and weapons between combat (but while moving) to get the best results in a given situation.

“… In most games, you go out, and you have really fun tasks, occasionally, that you get to do, and the rest of the game is this boring grind to get to the fun stuff. ‘I swung a sword. I swung a sword again. Hey! I swung it again.’ That’s great.
Again, this is a part that requires too much subjectivity to discuss, but I think we can all agree they’ve done a great job of distributing fun heart quests all over the world. Of course, that doesn’t meant everyone’s supposed to enjoy every single heart quest.”

Heart quest were added last. They were added to make the traditional MMO player feel like they have quest. This was stated in interviews, it’s documented. Having said that I enjoy them and I’m glad they are there! The core of the story is told through personal story (your story) and dynamic events (the world story). When you sign into GW2 you at level 1 you have all these options open to you. Do I go do my personal story? Do I do a heart quest? do I chase down events? You have choices. In other games (well, except for a few very new ones like Rift) you have this linear path through quest and that’s it.

I’d like a better explanation of how ArenaNet is calculating gems to gold conversion. It seems they seeded it ~26 silver per 100 gems or about $1 USD = 20 silver. $10 ~2g

If you want to convert real $ to gems to buy something substantial in game right now it’s very unrealistic for most of us. Some examples:

• Commander Compendium for WvW (100g or $500 USD)
• Teir 3 Cultural armor (120g or $600 USD)
• Black Dye (6g or $30 USD)

• Traveling from Divinity’s Reach to Frostgorge Sound (2.5s or $0.15)
• Cost of level 80 armor repair (24s or $~1.00)

I believe they expect people will spend real cash for the small things. those who can’t will have to pay careful attention with the small cost that add quick.

“… So my question is thus: What is there to do at level 80 for someone interested in PvE? Dungeons and DE’s are nothing more than an easy grind for useless gear, crafting can be a bit interesting but ultimately is the same grind for useless gear, and exploring the world is fun for a while but becomes repetitive quickly (if I wanted to enjoy beautiful landscapes I would play Skyrim).”

Read your entire post, but I’m only quoting the TL;DR part for summary. I think what people miss about raids are the intense team strategy. When you think team strategy, you think Healer/Range/DPS (trinity). The approach ArenaNet took with GW2 is to make each class strong and independent and not force a specific roll in team play. The result in my experience is very mild team strategy. You have the cross-profession combos which are cool, but I don’t see players working hard to pull these things off. Perhaps down the road they will, but for now it seems the game doesn’t really force team strategy at the same intensity level as other MMOs. (the exception would be sPvP Torunaments, but until a ranking system is in place that’s a difficult place to find fun unless you want to quit your job and commit to a hardcore team)The expectation of the player is that as they progress the strategic element shifts from important to critical. You get that from WoW raids and I think that’s really what players are looking for.

I would imagine that type of content is coming.

For now, the answer is dungeons explore mode (and no, they are not all easy. story mode is) and WvW.

“The Questing in GW2 is flat out the worst questing I have personally ever seen in an MMO, ". So when you say “questing” in GW2 are you referring to the Hearts? If you are comparing Heart “quest” to most traditional MMO quest then yeah, the rewards and overall complexity is stronger in traditional MMOs (for most) but keep in mind Hearts were sprinkled on in the later stage of development, they are not your primary source of entertainment or progression through GW2. You could in fact think of them as bonus content.

Your characters personal story and dungeons are where the games writers spent the most work. It’s where you find the voice dialog, complex scripted events, etc.. and it is your linear path through an open world that gives you a reason to care when you finally taker on the final end boss.

Dynamic Events are a third component and a reasonable amount of dialog and scripting has been put into these as well.

I guess if I’m understanding your complaint correctly I would agree that quest are kind of weak in GW2 but then again they aren’t the only way the story is delivered. The combination of Hearts/Events and Personal Story provide a unique experience that counters grind and tops anything else I’ve played.

I understand why you would want a waypoint travel cost for the money sink aspect, but this has become a tax for players who want to help others. I’ve seen players offering to pay waypoint cost in my guild to get some help. It’s awkward, no one wants to accept money but we don’t want to pay either.

I wish there was an item I could buy in gem store that would cover all waypoint travel cost for 30 days. If you offered an item at a reasonable price (idk say around 1200 gems) you would probably get a lot of takers. If I had this I wouldn’t think twice about hoping over and helping someone in need.

Regarding those upset with all the complainers: People who have ranked up > 160 hours know this game better than anyone. I would argue we know it better than the developers themselves since we experienced their creation from a fresh slate. Most critics played in press beta and then probably clocked 40-80 hours in game. Reached level 50-60 and decided the game is amazing, wrote a delightful review then checked out.

The problem is the cracks begin to become earthquakes around level 60. All the real flaws surface. Be thankful for the complainers (well not all of them, but many) because we’re trying to help ArenaNet see these things that in all the glory of a successful release can be very easy to selectively ignore.

A lot of us are complaining now because we feel there is no other voice to do so. We love the game and obviously aren’t going to abandon. It’s just for us the honeymoon period is over and we see the game is mortal and not incapable of going the way of SWTOR or other MMOs that were designed quite well then went down hill quickly

Efaicia.3672:

Hickeroar, Deaths and repairs aren’t too bad when you quit dying wink. If someone wont stop dying, well, thats not the games fault.

I guess you just ignored the whole section of my post when I mentioned repeated death in dungeons in context of running the dungeon with less experienced leveled players who at lower levels and thus have less risk in terms of cost of armor repair. I’ve run the same dungeon with similar level players and dropped to down state three times, only died once. If you’re going to respond it would be nice if you would understand the comments.

I believe you missed my entire point

The good:

• Dungeon layouts are unique
• Scripting is well implemented (story mode)
• Dungeons unlock at just the right points in character level progression

The bad:

• Armor repair cost can kill you and if you wipe the dungeon run will cost much more than it earns. While dungeon’s should not be without risk, by making armor repair cost the primary risk you add an unhealthy dynamic to the team. Level 80’s in a lower level team may go down 3-4 times and up up with 12-15 silver in armor repair for a lower level dungeon that’s not going to pay out well. The current system discourages higher level players from taking risk and playing with lower level groups unexperienced in the dungeon because it will cost them.

• General lack of puzzles

• Team strategy as a requirement is almost non existent in this game and this is felt most perhaps in dungeons. Every aspect seems to be designed around independent play experience (I’ll play how I want attitude). You don’t need anyone except for a res and in dungeon’s while support classes are putting up boons most players probably aren’t noticing this effort. This is the flip-side of the holy trinity being gone and the end result in dungeons is the every man for himself feel. It’s alright. There is some entertainment value still, but the team feel is gone. I’ve heard GW2 referred to as the loneliest MMO ever and I’m starting to understand that.

• The end boss(s) are 10x harder than all the smaller bosses. Unbalanced.

• Anomalies are abundant (doing Twilight Arbor story mode for the 3rd time. I’m level 76. I’m scaled down but I am wearing level 72 gear. I just did armor repair. I run into the final boss zone and Logan takes me down with 1 hit. I was at full health).

• The payout in general in dungeons seems weak but I will admit this one is my opinion.

Suggestions:

• Remove armor repair cost in dungeons instead add dungeon admission tokens (call them something better than that) to the game. You could also just make dungeons free to enter, but I think there should be some risk associated. Make them something you have to purchase for karma or coin from a vendor. This way everyone puts up equal risk up front before entering. As current system is designed higher levels joining lower level players in dungeons are putting up much more risk in armor repair if they end up with a weak team.

• Add puzzles

• Create scenarios that require team strategy that adapts to the team. For game developers scripting for holy trinity scenarios it’s linear. You’ve chosen to make GW2 non-linear so my expectations would be dungeons would adapt and toss out challenges for defeating specific groups based around the five player group. If I have a team of 5 eles I would imagine they should face different challenges than five Warriors. If you want to add the team feel back this is one suggestion.

Actions I’m taking:

• I won’t run dungeons unless most of the team is the same level as my character and has done the dungeon before

• I will inquire about other players individual strategy (since there is no team strategy it’s very hard to nail down the weak links in the team and address those issues with constructive criticism or to finger point and ask them to leave)

I’ll probably end up just avoiding dungeons for the most part unless I have a team of level 80s to run it with me.

boris.8419:

I bought the Digital Deluxe edition, since I enjoyed every second on GW1, I thought I could spend the extra cash and grab the DDE for GW2. But then, I saw this upgrade on the gemstore (Black Lion thing); for 2000 gems, you can receive the difference / upgrade your game to Digital Deluxe aswell.

Not only that Digital Deluxe bonuses are just “joke” (5 day on Golem Banker? Really?), which made me feel like an “half-idiot”, seeing that people can buy the DDE with GOLD, I now feel like a complete idiot with a “kick me” sticker on his back. I feel like I was ripped off; cheated.

Your idea to allow people get gems with in-game currency is cool, but you still have to draw a line in my opinion. I don’t know if anyone feels like me, but as I’ve said, I feel like I was ripped off, cheated. I was trying to help you, but in return, you put a “kick me” sticker on my back.

Here is some stuff which may make me smile & enjoy the game again (extra bonuses only to those grabbed DDE not from gemstore);
-Unlimited Golem Banker (woohoo! nah it won’t happen. but why?)
-OST Download
-Gems?

I held off on digital deluxe because I didn’t feel like the description of the bonus items was good enough. A unique armor set would have been nice. People don’t pull out mini pets in this game…. Influence boost for your guild? Really this is a bonus item? One time use glory boost for PvP.. The only thing worth while really is the special elite skill which is pretty cool. I wouldn’t pay 2000 gems ($25 USD) for this. Would probably not even pay 800 gems ($10 USD) for it.

I know exactly what you mean and I also have determined why it feels this way (for me anyway).

1.) The game’s action-combat is very independent focused. You really don’t need anyone else (except to res you on occasion) so you end up playing with others but you aren’t putting team strategy to work. You don’t need them and they don’t need you. Although I never liked the holy trinity. I think strategic team work is important outside of explorable dungeons. As a level 78 who’s cleared the 60-70 zones I can tell you this does not change and in fact the feeling only gets worse to the point that you begin to realize this core element of GW1 and well pretty much any MMO is missing.

2.) All dialog, scripting, writing, etc… All the work ArenaNet put into the STORY of the game the player is going to experience is isolated to this Personal Story instances (little green stars guide you there). This is somewhat tailored for your character based on race, profession and character creation choices. This the the part of the game that gives the player a sense of progressing forward towards a greater goal and it’s designed to be played entirely solo! What’s more, you can’t repeat any of it! Most players are doing these instances alone and pulling in friends only when they have to. That is how they are designed to be played. This adds to the lonely experience because you are experiencing the best parts of the game and the scripted story alone.

The combination of these things makes GW2 feel like the loneliest MMO ever. The only players don’t need you, you don’t need them and they are rarely with you when you are experiencing the best parts of the game. How is this good design for an MMO again? I get “we’re going to innovate” but how is this good?

From ArenaNet developers “players should be be able to progress about one level for every hour and a half of play time”.

I would argue that does not account for time you spend outside combat. The 1 level to 1..5 hours a play rule is broken quickly when you do dungeon runs or go help friends with personal story. These things are not good XP sources (dungeon’s especially if you end up wiping). WvW tends to give great XP if you are the right level to benefit from it.

Leveling speed will depend how how you supplement XP from combat with XP from exploring and crafting. How quickly the zone you’re playing in lends itself to frequent chained eventss and on those all working.

From level 1-10 took about 5 hours for me. To get from 70-75 took about 15 hours. But those levels from 70-75 I had no XP from exploring, I spent a lot of my in game time helping others with PS and trying dungeons.

Learned some lessons but have no regrets.

Listen carefully: all games are about the rewards. If there is no “win” scenario there is no fun. The win scenario could be I gathered x and delivered it to y and then got reward z. The value of award z is the trick. For any game to be fun there has to be incentive. What GW2 does really well is feel brand new out the gate. When you roll your first character and play through the first 10 levels you’re hooked. It’s not like anything you’ve played before.

Once you get past that experience (~level 40-50) you need a strong reward system to keep the game fun and interesting and honestly, it’s not there with this game.

You also need a combat system that forces team strategy at some stage. This game does not. You can clear dungeons without team strategy in story mode.

Since there are no dedicated roles the role you play is just doing the best you can without regard to others. You don’t have to play this way, but if you choose to the game will let you and will let you make it through 95% of the content by doing so. I can not stress how insanely bad that is for an MMO. It’s not a stab at action-combat, I don’t even want the holy trinity back. I just wish they made us work a bit harder and use real team strategy.

There is very little reason to care at all about other players in this game. In fact since you have to pay waypoint cost to go help someone it’s very much the anti-MMO in the the bad ways as well the good ones.

The print version of the official strategy guide list all dynamic events and hearts with description of event, etc… with the exception of three zones. Timberline Falls, Sparkfly Fen and Mount Malestrom (all 55-70 level zones) For these zones, they just publish a picture of the map revealing heart and waypoint locations but no description of dynamic events.

It seems perhaps these zones were not finished when the book went to press. Perhaps it’s not coincidence these zones feel like an unfinished mess that you must grind your way through?

IMO these zones feel very unfinished.

In one of the guilds I’m in we were running 40-50% active on weeknights and dropping to no lower than 25% at any given time. In the last four days it’s dropped in a big way. This morning we had 6/100 on-line. Only 6% of the guild woke up this morning wanting to play GW2 three weeks after launch. I’d say the honeymoon period is definitely over.

With a huge queue of bugs still not worked out, angry players in the forums and no real word from ArenaNet on future plans for content updates (I know it’s 3 weeks after launch, but they should have known it would be like this… how many other MMOs have we see go through this same progression).

I am still playing but I will say two things.

1.) Leveling from 1-50 in this game was the best experience I’ve ever had in an MMO and perhaps in any PC game. Leveling 70-80 has been one of the most miserable, lonely, grindy experiences I’ve ever had in an MMO.

2.) I’m beginning to come around to the way of thinking of those who level cap and complain of having nothing to do, but I don’t see lack of raids as the main issue. I see a fundamental design flaw in their combat system that does not encourage strategic team play. That is a flaw that they can not change.

Wolfgrey.2049:

This is Guild Wars.“G-u-i-l-d W-a-r-s” As in guilds going to war.So as in PvP. PvP is the focus here. Once you hit 80 you are suppose to soak in the pvp, learn the ins and outs, perfect builds, join guilds, and duke it out. Balancing, new content, and patches will constantly change the pvp scene.

PvE was never meant to replace it.They simply gave you a much larger PvE experience than last time.That is all.

PvP will make this last for many years to come, not the PvE.But having said that there is tons to do with 5 characters on the way to 80 and i am sure it will be a long time before i care. Nvm that i played the original Guild Wars so i know where the true focus is.

Either way folks, grinding dungeons isn’t end game.

Pvp, trying to stand on top of everyone else in SPvP, getting a legion set up for WvWvW, setting up teams and goals,knowing your builds, and learning new strategies is the end game. And that will last til the game’s eventual demise.

Welcome to “Guild Wars”.A game based on pvp.

I assure you that it’s you that does not “get it” and not the community complaining. Regarding sPvP go to the gw2esport subreddit and watch the youtube vid in the thread “Anet should listen to this…” it’s a video post by a shoutcaster (Gijesus) who carefully articulates why sPvP in this game is just not worth getting too serious about right now.

WvW is the logical place to go for endgame as things are designed. The issue with WvW is what is my reward? What am I working for at level 80 with great gear in WvW? The reward system needs to be rethought.

When you come out saying a major component of a game needs to be retooled you are essentially saying the game is broken. This is a very difficult thing for me to say about this game

The level 60-70 zones are horrible which is why they are often empty. People don’t want to be there doing the boring events available, they clear and move on. Travel cost only help them justify not going back to help others. Level 60-70 you realize the game isn’t all you thought it was, just sayin’

• Dynamic events bugged. On Emhry Bay you have entire zones like Timerline Falls and Mount Malestrom bugged at times. Dynamic events are an important source of XP, karma and coin. Not to mention, DE are the only scripted content outside personal story. For these to be broken is for the game to be broken.

• Server population on the lower to mid servers (Emhry’s being again as an example) are scattered and so thin in many of the zones it’s hard to get 2-3 together to tackle an event. Most often the only rational thing to do is avoid events not run to them.

• Waypoint travel cost have implemented a system that makes players pay coin to help others. If my guildie is anywhere except right outside a major (free travel Heart of the Mist through LA ftw) I end up paying to go help them. That means unless I know them personally, I don’t help them and even then I have to weigh things. So yeah, that’s not good.

• Personal Story does not reward those who join in well enough and does not allow two players to complete the story chapter at the same time/in the same instance. I played Retribution through 3-times. It was the next story in my progression all three times, but since I didn’t initiate the instance I got no credit for it. If two players are on the same chapter there should be an option for the one “guesting” in the instance to get full credit and move forward. Without this the Personal Story system strongly discourages group play. The problem with this is that Personal Story are like Missions for GW1 these are where the good scripted content that you want to experience with others lives. Bad design Anet. I’m just going to say it, very very bad design. With personal story, you’ve baked in a single player game inside an MMO. The problem is that MMO desperately needs the content you’ve locked away in the single player experience because without it there is no real story. I love your game I don’t want it to be broken like this, I’m very upset that it was designed this way. It’s just horrible for group play and this is amplified with the broken events. Since I’m in no need of a healer and my profession and switch between range and DPS on his own I’m not really needing to use group strategy for anything. Essentially there is nothing to do with others in a structured way except dungeons.

• Dungeons in story mode lack need for strategy. No holy trinity, no need for any thought on the part of build configuration at all doing the first three AC, CM, TA. Sorrows Embrace story mode is also a cake walk up until the final endboss. That endbos was the first time in game I played with a structured team and we had to actually use strategy. The entire game after level 50 or so should be like this. But before you go make it harder, please fix some of the other issues first!

• Personal Story can’t be repeated: This is another big deal. There are several of my chapters I enjoyed enough to go back and replay. Some I’d like to experience with friends. Again, this is horribly flawed as the real “meat” of the game is locked away and designed around personal story. This is where the dialog is, this is where the complex scripted events are. This is where the writing of the game went and it’s designed to be experienced, alone? In an MMO? I get that Anet wanted to design something different, but this does not work!

• Most Personal Story chapters are hack and slash and lack puzzles. I dare say the first GW series of games all did a better job in this area. I can’t express how disappointed I am. Don’t take this comment and say “go play GW1”, I am just comparing the level design and puzzle challenge aspect of the two games.

• ArenaNet’s definition of endgame needs rethinking. Level 80 players with nothing to do aren’t really wanting to run the same dungeon all the time. We need something raid like that’s not a raid. Something instanced for max level, max stat large groups that plays out over the world over a series of days with stackable rewards each day leading up to something climatic at the end of each week. I have ideas too big and too OT for this thread. So that’s my big request for down the road, as an immediate fix please give better rewards in WvW. What does WvW reward right now? Nothing really.

I think the WvW maps would be a great location for new instanced content. Perhaps mix PvE and PvP elements as AION did. It just seems there is so much that could be there for max stat characters that isn’t.

Had I reviewed the game a week after lunch ~level 50 I would have probably scored it a 96/100. If I reviewed it today (only a few weeks later) I’d probably score it a 85/100. I just wanted the game to be so much more than it turned out. I wanted it to be stable and to meet the exceptional quality of past ArenaNet products (I’m talking specifically about lack of bugs). This game has an unacceptable # of bugs

Komuflage.2307:

So you want the game to tell you exactly where to go and what to do?

Come one, what’s make this game so fun is just walking around exploring, mining some nodes just to suddenly find an awesome event.

If you’d see where every event is, then they would just be like normal quest and there would be no point of having them in the game.

We’re talking about the point after you’ve cleared a zone. You’ve seen everything in that zone and just want to know where you can go help out in that lower level zone.

Just finished Forging the Pact (personal story) again. I’ve played through this personal story chapter many times with guildies. It’s way too long. It becomes grindy (i.e. you just want it to end and don’t feel challenged). It’s understandable you would have some long personal story chapters, but for future expansions please consider a much better balance of short and intense personal story chapters vs long, grindy ones.

I have a black-list of personal story chapters I will not run with friends unless I’m begged to do so at this point because they are such a miserable experience.

@Camerius: Sadly the game will not last long if this continues. It’s sad they didn’t flush this out in six months of beta testing

One of the more frustrating things I’ve experienced at higher levels (with map exploration complete on the lower level maps), is going back to lower level maps and try to hunt for events.

Please consider adding a rune of intuition or some kind of upgrade component (perhaps a unique potion that can be purchased for gems) that gives a higher level player the ability to see all events on a map they have already cleared when they are anywhere on that map.

In Queensdale: I’ve seen “Event Nearby” trigger three times in the last twenty minutes of play. When I look at overhead map there is no indication of where it’s at. Sometimes I’ll get lucky and see a contested waypoint and head there. This is so very, very frustrating.

At this point I’m so disappointed and angry with ArenaNet over these type of bugs. I want to scream “can’t you do anything right?”. I apologize to the community for my tone. I’ve put in >120 hours in game since launch and I’m level 76. I’ve not done grind, I’ve tried to play the game as they envisioned, balancing dungeons, dynamic events, hearts and progressing personal story according to level spec for PS chapters. the game seems to be falling apart in front of my eyes. As the population of zones calms down and becomes more spread out, the game doesn’t play nearly as well as it once did. Three people doing an event is a much different experience than 8-10 people doing an event. In the 60-70 zones most often you find yourself completely alone so there is nothing there for you except exploration and hearts (if you don’t get mobbed doing hearts). Bugged dynamic events are all over the 60-70 zones so I’ve come back to the lower level zones in hopes of finding others to play with and now I can’t even see where the nearby events are because of this bug. So I’m a bit upset and yes, I am feeling like the game shipped unfinished at this point. It seems QA had a lot more work to do.

This game is a mess right now. Only someone who hates the game and doesn’t want to take the blinders off would argue that working out a lot of these bugs very fast is going to be critical to its future success. I do care and I hope my criticism will be understood as that.

knightblaster.8027:

I leveled the 70s with crafting. The “zerg” of the playerbase isn’t in those zones yet for the most part, and the 80s aren’t there either because of the cost (all in Cursed Shore or Lion’s Arch pretty much).

Exactly. Crafting is an option, but crafting is expensive and grindy (level 400 in cooking here). Essentially the higher end zones of the game provide a lonely, grindy play experience that is much different from the amazing lower level content that scored them well with all the high reviews.

Rizzy.8293:

Really 2 million??

Wow thats like almost the population of sheeps in new zealand, but yeah I agree.

The main problem why they’re feeling bored like theres nothing to do when theres tons to do according to some people is because, doing something in GW2 costs money.

With the exorbitant cost of waypointing and repair bills if you get into a bad exp dungeon group.

Im scared of completing my map now lol
Im actually having to bring my speed of playing down real slow.

Yep. Level 76.8. My climb from level 70 to here has been a heart breaking experience. Most of those levels have been earned not playing with others (because of WP cost and no one wants to go back into the horrible bugged 60-70 zones). It’s been a lonely grind. It’s also been a very long grind I might ad. Since I do enjoy playing with others very much I’ve tried going back into the lower level zones. I’ve spent 8 hours or so just helping out with others personal stories, my reward for tall that? Very little XP and a little bit more karma. Part of me wants to go hostile and say the game for me has turned to garbage at 70 and that I no longer care about the story. Those are true feelings, but they are coming with a place inside that also loves this game very much and has hope it will get better.

I play MMOs to play with other people. If I want to play on my home server in the higher level zones where my character should be to be progressing I simply can not do that right now because of a scattered world population. Empty events either don’t trigger to start or if they do you must run quickly or you’ll find yourself mobbed and in need of armor repair (loosing 3-4 silver at higher level).

WP cost keep guild and map chat silent went I ask for help.

The game is broken in these aspects and if not correct these are things that will destroy it because it goes from being the most amazing thing you’ve ever played to one of the most miserable level grinds you’ve ever had. That is my experience and I’m not angry about it, I’m sad because of it. This is not a game I want to talk bad about

While I don’t share all of the negative feelings that some max level players have been expressing regarding lack of endgame, my hope is that ArenaNet will not ignore these type of post. Yes, they’ve sold over 2-million copies. Yes, their composite metacritic score is > 90. Yes, their hype machine has probably left them all feeling as if they have created the greatest game ever made.

One small problem: they haven’t. Not yet. It’s the continued support of the community that will keep the game fresh. Players who cap and finish everything (and yes, many have finished all hearts and all PS chapters, all dungeons story mode). They need a reason to keep playing. They need a reason to sign-in and not be bored. Right now, regardless of how much you may love the design of GW2 the truth is there just isn’t much other than “it’s fun I’m going to play for fun”.

By design (and what has become of the design, post launch through nerfs) it’s lost something. We still have a lot of bugged dynamic events. We have this issue of server populations now being spread out and a lot of events in zones can’t be tackled because not enough players are around, we have personal story chapters that are still bugged. We have few incentives to play personal story chapters with others so we end up replaying events (boring for most of them, honestly- hard truth guys) or crafting or trying dungeons, but post dungeon nerf that’s no longer endgame content either.

We have a situation where the game developer has metrics to go by that could give them a very false impression of what the game has really become in the last week. If they form a opinion that these complaints are just coming from a few and that the masses are very happy the game could go the way of SWTOR faster than SWTOR went down hill.

The reason the good MMOs fail is because they loose players between major content updates. When you have a lot of players finishing everything (or finishing enough to stratify them) within a few weeks and they aren’t coming back often that’s the beginning of the end. Kid gloves off, we’re definately seeing that now with this game

I have 10-12 level 80’s in one guild I’m in, perhaps 3 of them have been playing regularly in the past four days. In another we have almost 20 level 80’s and 5-6 are signing in and offering to do dungeons, etc with others. The post level cap reward system needs major retooling that extends to WvW and Dungeons. Just very disappointed.

I thought perhaps joining another group of friends who are just getting into the game on a different server would be good but that server is full and guesting isn’t in yet. So that’s another problem.

The game is a real mess, but the critics have overlooked a lot of that. Not a healthy place to be at. It’s a place where the game developer could easily ignore all the real problems and choose to believe they’ve done a fantastic job and people need to pipe down.

After clearing the second phase (there are three green stars on the court yard, can’t remember name of this phase) I end up under something and stuck. Only way out was to restart the personal story chapter.

I have noticed a huge difference in quality in the > level 55 zones and everything below. They seem very unpolished and well, grindy. Very grindy actually. I’m not trying to be mean, that’s just the way it is. Entertainment value is much lower, not to mention that yes, many are still very buggy and not triggering correctly, etc… My assessment at this point based on these things would be that the game needed to bake a bit longer :/

It’s Friday evening, 3 weeks after launch. I’ve hoped around to several maps looking for people to play with. Event after event, empty. With events un soloable the game becomes well not much different than any other MMO.

I’m very disappointed in how much things have changed in a few weeks. For the first time I question the future of GW2. Not because ArenaNet failed, they delivered, but the community decides what is a success and what is failure. They do this based on how much they are willing to continue to play your game from the time they finish most of what you have to offer until the time the next content release hits.

It seems the community ran through the game, capped at 80, killed Zhitan and now they are watching TV reruns waiting on Myst of Panderia to land. :<

I’m just worried guys, without players this game feels very lonely and it just doesn’t work. As I ran through Sparkfly Fen or Mount Malemstorm I felt like ANet believed these zones would be populated all the time, they are very empty on Emhry Bay. People show up for the 3-hour group events and that’s about it.

I bet we’ll see server consolidation soon.

I have a few friends who play on a different server and we were just about to start doing some PvE together. ArenaNet please put the guesting system in place -or- put the 24 hour restriction only on WvW. Thanks!

What this game needs to enhance sPvP and take it from novelty to a strong reason people buy the game:

1.) Tournaments for the casuals (current system is all about the best of the best). You need some algorithms on the server to classify the hardcore players and keep them grouped away from the more casual types who want to Tournament (think NBA and NCAA). It’s not good enough to expect anything less than the best to be taken care of by private tournaments. That may work in other games, in GW2 90% of your base are PvE gamers who have day jobs and can’t commit the time to hardcore PvP play. If you pit them against those who do not play as often or at the same level will stand no chance.

2.) Free practice mode. Team Arena’s would be nice, but something better would be for players to select who is going to be on each 5 v 5 team and then select a map and go at it. eSport teams need to be able to have controlled practice environments and should not be charged for this.

The last few days I’ve been running through Sparkfly Fen and Timberline Falls on Emhry Bay and have been very disappointed. There are so many events in these zones and so few players. I ran through six events in Sparkfly last night around 1:00 AM and they were completely empty.

This destroys the game experience.

My understanding is that, while events do scale their are tresholds and most events are not designed to be soloable. My suggestion is to not change existing scaling features but to modify it is so that if only one (or two) players are attempting to tackle a dynamic event alone the system scales by adding NPCs to fight along side the real players. If it turns out more players join in then just have it scripted so the NPC players die off.

Without something like this the game reduces to running through zones and just grinding mobs (which gives very little XP in this game relative to other sources).

This has been the most frustrating thing so far as the game becomes unplayable. I’ve also died and had to invest in armor repairs or zone transfers to avoid the problem. No good. Please consider adding this.

Thanks!

I don’t understand all the complaints about the story being generic. I’ve enjoyed every chapter of mine except for one. Battle of Fort Trinity definitely the most epic so far and I imagine they only get better.

Mackdose.6504:

I didn’t miss the joke, but the idea of “end-game” and raids comes from the fact that every MMO released since WoW followed WoW’s design doc, and when games fail to deliver on max level raids (I’m looking at you, Age of Conan, WAR, and SWTOR) then the internet lights up with “This game has no endgame.” The funny part about that logic being applied here is that GW2 was designed to not have end game raid instances at max level, and was never advertised that way. People coming into this game blind are expecting it to be like the last 10 years of MMO design; grind to max as fast as possible, then jump into raid prep dungeons, followed by 25 player raids until the next “tier” of treadmill content.

Yep. You can boil it down to this. The truth is the other games have been so horrible that the entire focus has been endgame and what can I do now that I’m max. GW2 puts all the content pre-end game (kind of where it logically belongs) and reduces maxing ones level as a trivial event. This design philosophy seems to have angered people. I don’t mind those who run away from it declaring “Not the game for me” but when they attack GW2 for not being that game I do have a real problem with that.

I’ve noticed some of the pro reviewers (ones that scored the game lower than others due to complaints about lack of endgame, I won’t name them) seemed to have approached GW2 in the same way as all other MMOs and rated it in part based on those expectations. That upset me a bit, but what can you do?

I don’t have a problem with raids. If they can find a way to implement them where a player doesn’t need to be max level and where they can be done in a hot-join way then I would be all for them, but wait the large scale dynamic event chains in GW2 kind of meet that spec.

This isn’t an attack on WoW. It’s a finger poke at all players who seem to hate GW2 because 1.) they level grinded to 80 and now want a cookie 2.) View the game as garbage because there is no endgame (they define endgame exclusively as raids).

Essentially it’s the player who refuses to respect GW2 for what it is and wants to transform it into WoW that this is poking fun at. If you’re one of those then- poke, poke.

It’s as if you have an entire group of players conditioned to roll a character, level grind to max and then focus on raids. Some in that group dislike GW2 because it’s not that game. I think that’s something worth making a bit of fun of because that attitude is so narrow minded and silly. It’s like people refuse to accept that the MMO mold is broken and a new mold has been made

Possibly. It would be sad if there is not a few inches of breathing room for humor here. This was meant to be tongue-in-cheek and not start a flame war -and- if you read some of the negative stuff people are saying it is quite funny. <3