Guild Wars 2

Nah. You’re reading into things too much and making unfair assumptions.

Maybe an example will help?

New player, a friend, starts out. I join him on my level 80. Costs me 4s to get to him. Drops in the area net only copper. Events net only copper. Takes a good while to recoup that single waypoint use.
Now, he is free to use the waypoints at a very low fee. I can then choose to follow or run behind slowing his progress… or return to playing in high level areas leaving him alone.

Dungeons are another issue. If I take my level 80 into, say AC Story with guildies. Get cheesed by a one shotter my repair costs are going to far out weigh theirs if they get cheesed.
Not too mention the waypoint cost of being un-rude and making them wait for me while I hoof it.

On top of that; the only loot I’ve gotten from dungeons is really bad blue items and white salvage junk. Bad luck maybe?

So, please don’t attack or assume things. If you are having issues understanding the problem; be polite and ask. Personally, I don’t see any other way to explain it. The costs of playing scale, yet the rewards do not scale to match without having to farm/grind.

Tradewind.6913:

You’re clamoring for new content 2 weeks after release. There’s no time table that says you must have X gear by Y date. I think that’s what people are missing. The point isn’t to forsake your family, work and friends to grind out gear, but to do it gradually.

Personally I think “that other MMO” has spoiled a lot of people in terms of shattering the whole concept of long term goals.

Don’t see anything saying that.
Rather, they/we are saying the risk/reward for what there is is off balance. Going to lower level areas on a high level character often results in loss of income. This is made a key issue with how tight money is being made to earn by Anet’s settings.

In other words, playing through the content that is there results in a loss of revenue. If you are level 80, wanting to purchase max stat or “prestige” gear (the GW2 end game stuff); exploring the world is detrimental to that goal. It is wiser for the player to repeat the exact same events over and over in massive zergs until the player has their “end game gear”.
This set up goes against what Anet seems to want the players to do though. Spread out, play through the various areas. Explore. Adventure. Etc. Costs are too high to such such things.

It’s a genre thing. MMOs, and most RPGs for that matter, have rewards attached to time played. PnP D&D even had it. A “Good DM” knew how to reward the players with loot and experience equal to the challenge presented.

I pretty much agree with the OP on the level scaling and rewards. The cost of playing increases: Way Points (to meet up with friends/guildies/pugs); Repairs (for that moment of Oops); etc., but the rewards don’t scale to match.

Same issue with dungeons. Rewards don’t match the content difficulty at all.

I’ve found I’ve all but given up on getting any or all “Prestige” items. Carrot is way to far off in the Cabbage field and by the time I got it; it would be rotten.

I think the core issue for myself is a clash of goals between Anet and myself (and I’ve said this in another thread too). I want to experience the content looking like a hero, not a scrub. Anet wants me to experience the content THEN look like the hero.

Problem with their design (IMO) is that repeating that content so many times before I get to be the hero I don’t want to see it again. So if/when I get that “Prestige” gear, I’m needing new content. This will also put me into a position of not wanting to purchase the new content as I’ve yet to be able to fully enjoy the game as the hero.
vs
Making the grind less will allow me to be the hero and look the part earlier so I enjoy the content at my leisure. Which means also playing alts, buying more character slots and so on. When new content is released, I’m jumping up and down to play it; and buy it.

What about long term goals though? Content and adventure… as long as I’m not looking like a scrub through it all. /shrug

That’s just my point of view though.

Dueling and Inspecting are both fine as long as I can auto decline and “block” inspections. EQ1 had this and I loved it.

Wanna know what I’m wearing? Ask. Wanna duel? No thanks.

I find I do agree with some points though. The grind in GW2 is terri-bad. Mostly it seems to come from lack of understanding on Anet’s goals vs Player goals though.

Players want to experience the content looking like a hero. Anet wants players to experience the content THEN look like a hero. Opposites.
I think Anet is fearful of players leaving when they get to finally looking like the hero. Their content and event system is solid enough to at least hold my attention… IF I didn’t have to farm it before I could finally have my avatar look like a hero.

Not why this seems to be the case though. I bought lots of character slots in GW1. Each character had “prestige” armor, most had multiple sets. I still played and enjoyed it. However here, there’s no way I’m grinding more than one character to max stat gear much less a skin. Not when I also have to grind the gold/karma plus Fine T-stones to make use of them. Two or more “sets” – don’t make me laugh. (they artificially killed a lot of the replay value for me)

Waypoints should have a timer installed on them. Once every hour or so we get a free use. After that, a fee.
This would allow use to meet with friends, get to dungeon points, meet up at zone events without pain. The timer would then prevent “free” farming and event zerg farming.

Hit three different maps this weekend and couldn’t finish a single one of them. Skill Points on all three bugged.

Suggestion: Remove mobs with ties to Skill Points. Make all Skill Points a commune point. If it’s a battle to be hard won, then place the required mobs around the skill point.
For those Skill Points in cities or outposts that require talking to someone; if it bugs out; players can still get the skill point without relying on server resets. Will also cut down on the bug reports.

If this isn’t an option; give players a fast track way to contact a GM so they can reset the mob that is bugged.

Eochaidh.4106:

WasAGuest.4973:

I’m a bit confused. Dungeons aren’t fun in their current state, not only because they are tad on the rough side; but because they lack reward for their difficulty… but that’s not what I’m confused about.

I’m confused as to the thinking. I thought the idea of GW2 was to do away with the “holy trinity” and FoTM cheese builds. If I am reading what he is saying correctly, then he wants the players to discover “cheese builds” and try to flesh out the “holy trinity” again… as that’s what we had to do in GW1 DoA.

/confused

No, he wants people to learn how to play and try again.

Will have to elaborate on that though. I’m not trolling here and am always looking for ways to improve. But, when trying to get into dungeons right now it’s not a matter of getting better, it’s a matter of “You have to use this weapon and these skills, so I can make my build work.”. To me, that screams of “cheese builds” and not player synergy.

So far my experience in dungeons has been terrible.

As my main is a thief I was “required” to take blinds so that the guardian could “tank”. He ran in first, blocked, then I kept the mobs blinded while others dps’d. If that’s not “cheese” or reviving the “holy trinity”, I don’t know what is.

Was trying to edit my post; it wouldn’t let me though. /shrug

Anyway, what I’m referring to in Dynamic Weather is this:

Full global weather system. Rain in all zones including cities. LA might get more rain than DR for example, while BC might get nearly none.
Outside zones have small pockets of weather that we can “toy” with. Take a step in, rain! take a step back, sunny! Back and forth… it’s kinda silly.

I mentioned EQ1 in my first post as I fondly recall rain happening at night time and suddenly not being able to see a thing. The darkness and rain made the normally grassy plains take on a very ominous feel. In the northern areas where snow was everywhere, the occasional blizzard would kick up and really make the area look cold and harsh.
Apply that too Frostgorge, zone wide, and that frigid looking (great looking area btw) would really be excellent.

I’m a bit confused. Dungeons aren’t fun in their current state, not only because they are tad on the rough side; but because they lack reward for their difficulty… but that’s not what I’m confused about.

I’m confused as to the thinking. I thought the idea of GW2 was to do away with the “holy trinity” and FoTM cheese builds. If I am reading what he is saying correctly, then he wants the players to discover “cheese builds” and try to flesh out the “holy trinity” again… as that’s what we had to do in GW1 DoA.

/confused

Vargs.6234:

I wish Frostgorge was as good a place to endgame farm as Orr, because I really hate Orr and everything in it. The risen are seemingly designed to be as annoying and tedious as possible, and while Orr itself has a kinda neat underwater theme, overall the place just feels like a Quake 2 map. Ugly, difficult to navigate, and filled to the brim with colored lighting. Frostgorge, on the other hand, is pretty cool.

Agreed. I spend a lot of time in Frostgorge. It doesn’t have a few of the high level crafting nodes (at least that I’ve found); but I’ve gotten several exotics there from the Jormag event… when it’s working.
Karma is a lot slower though. Not as many events there it seems. I’m hoping they add more there to make it more viable an alternative to Orr.

Back in BWE1 there were complaints on starter gear being the same across all races. Not only were people bummed about lack of diversity in choice between the professions, but also in racial armor.
Immersion in creating a race outside Human was brought up. The non-Human races’ NPCs all wear their racially themed clothing/armor. Yet, the hero was not. They were stuck wearing human themed armor.

This complaint continued in BWE2 and became worse with BWE3 when the Sylvari and Asuran were playable. Sylvari players were even more upset than the Charr and Norn players that their avatars were stuck in human armor as it completely clashed with their avatars.

We were told by a dev at one point “It would get better later”.

Personally, I’m still waiting. Racial armor was reduced in price for the 1st tier. Dungeon armor is still locked* behind a horrid grind. And my level 80 is trying to afford a single piece of tier 3 racial armor so I don’t have a “butt cape”.

It is IMO, a severe lack of valid (good looking) armor across the game that kills a lot of the potential replay of the game. As an alt-aholic and usual collector of armor sets; there is very little for me to strive for.

So, I agree. Very boring design in armor and much of it clashes with anything but humans.

*I say locked behind, because there is no alternative way to get these armor skins. Dungeons are currently too difficult for their reward. I’m all for harder content, as long as the reward fits the challenge. But currently, challenge is gold coin and exotic item worthy not 10s in the hole and white salvage items… bleh

Aeson Thackery.5927:

WasAGuest.4973:

I was also kinda of bummed by not having dynamic weather in the game. Many games since EQ1 have had it.

Note to Devs: Dynamic Weather conditions really bring a game world to life.

….someone didnt read the rest of this thread, haha. The game DOES have dynamic weather, just sometimes its not very frequent, but i definitely have experienced it!

Eh, I meant global Dynamic Weather. Not just certain areas. Sorry, didn’t make that very clear. :P

They move too fast, have to much health, are no real threat and serve no purpose other than to annoy. They are so good at it, I avoid Orr and most areas with Risen as much as possible. lol

Seriously, if Anet really wants to make End Game interesting, lower the respawn, aggro range and speed of these things. Like Sylvia said, walk 5 feet and kill 300 of them – it’s not difficult, it’s annoying.

I would go so far as to say, remove the loner Risen all over the place. Put them in preset groups so they are at least a challenge should we engage. If we are running around solo, then at least we can have some breathing room. And slow them down. They move so fast they look stupid as they waddle towards us. If the speed was to discourage simply running passed them… well, watch the trains following people. hehe

Smackjack.5071:

By cool looking you mean like glowing and blooming parts everywhere on the armor and with 12 particle effects flying around it at any given time and looking like it weighs 40 tons?

Plenty of other mmo’s for that.

Trying to find where anyone but yourself mentioned “Glowies”. Maybe I’m not seeing all the posts or something..?

I also agree with those comments on the leather/medium armor. It’s boring if you don’t like the trench coats. Almost no variety there.
There’s also the “Junk in the Trunk” factor with a lot of the armor. My skinny, yet muscular thief put on several sets of armor and suddenly gained a butt that would make J-Lo and Beyonce jealous. It’s laughable bad in some cases.

I was also kinda of bummed by not having dynamic weather in the game. Many games since EQ1 have had it.

Note to Devs: Dynamic Weather conditions really bring a game world to life.

Yes and No.

If “best” is only in looks of the gear, then yes I would continue playing and enjoy the game’s content even more. In fact, if my character looks like the hero, looks like he/she belongs within the game world, then I find myself often more forgiving of a lot of bugs and short comings within a game.

If “best” means in stats, then not as much. Without the increasing of growth in power, there’s not much to do after the content is done… unless the Devs are on spot for constant releases.

I look at Champions Online (or even Star Trek Online) as a really good example of what I am talking about here. Create the character exactly as I want them to look at level 1. As I level up and see more content, I gain access to addition “looks” and continue to get drops which increase the power of my character. Both of these games have very little content; yet, they are a lot of fun to play.

Milennin.4825:

The “problem” with armour variety is that the majority of it is from crafting, karma or dungeons. If you want cool looking armour from random mob drops, it’s not going to happen.

Actually, the only light armor set I like comes from random drops. :P

I’ll comment on the Events and Dungeons as I agree with you there.

The events are a bit too easy for the most part. I’m not sure if it’s because there are so many people zerging them or what. Even on Orr, events are laughably easy and the population actually farms them.
The best events I’ve been in are the one early in beta and head start where there was a struggle to succeed.

Dungeons… I really don’t know what to think about the dungeons. IMO, they are a train wreck. I want to see them, yet, don’t want too. Dungeons also tie into a complaint of mine (and where I disagree); armor. There isn’t enough armor variety (IMO) to put so much more possible options behind dungeons in their current state.

I’ve done several of the dungeons and I enjoyed none of them very much. At best, they were “OK”. I certainly wouldn’t go into them very many times and especially not to farm tokens.

The one hit downed state needs some serious looking into (again, IMO). I can understand and accept a boss smashing my face in (and will often laugh at myself if that happens), but not dungeon trash mobs. That’s annoying.

Rewards in dungeons are also bad. My lvl 80 thief left a failed* dungeon run with some friends the other day and I ended up losing a lot of money. So, dungeons also come across as a gold sink.

*Failed cause it was late and we didn’t want to bother trying the boss a 3rd time. We have jobs. :P

Anyway, I am hoping dungeons get some fine tuning or even multiple difficulty modes for explorable. Hard Core players can enter “Hard Mode” and maybe be rewarded more tokens. A Normal Mode (not story, only one path on story mode) that is easier with less tokens… I can hope can’t I?

Yes, that’s the Apprentice set. And completely forgot about the NPC vendors.

Ugly is subjective, however I agree with the OP. Out of all the armor sets, there are only a few (really only about 3 mix and match set ups) I will bother with.

IMO, most of it is horrid looking and I can’t handle playing anything but humans or Asuran* because the starting armor looks so bad on the other races I find myself distracted and annoyed.

*I can handle the armor on Asuran cause they are so fun to watch as their heads throw them off balance when they move around.

The armor here actually reminds me of Age of Conan’s armor. Brown Bags for all… till later. In other words, ugliest garbage in the game… till later. I want to adventure IN good looking gear, not adventure THEN have it. By the time I have it here, it’s alt time. Backwards IMO… but then, I may be the only one to see it this way. /shrug

If you are talking about the Apprentice Set, easiest way to get that look back is to hit up the TP. Buy the cheapest you can find and use T-Stones to transfer the look you want to the current armor.
The Dyes can also likely be bought on the TP or hit up the Gem shop and gamble with the Dye Packs. Not sure if the dyes in the pack are trade-able after you get them, but if they are, you might be able to put the ones you don’t like on the TP then use that earned money to buy the one you are after.

I was wondering about this yesterday myself. While not “farming”, rather, trying to get to a Vista. The mobs in the area I was in were literally respawning a second after I looted them. This went on for over ten minutes before I gave up and kiting them away.

I mention this because, for the first 12 kills or so I picked up lots of crafting mats and a few green items. But after that, they dropped nothing.

So, the spawn rates suggest encouraged farming, yet punish its’ own design with an anti-farm code?

Would love an answer to this as well. Each time I had enough coin to buy any culture set, I was ten or more levels over it’s “useful” stage. If it were just the skin I was buying, it certainly isn’t worth the cost either; so, I sit at level 80 still looking like a bum. /shrug

My thoughts on Orr are similar to what’s being said here already. My issue is also several fold deep.
Need the mats that are here for crafting or selling. Toss in the constant respawn of, not difficult, but annoying Risen that pull, bump and cripple and each encounter is a “sigh. Really? Again?” encounter.
For entertainment purposes, there’s nothing interesting in Orr. Zerg to points is not fun. That’s just mass farming. I like the look of Orr, but I’ve only found a few places where I could stand still and look at the surroundings before something pounced on me.
The Risen are also extremely silly. They really need to remove that dumb hyper drive they have. It doesn’t make them difficult, only more annoying. If the goal was to make them harder to escape… well, stand around and watch the non-stop trains following people. It didn’t work.

Like a few others, I’ve moved off of Orr and started playing in Frostgorge. A much more entertaining area at least (to me). I’m hoping they add a lot more events there soon.

Edit:

Crise.9401:

For the record, I have a level 70+ toon, and I have not set foot into most 60+ zones with him, Orr, or the high level zones are not a requirement for leveling in any way.

For the point about waypoints being contested, that is kind of the point, it is a game of push or be pushed. If you don’t push the undead back, Orr is horrible place, if you do accessing Arah becomes much easier, and the more co-ordination the easier it is.

Some people have, rightfully so, described Orr as PvE version of WvW (minus deployable siege weapons and supply). It should be played in that way, Orr is not a solo friendly zone by any stretch of the imagination. But there are plenty of other zones to spend time in, including but not limited to another 80 zone up north. The content in this game does not expire, you only unlock more of it, then you can make a choice of either play it or play something else, it is unlocked either way. Just like I made the choice not to go into Orr, with my current character.

Orr can be a very different experience, have too few players there and it becomes tedious or have too many and it degrades down to defend X, defend Y etc. If the zone has the right number of active people the ebb and flow of the zone is natural and you will have diversity because the control of different points shifts, rather than being stuck in either end.

Actually, it’s quite the opposite of this, at least currently. Soloing is very easy. Undead are not difficult; they are just overly fast to the point of being silly. There’s no Push or Pull with the events. The population in Orr is too high of players vs undead. Players almost always win and setup “zerg rushes” to farm the events for karma (one of the easier ways to get max stat armor).

The ideas you list are what it should be; and what I wish it were, but it’s not.