Guild Wars 2

Xia.3485:

clay.7849:

Vayne.8563:

I think if you talk to anyone from any MMO, you’ll find out there are more casuals than hard core. For a lot of people, it’s a big big problem. That’s why raids in most games keep getting dumbed down till people actually bother doing them.

Again, you have little proof of this.

I always looked at it that MMO’s usually require a pretty good PC. Something built for gaming. I don’t think many casual players want to spend the money for a gaming PC. Most are content to buy $300 consoles or tablets.

I could be wrong, but it seems like a safer argument than “go talk to people in MMO’s and you’ll see I’m right.”

Crysis requires a pretty good PC but most MMOs don’t. GW2 needs a heftier pc than the norm but its not a graphics issue… its an optimization issue. Heck it runs fine on my 4 year old system on high detail.

As for what Vayne is describing, you can lookup what Ghostcrawler, the main dev for World of Warcraft, had to say. I’ll give you a little snippet from an article about raid difficulty:

The other interesting note he makes is that they don’t want to spend several months of development time on content that less than 5% of players will ever see. One can connect their statements that they “won’t ever make an instance as hard as Sunwell again” and then this statement together and form the conclusion that only 5% of players saw Sunwell.

As for hardcore and casual. Vayne is using a very different definition than you; the one used on most MMO forums. Seeing as you haven’t played any other MMO (except GW1 and 2, which don’t count) I can see why you don’t understand what he’s saying.

As for Dailys.. they help daily concurrency which isn’t a bad thing

Dang Xia, that might be the nicest post I have ever had from you. Can’t say I disagree either.

Vayne.8563:

clay.7849:

Vayne.8563:

clay.7849:

Vayne.8563:

clay.7849:

But, it would allow for competition without needing every player to be competitive. You yourself tout that the beauty of ascended gear is that you don’t need it. How would this be any different?

In either case, it isn’t really worth discussing. I think the point is that competition would need to be optional. Which I agree with.

Because when you make something like that competitive, it changes the nature of the entire player base. People start looking at things like gear scores. Things become more elitist. People in your guild want to do stuff faster, to get more, so they don’t have to do it as much.

Right now, when I do a dungeon, I’m HAPPY to take my time. Do you know I never knew about the hidden event in AC? I saw it today for the first time. I kill stuff instead of running past stuff.

By encouraging people to do things faster, or more skilled, you’re taking the fun out of it for me. Because I like a nice, relaxed, leisurely pace…and it wouldn’t stay like that. Eventually I’d just stop doing dungeons.

I didn’t speed farm or FFF in Guild Wars 1 for a reason.

And you tell other people MMO’s aren’t for them?! Min/maxing and speed runs are as part of MMO’s as they are ingrained in our human nature to want to do this bigger, better & faster.

I agree that one should make content that doesn’t overly stress the need to do this, and perhaps that was a flaw in my quickly thought out example.

However, if I may be so bold to finish our conversation with the same thing that started it:
“Perhaps, if you don’t like min/maxing and content runners, MMO’s aren’t for you.”

I don’t actually believe this, but I thought it someone appropriate given the circumstances.

I’m relatively sure there are far more casual MMO players as far as taking content casually and not being competitive than there are hard core players who want to compete. That’s why all the major encounters get dumbed down and the hard-core component get kitten off.

There really needs to be multiple levels of difficulty…like right now. I can run almost any dungeon at will…except Arah. Yes, I’ve beat a path of Arah, but without everyone knowing what they’re doing, you’re not likely to do well against Lupi. I can do it on a good day. lol

I just think that given what we’ve seen in other MMOs, the more challenging stuff doesn’t stay challenging.

I disagree about more casual players than hardcore players. But agree with the rest.

I do agree that most people don’t want to speed clear dungeons, although I wouldn’t say that everyone that doesn’t is casual.

I think if you talk to anyone from any MMO, you’ll find out there are more casuals than hard core. For a lot of people, it’s a big big problem. That’s why raids in most games keep getting dumbed down till people actually bother doing them.

Again, you have little proof of this.

I always looked at it that MMO’s usually require a pretty good PC. Something built for gaming. I don’t think many casual players want to spend the money for a gaming PC. Most are content to buy $300 consoles or tablets.

I could be wrong, but it seems like a safer argument than “go talk to people in MMO’s and you’ll see I’m right.”

Karizee.8076:

All at the same exact time? In both US and EU?
Highly improbable.

Did that happen? I didn’t read that anywhere. Sorry if I missed it.

More maps and more ways to get points/badges that help decrease the need to zerg.

Recycle.5493:

Tolmos.8395:

Other MMO player: “All the servers are Medium now. The game is dying!”
GW Player: “All the servers are Medium now. They must have increased server capacity!”

Devs did stated that server population is only depended on the account number that’s tied to the server, not actual online players. So yeah, if the population display decreased, then they must have increased the capacity, but on the other hand, even if GW2 is dying, we players wouldn’t know.

Or that the people that transferred to medium population servers with the recent free transfers took advantage of their ability to go back to their original server for free and did so.

Not saying that I am right, but not sure we can say you are right either. It just is what it is.

Vayne.8563:

clay.7849:

Vayne.8563:

clay.7849:

But, it would allow for competition without needing every player to be competitive. You yourself tout that the beauty of ascended gear is that you don’t need it. How would this be any different?

In either case, it isn’t really worth discussing. I think the point is that competition would need to be optional. Which I agree with.

Because when you make something like that competitive, it changes the nature of the entire player base. People start looking at things like gear scores. Things become more elitist. People in your guild want to do stuff faster, to get more, so they don’t have to do it as much.

Right now, when I do a dungeon, I’m HAPPY to take my time. Do you know I never knew about the hidden event in AC? I saw it today for the first time. I kill stuff instead of running past stuff.

By encouraging people to do things faster, or more skilled, you’re taking the fun out of it for me. Because I like a nice, relaxed, leisurely pace…and it wouldn’t stay like that. Eventually I’d just stop doing dungeons.

I didn’t speed farm or FFF in Guild Wars 1 for a reason.

And you tell other people MMO’s aren’t for them?! Min/maxing and speed runs are as part of MMO’s as they are ingrained in our human nature to want to do this bigger, better & faster.

I agree that one should make content that doesn’t overly stress the need to do this, and perhaps that was a flaw in my quickly thought out example.

However, if I may be so bold to finish our conversation with the same thing that started it:
“Perhaps, if you don’t like min/maxing and content runners, MMO’s aren’t for you.”

I don’t actually believe this, but I thought it someone appropriate given the circumstances.

I’m relatively sure there are far more casual MMO players as far as taking content casually and not being competitive than there are hard core players who want to compete. That’s why all the major encounters get dumbed down and the hard-core component get kitten off.

There really needs to be multiple levels of difficulty…like right now. I can run almost any dungeon at will…except Arah. Yes, I’ve beat a path of Arah, but without everyone knowing what they’re doing, you’re not likely to do well against Lupi. I can do it on a good day. lol

I just think that given what we’ve seen in other MMOs, the more challenging stuff doesn’t stay challenging.

I disagree about more casual players than hardcore players. But agree with the rest.

I do agree that most people don’t want to speed clear dungeons, although I wouldn’t say that everyone that doesn’t is casual.

Vayne.8563:

clay.7849:

But, it would allow for competition without needing every player to be competitive. You yourself tout that the beauty of ascended gear is that you don’t need it. How would this be any different?

In either case, it isn’t really worth discussing. I think the point is that competition would need to be optional. Which I agree with.

Because when you make something like that competitive, it changes the nature of the entire player base. People start looking at things like gear scores. Things become more elitist. People in your guild want to do stuff faster, to get more, so they don’t have to do it as much.

Right now, when I do a dungeon, I’m HAPPY to take my time. Do you know I never knew about the hidden event in AC? I saw it today for the first time. I kill stuff instead of running past stuff.

By encouraging people to do things faster, or more skilled, you’re taking the fun out of it for me. Because I like a nice, relaxed, leisurely pace…and it wouldn’t stay like that. Eventually I’d just stop doing dungeons.

I didn’t speed farm or FFF in Guild Wars 1 for a reason.

And you tell other people MMO’s aren’t for them?! Min/maxing and speed runs are as part of MMO’s as they are ingrained in our human nature to want to do this bigger, better & faster.

I agree that one should make content that doesn’t overly stress the need to do this, and perhaps that was a flaw in my quickly thought out example.

However, if I may be so bold to finish our conversation with the same thing that started it:
“Perhaps, if you don’t like min/maxing and content runners, MMO’s aren’t for you.”

I don’t actually believe this, but I thought it somewhat appropriate given the circumstances.

Vayne.8563:

clay.7849:

Vayne.8563:

clay.7849:

Jemmi.6058:

clay.7849:

Let’s look at a basic scenario. Let’s say you need to kill 10 things to level up. Now, let’s say that those 10 things, no matter how good or efficient you are at killing them, is going to take 1 hour to level up.

Repeating something that you have mastered is boring. It is artificially gating you from something regardless of whether you have mastered it or not.

Another example: school. Let’s say that you spent the same time in class as Johnny. You did well enough to understand the material and went on to the next class or grade. Johnny, however, didn’t understand the material at all. Should he, then, go to the next class or grade level just because he spent the same amount of time as you in class? No.

So, how does this affect MMO’s? Well, let’s look at dungeons for example. What is the reward for mastering a dungeon? The dungeon armor. However, instead of making it about being the master of the dungeon, it is about completing it X number of times.

So, what we have is that someone who really has mastered the dungeon gets the same reward as someone who may have been carried by his 4 other teammates for doing the same dungeon the same amount of times. That isn’t fair either.

There are many ways to fix this. I would be happy to continue if you like.

Hmm, you are assuming that completing the dungeon takes the exact same amount of time for everyone.

A more similar analogy to school would be:

I, person A, takes 10 minutes to complete my final test.

Johny, person B, takes 2 hours to complete their final test.

Assuming we both passed, we both move on to the next grade. Even though I took 10 minutes and he took 2 hours. It is quite possible he failed and does not pass on.

In the case of the dungeons..

I take 10 minutes to complete a dungeon
Johnny takes 2 hours to complete a dungeon, Johnny dies 30x and has a crazy repair bill, in the end we both get armor. Johnny spends X x 2 hours to get his armor (assuming he doesn’t get better each run) and I get it in X x .16 hours to get my armor. I also did not spend gold on repair bills from dying over and over. Johnny may end up not even completing the dungeon a few times.

Long story short. We do not spend the same amount of time if we are on different skill levels to acquire the same amount of armor.

However, I understand your point about being carried. Perhaps you are correct. Dungeons should now be soloable and parties should be removed from the game. (Sarcasm). In all seriousness, how do you suggest they fix the problem of being carried through dungeons to acquire armor that other skilled players earn?

I think that there should be a better measure of “mastering” the dungeon than how many times you have run it.

Secondary objectives that add more difficult and more rewarding content are a possibility. Some way of working a “score” in to the dungeons that calculates something like content cleared vs. time taken to clear and has bonus points for separate objectives would be interesting. Your tokens rewarded could be based on your score. Similarly, you could add a leaderboard that shows the highest 10 scores – which might add the want to repeat the content just for getting your name in the top 10. Now, you have the added bonus of repeat-ability without needing to change much of anything – even rewards.

Definitely a game I wouldn’t be interested in playing. Sounds like you would like WoW raiding a lot.

Why wouldn’t you like it?

Because I’m past the point in my life where I want to be competitive. 19 years in retail in NYC, top salesman, manager of the year…always pushing, then into publishing, which is even more competitive in a lot of ways. I don’t play games like this to compete. I never did. I play games like this to explore, relax, enjoy a story, have fun…and that’s the difference between us.

I’d rather find something fun and interesting than do a challenging dungeon for loot. It’s just how I am. I’d rather play a game like Skyrim or Dragon Age…or even Guild Wars 1, than a game like Dark Souls, which is apparently more challenging.

But, it would allow for competition without needing every player to be competitive. You yourself tout that the beauty of ascended gear is that you don’t need it. How would this be any different?

In either case, it isn’t really worth discussing the specifics as it was just a suggestion. I think the point is that competition would need to be optional. Which I agree with.

Vayne.8563:

clay.7849:

Jemmi.6058:

clay.7849:

Let’s look at a basic scenario. Let’s say you need to kill 10 things to level up. Now, let’s say that those 10 things, no matter how good or efficient you are at killing them, is going to take 1 hour to level up.

Repeating something that you have mastered is boring. It is artificially gating you from something regardless of whether you have mastered it or not.

Another example: school. Let’s say that you spent the same time in class as Johnny. You did well enough to understand the material and went on to the next class or grade. Johnny, however, didn’t understand the material at all. Should he, then, go to the next class or grade level just because he spent the same amount of time as you in class? No.

So, how does this affect MMO’s? Well, let’s look at dungeons for example. What is the reward for mastering a dungeon? The dungeon armor. However, instead of making it about being the master of the dungeon, it is about completing it X number of times.

So, what we have is that someone who really has mastered the dungeon gets the same reward as someone who may have been carried by his 4 other teammates for doing the same dungeon the same amount of times. That isn’t fair either.

There are many ways to fix this. I would be happy to continue if you like.

Hmm, you are assuming that completing the dungeon takes the exact same amount of time for everyone.

A more similar analogy to school would be:

I, person A, takes 10 minutes to complete my final test.

Johny, person B, takes 2 hours to complete their final test.

Assuming we both passed, we both move on to the next grade. Even though I took 10 minutes and he took 2 hours. It is quite possible he failed and does not pass on.

In the case of the dungeons..

I take 10 minutes to complete a dungeon
Johnny takes 2 hours to complete a dungeon, Johnny dies 30x and has a crazy repair bill, in the end we both get armor. Johnny spends X x 2 hours to get his armor (assuming he doesn’t get better each run) and I get it in X x .16 hours to get my armor. I also did not spend gold on repair bills from dying over and over. Johnny may end up not even completing the dungeon a few times.

Long story short. We do not spend the same amount of time if we are on different skill levels to acquire the same amount of armor.

However, I understand your point about being carried. Perhaps you are correct. Dungeons should now be soloable and parties should be removed from the game. (Sarcasm). In all seriousness, how do you suggest they fix the problem of being carried through dungeons to acquire armor that other skilled players earn?

I think that there should be a better measure of “mastering” the dungeon than how many times you have run it.

Secondary objectives that add more difficult and more rewarding content are a possibility. Some way of working a “score” in to the dungeons that calculates something like content cleared vs. time taken to clear and has bonus points for separate objectives would be interesting. Your tokens rewarded could be based on your score. Similarly, you could add a leaderboard that shows the highest 10 scores – which might add the want to repeat the content just for getting your name in the top 10. Now, you have the added bonus of repeat-ability without needing to change much of anything – even rewards.

Definitely a game I wouldn’t be interested in playing. Sounds like you would like WoW raiding a lot.

Why wouldn’t you like it?

Vayne.8563:

clay.7849:

Vayne.8563:

I have been talking about the mechanics of this game. And the time it takes to program content, which you keep ignoring. Sure time gated content isn’t “optimal” content. A new dungeon or new fractals would be better.

What are people supposed to be doing waiting around for that stuff? Time gated stuff is actually what keeps most MMOs alive, and I don’t think Guild Wars 2 is any exception. The actual mechanics are secondary to the need to find stuff for people to do while waiting for more content. Because no one can create content faster than people can consume it.

Well, one would hope that the content already available has a high level of repeat-ability outside the need for progression.

I agree, that if the “rides” that are in a themepark MMO aren’t fun to ride too many times, then time based progression is a way to artificially enhance the attractiveness of the ride while new ones are built. However, we still have a problem as to why the rides aren’t fun to ride as they are.

For example, why are many many dungeons largely ignored? Perhaps they aren’t fun. Perhaps, they don’t offer the same kind of rewards as other dungeons. But, those are also problems that need to be addressed.

Well, the fractals are quite liked but you can still only play your favorite song so many times, eat your favorite food so many times, etc. Unlike most games which can be finished in 20 hours, MMOs ask people to play for hundreds of hours…or people do whether asked to or not.

So yeah, its’ great to say content should be fun, but there will NEVER be enough fun content that’s infinitely repeatable. No matter how much I liked some missions in Prophecies, and I did, I couldn’t do them dozens of times in a month.

I don’t disagree with you about this.

Personally, I would love to see dungeons be less “linear” and more like the old MUD style dungeons that you can just get lost in. Unfortunately, in this day of Wiki, it would be a much harder task.

Balancing the loot system in this game would go a long way to fixing some of this too.

Jemmi.6058:

clay.7849:

Let’s look at a basic scenario. Let’s say you need to kill 10 things to level up. Now, let’s say that those 10 things, no matter how good or efficient you are at killing them, is going to take 1 hour to level up.

Repeating something that you have mastered is boring. It is artificially gating you from something regardless of whether you have mastered it or not.

Another example: school. Let’s say that you spent the same time in class as Johnny. You did well enough to understand the material and went on to the next class or grade. Johnny, however, didn’t understand the material at all. Should he, then, go to the next class or grade level just because he spent the same amount of time as you in class? No.

So, how does this affect MMO’s? Well, let’s look at dungeons for example. What is the reward for mastering a dungeon? The dungeon armor. However, instead of making it about being the master of the dungeon, it is about completing it X number of times.

So, what we have is that someone who really has mastered the dungeon gets the same reward as someone who may have been carried by his 4 other teammates for doing the same dungeon the same amount of times. That isn’t fair either.

There are many ways to fix this. I would be happy to continue if you like.

Hmm, you are assuming that completing the dungeon takes the exact same amount of time for everyone.

A more similar analogy to school would be:

I, person A, takes 10 minutes to complete my final test.

Johny, person B, takes 2 hours to complete their final test.

Assuming we both passed, we both move on to the next grade. Even though I took 10 minutes and he took 2 hours. It is quite possible he failed and does not pass on.

In the case of the dungeons..

I take 10 minutes to complete a dungeon
Johnny takes 2 hours to complete a dungeon, Johnny dies 30x and has a crazy repair bill, in the end we both get armor. Johnny spends X x 2 hours to get his armor (assuming he doesn’t get better each run) and I get it in X x .16 hours to get my armor. I also did not spend gold on repair bills from dying over and over. Johnny may end up not even completing the dungeon a few times.

Long story short. We do not spend the same amount of time if we are on different skill levels to acquire the same amount of armor.

However, I understand your point about being carried. Perhaps you are correct. Dungeons should now be soloable and parties should be removed from the game. (Sarcasm). In all seriousness, how do you suggest they fix the problem of being carried through dungeons to acquire armor that other skilled players earn?

I think that there should be a better measure of “mastering” the dungeon than how many times you have run it.

Secondary objectives that add more difficult and more rewarding content are a possibility. Some way of working a “score” in to the dungeons that calculates something like content cleared vs. time taken to clear and has bonus points for separate objectives would be interesting. Your tokens rewarded could be based on your score. Similarly, you could add a leaderboard that shows the highest 10 scores – which might add the want to repeat the content just for getting your name in the top 10. Now, you have the added bonus of repeat-ability without needing to change much of anything – even rewards.

Vayne.8563:

clay.7849:

Jemmi.6058:

Time based progression is good for two reasons. One it helps keep the economy in check. Two it keeps you working towards something. Having a goal in mind is very important for a lot of players.

Goals are important and are not reliant upon time based progression. Listen, I’m not saying it’s bad as in it shouldn’t exist. I’m saying it is worse than skill based progression. When given the choice skill should outweigh time.

In a competitive game, I completely agree with you. In PvP for example, I think skill should outweigh time. In PvE there should be challenges where skill outweighs time and there should be other options as well, for people not as skilled, because ultimately, those people are the people who pay for development of new content.

There are far more less skilled people playing MMOs than skilled people.

I agree. Which is why skill should just be more important than time. It shouldn’t be the only deciding factor. Unfortunately, in GW2, it is often times the more important of the two factors by leaps and bounds.

Vayne.8563:

I have been talking about the mechanics of this game. And the time it takes to program content, which you keep ignoring. Sure time gated content isn’t “optimal” content. A new dungeon or new fractals would be better.

What are people supposed to be doing waiting around for that stuff? Time gated stuff is actually what keeps most MMOs alive, and I don’t think Guild Wars 2 is any exception. The actual mechanics are secondary to the need to find stuff for people to do while waiting for more content. Because no one can create content faster than people can consume it.

Well, one would hope that the content already available has a high level of repeat-ability outside the need for progression.

I agree, that if the “rides” that are in a themepark MMO aren’t fun to ride too many times, then time based progression is a way to artificially enhance the attractiveness of the ride while new ones are built. However, we still have a problem as to why the rides aren’t fun to ride as they are.

For example, why are many many dungeons largely ignored? Perhaps they aren’t fun. Perhaps, they don’t offer the same kind of rewards as other dungeons. But, those are also problems that need to be addressed.

Jemmi.6058:

Time based progression is good for two reasons. One it helps keep the economy in check. Two it keeps you working towards something. Having a goal in mind is very important for a lot of players.

Goals are important and are not reliant upon time based progression. Listen, I’m not saying it’s bad as in it shouldn’t exist. I’m saying it is worse than skill based progression. When given the choice skill should outweigh time.

Vayne.8563:

clay.7849:

Vayne.8563:

And you keep using that word lazy design. Your opinion. I think it’s quite logical if “good” content takes time, to put in filler until you can get that good content out. Every MMO does it.

Ah, that is where you are wrong. Time based progression and vertical progression are just bad design. Why?

Well, like I said before, vertical progression is based on making things do the same, only with bigger numbers. The result, is that you gate content from players. Neither of these things are inherently good. They don’t provide more depth to a game. Horizontal progression on the other hand, requires more work, but adds depth. Depth is an inherently good thing about a game. Gating players from content is not an inherently good thing about a game.

Similarly, time based progression is even worse. Progression should really be based on skill. I could go in to why, but I know that most intelligent people will agree with this and that you won’t so why bother?

Why should progression be based on skill? Because you say so? In most MMOs, even in Guild Wars 1, you could progress quite far with no skill at all. None. Zero.

Running Shiro, 500 gold. You could get run through dungeons and finish that game and progress quite nicely.

People get carried through games all the time. If skill were truly central to progression, everything would have to be solo. No, in an MMO, most of them, you progress via time, not skill. The same is true of most games today, unless you’re in some kind of special tournament.

Time gating exists to slow down progress while companies work on content. In an ideal world, good content would magically appear faster than people could burn through it. Not so much in this world.

Again, you make the mistake of comparing what other games may have done well or not well and applying it to this game, rather than debating the actual mechanics.

Whether GW1 did something well or not doesn’t matter. Let’s talk about the mechanics themselves rather than say, “but other MMO’s do it too, so we shouldn’t question it.”

Jemmi.6058:

clay.7849:

Time based grind is just bad lazy design. Sure, it works, but it can be better. Logically, objectively, it can be better. That is all.

Can you clarify your comment. What specifically do you qualify as time based grind? What is wrong with it? I imagine after you answer these questions, you will see that it cannot be better based on objectivity. This is because better is inherently an opinion based term.

Logically, anything can be better.

However, I would like to hear you clarify what aspects of the game you mean when you say time based grind (reasonably vague, that could mean levelling up, farming for materials, and a host of other things). As it is in this thread, I can naturally assume you mean dailies, but I assume it is not exclusive to that.

Once you define it can you please explain what specifically is ‘bad’ about it?

Once you specify what is bad, please provide some possible solutions.

Let’s look at a basic scenario. Let’s say you need to kill 10 things to level up. Now, let’s say that those 10 things, no matter how good or efficient you are at killing them, is going to take 1 hour to level up.

Repeating something that you have mastered is boring. It is artificially gating you from something regardless of whether you have mastered it or not.

Another example: school. Let’s say that you spent the same time in class as Johnny. You did well enough to understand the material and went on to the next class or grade. Johnny, however, didn’t understand the material at all. Should he, then, go to the next class or grade level just because he spent the same amount of time as you in class? No.

So, how does this affect MMO’s? Well, let’s look at dungeons for example. What is the reward for mastering a dungeon? The dungeon armor. However, instead of making it about being the master of the dungeon, it is about completing it X number of times.

So, what we have is that someone who really has mastered the dungeon gets the same reward as someone who may have been carried by his 4 other teammates for doing the same dungeon the same amount of times. That isn’t fair either.

There are many ways to fix this. I would be happy to continue if you like.

Vayne.8563:

And you keep using that word lazy design. Your opinion. I think it’s quite logical if “good” content takes time, to put in filler until you can get that good content out. Every MMO does it.

Ah, that is where you are wrong. Time based progression and vertical progression are just bad design. Why?

Well, like I said before, vertical progression is based on making things do the same, only with bigger numbers. The result, is that you gate content from players. Neither of these things are inherently good. They don’t provide more depth to a game. Horizontal progression on the other hand, requires more work, but adds depth. Depth is an inherently good thing about a game. Gating players from content is not an inherently good thing about a game.

Similarly, time based progression is even worse. Progression should really be based on skill. I could go in to why, but I know that most intelligent people will agree with this and that you won’t so why bother?

Jemmi.6058:

clay.7849:

Vayne.8563:

then MMOs generally might not be for you

I thought ArenaNet was trying to push outside of the MMO market though?

Not only that, but MMO’s haven’t really changed much in the last 10 years. GW2 certainly hasn’t done anything game changing that we can’t find pieces of in other games.

Maybe, it’s people like you holding back the genre by telling people who want better game mechanics that this game isn’t for them.

Not really a constructive comment or argument if you ask me.

1. You countered your own argument. You started off by saying that ArenaNet is different and then went on to say it’s the same as other MMO’s?

2. You may see it as holding back the genre; however, many of us like it as is. We do not want the changes you are suggesting, because we believe it will make the game worse. You are the one asking for change, we are asking to remain the same. You want to ‘make the game better’, but we see you as a threat to the game’s quality.

Constructive comment? Please do not change the game for the worse (imo) by removing gear progression, removing stats and/or removing dailies.

Without progression, I will get very bored very fast
WIthout stats, combat will become very stale very fast
Without dailies, I will stop logging in (assuming that their is no progression and combat is stale)

1. I don’t see where I said ANet is different. Please quote that part of my post that I didn’t write.

2. Your opinion is exactly why MMO’s are stale. If you don’t want innovation, be prepared to be disappointed. This is a general thing and not specific to MMO’s.

3. If what you say is true, that dailies are the only thing keeping you logging in, then this game isn’t fun for you. Sorry, but you are basing your fun on completing a chore. I would prefer to play games where the activities amount to more than chores.

Vayne.8563:

clay.7849:

Vayne.8563:

then MMOs generally might not be for you

I thought ArenaNet was trying to push outside of the MMO market though?

Not only that, but MMO’s haven’t really changed much in the last 10 years. GW2 certainly hasn’t done anything game changing that we can’t find pieces of in other games.

Maybe, it’s people like you holding back the genre by saying that people who want better games telling everyone that this game isn’t for them.

Not really a constructive comment or argument if you ask me.

Sure Guild Wars 2 is trying to push outside the MMO market…but that doesn’t mean every single possible feature will or can change. People are always holding back progress. So if Anet made the perfect game, and no one played it, who would that help? lol

It’s amazing how many words you put in my mouth in that little paragraph.

Time based grind is just bad lazy design. Sure, it works, but it can be better. Logically, objectively, it can be better. That is all.

Also, don’t you think that it would be a bit ridiculous to suggest that if someone made the perfect game, no one would play it? That would be like saying that if someone made a perfect pizza, the best pizza in the world, no one would eat it.

The MMO market is stale, and your attacking players because they want something better, by saying maybe MMO’s aren’t for them, is the antithesis of innovation. But, we have been down this path before haven’t we? You seem to be against anything innovative because you would rather blindly defend GW2 and ArenaNet.

Vayne.8563:

then MMOs generally might not be for you

I thought ArenaNet was trying to push outside of the MMO market though?

Not only that, but MMO’s haven’t really changed much in the last 10 years. GW2 certainly hasn’t done anything game changing that we can’t find pieces of in other games.

Maybe, it’s people like you holding back the genre by telling people who want better game mechanics that this game isn’t for them.

Not really a constructive comment or argument if you ask me.

callidus.7085:

I do remember them saying they wanted this to evolve into an esport but I don’t think they ever said it was supposed to be solely centered around pvp.

You don’t need to have the game centered around PvP to make it an eSport – but at the same time you can’t just ignore it either.

ArenaNet has pretty much ignored PvP. One new map in 7 months isn’t really that exciting when everything was bare bones to begin with.

Tobias Trueflight.8350:

Fox.3469:

Tobias Trueflight.8350:

GW1 wasn’t an MMO, though, it was a series of instances strung together by open lobbies to group up in. It did that pretty decently, I think, but it was not an MMO.

I don’t agree with this, and i know that it doesn’t specify as an MMO cause somehow it’s been determined all of the world needs to be open for being and mmo, but i think it’s by far the best version of massive multiplayer online content around that time.

GW2 becomes an “mmo” while loosing the entire multiplayer aspect, wich is more mmo? i say GW1 is, cause not having any decent multiplayer system is worse then not having an open world.

I should clarify:

Guild Wars: Prophecies was not initially designed as an MMO as we understood it at the time. Guild Wars 2 was meant to be one, with a persistent world outside the cities. This is where a lot of the friction comes in.

It’s only friction if you use it to say you can’t compare the two games. Clearly, there are things in GW1 that could have been in GW2 and still had the difference between CORPG and MMORPG remain intact.

stof.9341:

Hmm, I don’t remember a daily that couldn’t be completed entirely in WvW. Care to show an example ?

Any of the Ascalonian/Krytan/etc daily killers.

Also, I don’t think there are crafting stations in WvW, but I’m not sure.

However, it is easy to get dailies done in WvW. I don’t really think that is relevant to why dailies are bad.

Ultimately, the problem is that nearly all the progression in this game is based around time than skill. Which is why it seems like a grind.

Even easy things, like dailies, are just another way to gate gear behind time, not skill.

It is bad design and contrary to everything that was good about GW1.

LumAnth.5124:

The Mesmer.

Whose smart idea was it to make them psuedo MM’s from GW1?

They took away the main thing the profession relied on, punishment.

You do something, you get punished. (Backfire, Diversion, Empathy and even interrupts)

In GW2, it’s like the only form of punishments are confusion and not killing clones before they blow up.

The kind of utility based professions you found in the Mesmer, Elementalist and some Necro skills are severely lacking in this game. It is a shame as the Mesmer was one of those great classes that didn’t do noticeable damage, but was an absolute beast in the hands of a skilled player.

Similarly, the ability to find quick parties doesn’t make up for the depth and strategy we lost when ANet decided to retire the monk profession from GW2.

Cursed shore is one of the few open world areas I do like.

ScottBroChill.3254:

They’re taking this game in the same direction as the end of gw1 basically. And we saw how that turned out

Sadly, yes.

Aristio.2784:

clay.7849:

Vayne.8563:

clay.7849:

Aristio.2784:

clay.7849:

Leo Paul.1659:

The thing I found the most annoying at the moment are guilds that require “24/7 representation” which ultimately detracts from the concept of multi-guilding altogether. I wish influence is shared equally among the guilds you have joined (probably scale the amount to minimize exploits) or something.

Just one more, of many, poorly implemented designs so that the game could be released in time to stop NCSoft’s plummeting stock prices.

Oh shut up about this.

Can you name me ONE, just ONE Triple-A MMO that has EVER came out with EVERYTHING totally fixed and balanced? Where there were zero bugs, and all the content that the devs wanted to ship with, got into the final product? Just please lift me from my ignorance that a AAA MMO cannot be release with an absolute perfect product! Show me one MMO that was absolute perfection at launch.

If you can’t, move along and stop complaining. You sound like an entitled little child.

Wow. Sad that your expectations are so low for a genre. Personally, I prefer to spend money on games that work.

How long should we give an MMO to get their kitten together after launch? I would think 7 months would be plenty? But, there’s arguably more problems now than at launch.

Plus, your crybaby act telling me to shut up won’t work. Nice try Internet tough guy.

You would think seven month is plenty, yet you’ve admitted to not playing any other MMO besides Guild Wars 1 (which wasn’t an MMO). Seems that your 7 months is plenty line is inaccurate.

Because MOST MMOs not just a few, but just about all, at the 7 month mark were barely playable. Maybe your expectations are off because you never actually played a 7 month old MMO. In which case your lack of insight should be forgiven.

The fact is, by this point in it’s career, games like AoC, Warhammer, Rift, SWToR, and yes even WoW were really buggy and imbalanced. There are very few MMOs that could say otherwise 7 months after launch.

Maybe you need to stop comparing everything to one game. In fact, this game is far far more ambitious than Prophecies was, and I’m sure that 7 months after launch there were still plenty of complaints about Prophecies.

It takes a couple of years for an MMO to mature. Maybe it’s just an impatience thing. And no, the game isn’t arguably in worse shape now than it was at launch, it’s in a different shape. There are a whole lot of people who think it’s in better shape, including a number of people who left and came back.

WoW wasn’t. Imagine which game is still dominating today. The rest never lived up to expectations. Not even close.

Wait, wut? WoW was basically unplayable for the first 6 months. No clue what you’re talking about.

You may be right, I wasn’t there. Here is the quote that led me to believe what I said:

It’s no secret that WoW has been a big success, and there is a reason for that success. While it may not be the most innovative product on the market, WoW offers a tremendous amount of content and is an exceptionally polished game.

It was from a founder of ANet during a speech he gave. Clearly, he said it was an exceptionally polished game, but did not mention from launch. So, clearly I may have been mistaken.

Vayne, I will say this, and I hope you take it well:

We are probably more alike than different, and the same thing that kitten es you off about me is what kitten es me off about you.

That being said, it’s good to have a nemesis. Conflict is often a good thing.

For your sake, I hope GW2 gets better and better and kicks the trend of MMO’s that don’t live up to expectations. And maybe, just maybe, they can find some of the magic that we had in the early life of GW1 in the process.

Oh, I play, and I will give it a chance to get better. Really, I float from game to game. I am a casual player. Even in my teens and twenties. There have only been three games in my life that I would consider I played “hardcore”. Counterstrike, Madden Football and GW1.

Vayne.8563:

clay.7849:

Vayne.8563:

clay.7849:

Vayne.8563:

Guild Wars 1 was not an MMO, and you can’t compare it to an MMO. Sorry to say but having an open world is completely different. For example problems like culling or balancing for more than 8 people in a zone never was an issue in Guild Wars 1. Logic fail.

WoW at seven months was an absolutely mess as far as balance and bugs went. The complaints on WoW forums were as bad or worse than they were here. You didn’t even play the game, how would you know?

Five years to design a world of this size and populate it isn’t enough to rid it of bugs. If you think it is, you obviously don’t program.

It’s about the complexity and size of the world, not just about time. You can’t really judge one without the other. This game is so much more ambitious than Prophecies ever was. Too bad you can’t see that. Other people can.

Lol, I can’t compare GW1 to MMO’s now? How foolish of me. Did you email MMORPG.com for years when it was ranked #1 and told them they can’t do that?

Also, I seem to have this nagging suspicion that an old ANet founder mentioned how bug free WoW was compared to other MMO’s at release. Sure, I didn’t play it, but I trust his word over yours.

You’re right, I don’t program MMOs, just the occasional website, PHP, etc. But, 5 years seems like a long time to me. Did you say how long it should take by the way?

Do you remember Anet, they guys who programmed Guild Wars 1. They said it wasn’t an MMO. They said it was a CoRPG. A cooperative roleplaying game. I guess you know better than them.

An MMO means MASSIVE multiplayer online game. That doesn’t mean 12 people at one time in a single instance, sorry.

Again, your lack of experience in this genre is telling.

I know it wasn’t an MMO silly. It, however, compete with them. Therefore, it can get compared to them. Again, I will reference MMORPG.com for doing the same thing.

A lot of the problems that come from programming an MMO though, doesn’t happen when programming a coop game.

Even you have to admit, it’s easier to balance a game for an 8 man team, than say balance the game for an unknown amount of players. Things like culling never existed in Guild Wars 1, because you couldn’t have 200 guys on the screen at once.

There’s so much difference in what’s required to make an MMO, as compared to what is required to make a COOP game. It’s a whole different ball of wax.

Yes, that is true. Really, I don’t think ANet would have released the game in the stage it was in without pressure from NCSoft, so by beef is with them, not ANet.

It is probably a shame that GW2 was released before it was ready. And, clearly it wasn’t ready. Not because the bugs are all that bad, but there are a lot of band aids.

I truly want to see GW2 get better, but I think it will be a long road, and I don’t know if it will make it. I really hope it does. I just wish that it had some of the magic of GW1 that I can’t find.

Vayne.8563:

clay.7849:

Vayne.8563:

clay.7849:

I have always said I didn’t like heroes. Having heroes is not the antithesis of good combat in GW1, it merely ruined the cooperative need on GW1.

Well, that’s part of our difference then, because heroes were in the game when I started Guild Wars 1. And there were often not enough players around to do some missions, so you had to use heroes. Later I joined a Guild, but with PVe only skills, much of the content was trivialized.

Sorry to tell you, but you missed the best parts of GW1.

By EOTN a lot of people had left.

Yep, I wish I had found it earlier than I did. And I still loved the game..but I’m not looking at it through the same rose-colored glasses that you did.

On the other hand, I’ve played a dozen MMOs easily. So I can compare Guild Wars 2 to them. Guild Wars 2 is a whole lot more like Guild Wars 1 in playing it than it is like other MMOs.

I don’t doubt that GW2 is better than most, if not all other MMO’s. But, from what GW1 players that played from Prophecies find, is that it lacks a lot of things that made GW1 and ANet different than the rest. I did try a lot of MMO’s and never played for more than a month.

Yes, my glasses are rose colored. I remember the good things more than the bad, because as GW1 got worse, I played less and less.

But, there was a time when in order to get through a mission, you had to pair up with people. But, it wasn’t a problem, because they were everywhere. It was fun and exciting and created a community online unlike ever I have seen before.

The combat was amazing because there was depth and strategy. There were counters to everything. Have you ever played MTG? If you have, you would have seen it in motion with Prophecies. It was as balanced as any game has ever been.

Those are the biggest things that GW1 players are missing that you cannot find in GW2. It just isn’t the same. Yes, I realize its a different game and went a different direction, but literally nothing is similar at all.

Players loved GW1. I will say it again, because it requires emphasis. Players loved GW1. Go on teamquitter.com some time and read it. Not the flaming and the trolling, but the actual conversation around the game. People created life long friendships through a video game. Lots of people.

It was simply one of the most satisfying games for strategy and socializing that I have ever played and that magic is what is lost in GW2. I can’t think of something more rare than what GW1 held in its hands for a couple of years.

Vayne.8563:

clay.7849:

Vayne.8563:

Guild Wars 1 was not an MMO, and you can’t compare it to an MMO. Sorry to say but having an open world is completely different. For example problems like culling or balancing for more than 8 people in a zone never was an issue in Guild Wars 1. Logic fail.

WoW at seven months was an absolutely mess as far as balance and bugs went. The complaints on WoW forums were as bad or worse than they were here. You didn’t even play the game, how would you know?

Five years to design a world of this size and populate it isn’t enough to rid it of bugs. If you think it is, you obviously don’t program.

It’s about the complexity and size of the world, not just about time. You can’t really judge one without the other. This game is so much more ambitious than Prophecies ever was. Too bad you can’t see that. Other people can.

Lol, I can’t compare GW1 to MMO’s now? How foolish of me. Did you email MMORPG.com for years when it was ranked #1 and told them they can’t do that?

Also, I seem to have this nagging suspicion that an old ANet founder mentioned how bug free WoW was compared to other MMO’s at release. Sure, I didn’t play it, but I trust his word over yours.

You’re right, I don’t program MMOs, just the occasional website, PHP, etc. But, 5 years seems like a long time to me. Did you say how long it should take by the way?

Do you remember Anet, they guys who programmed Guild Wars 1. They said it wasn’t an MMO. They said it was a CoRPG. A cooperative roleplaying game. I guess you know better than them.

An MMO means MASSIVE multiplayer online game. That doesn’t mean 12 people at one time in a single instance, sorry.

Again, your lack of experience in this genre is telling.

I know it wasn’t an MMO silly. It, however, compete with them. Therefore, it can get compared to them. Again, I will reference MMORPG.com for doing the same thing.

Vayne.8563:

clay.7849:

I have always said I didn’t like heroes. Having heroes is not the antithesis of good combat in GW1, it merely ruined the cooperative need on GW1.

Well, that’s part of our difference then, because heroes were in the game when I started Guild Wars 1. And there were often not enough players around to do some missions, so you had to use heroes. Later I joined a Guild, but with PVe only skills, much of the content was trivialized.

Sorry to tell you, but you missed the best parts of GW1.

By EOTN a lot of people had left.

Vayne.8563:

Guild Wars 1 was not an MMO, and you can’t compare it to an MMO. Sorry to say but having an open world is completely different. For example problems like culling or balancing for more than 8 people in a zone never was an issue in Guild Wars 1. Logic fail.

WoW at seven months was an absolutely mess as far as balance and bugs went. The complaints on WoW forums were as bad or worse than they were here. You didn’t even play the game, how would you know?

Five years to design a world of this size and populate it isn’t enough to rid it of bugs. If you think it is, you obviously don’t program.

It’s about the complexity and size of the world, not just about time. You can’t really judge one without the other. This game is so much more ambitious than Prophecies ever was. Too bad you can’t see that. Other people can.

Lol, I can’t compare GW1 to MMO’s now? How foolish of me. Did you email MMORPG.com for years when it was ranked #1 and told them they can’t do that?

Also, I seem to have this nagging suspicion that an old ANet founder mentioned how bug free WoW was compared to other MMO’s at release. Sure, I didn’t play it, but I trust his word over yours.

You’re right, I don’t program MMOs, just the occasional website, PHP, etc. But, 5 years seems like a long time to me. Did you say how long it should take by the way?

ScottBroChill.3254:

Vayne.8563:

ScottBroChill.3254:

Thank you, clay, I have no idea why i forgot to include that. The realm of the gods was some of the most incredible stuff, from the feel of it, to the rewards, and to the difficulty of it untill speedclears came about. But even then, speedclears take a lot of focus and timing, which requires SKILL.

So Arah explorable mode doesn’t require skill? High level fractals don’t require skill? Hell even the redo of AC requires skill.

Name places in the open world in Guild Wars 1 that required skill please.

dude I said fractals requires skill, but that’s about the only thing. Everything else doesn’t really have a strategy for beating it, just enduring it.

I would really like it if people didn’t put words in my mouth, thank you.

Exactly. The FACT is the only difference between 95% of hard and easy content in this game is higher hit points and DPS. That, objectively, points to bad design.

Vayne.8563:

clay.7849:

ScottBroChill.3254:

Thank you, clay, I have no idea why i forgot to include that. The realm of the gods was some of the most incredible stuff, from the feel of it, to the rewards, and to the difficulty of it untill speedclears came about. But even then, speedclears take a lot of focus and timing, which requires SKILL.

Even solo farming was more difficult and intrinsically rewarding than anything in GW2.

Solo farming? LMFAO!

So that’s what you like about games. No wonder you don’t like Guild Wars 2. BTW, being a 55 monk and solo farming wasn’t very challenging for me at all. It was quite easy in fact. Solo farming vatteirs in EotN wasn’t that challenging either.

And this is from a guy who couldn’t do it for long, because I get bored farming really fast. But even in the short time I did it, it wasn’t challenging. Maybe you’re thinking of a different game.

Who said 55 monk? Sure that was easy when you didn’t deal with enchant removal. But did you ever use a rit/ranger in FoW?

Ya, see just because you think you know what I’m taking about, you don’t.

And it was still more intrinsically rewarding being a 55 in UW than any combat in this game.

Vayne.8563:

clay.7849:

Vayne.8563:

clay.7849:

Aristio.2784:

clay.7849:

Aristio.2784:

clay.7849:

Leo Paul.1659:

The thing I found the most annoying at the moment are guilds that require “24/7 representation” which ultimately detracts from the concept of multi-guilding altogether. I wish influence is shared equally among the guilds you have joined (probably scale the amount to minimize exploits) or something.

Just one more, of many, poorly implemented designs so that the game could be released in time to stop NCSoft’s plummeting stock prices.

Oh shut up about this.

Can you name me ONE, just ONE Triple-A MMO that has EVER came out with EVERYTHING totally fixed and balanced? Where there were zero bugs, and all the content that the devs wanted to ship with, got into the final product? Just please lift me from my ignorance that a AAA MMO cannot be release with an absolute perfect product! Show me one MMO that was absolute perfection at launch.

If you can’t, move along and stop complaining. You sound like an entitled little child.

Wow. Sad that your expectations are so low for a genre. Personally, I prefer to spend money on games that work.

How long should we give an MMO to get their kitten together after launch? I would think 7 months would be plenty? But, there’s arguably more problems now than at launch.

Plus, your crybaby act telling me to shut up won’t work. Nice try Internet tough guy.

“Games that work,” oh seems to me that Guild Wars 2 loads up fine (Works perfectly too on the new Windows 8 ) and I have been playing since launch with no more than 2 crashes since. Get over yourself and “setting the bar low.” MMOs come with bugs and always will come with bugs. It’s part of the genre. You would have known that if your first MMO wasn’t World of Warcraft.

Again, name me one AAA MMO that came out perfectly at launch.

For god’s sake, there are barely any games at all that don’t come with performance issues, bugs, glitches, and the like. Software development is a hell of a field to work in and anyone can that works in it can confirm that there is rarely a perfect program.

Maybe we should stop calling them AAA if they can’t get their kitten together.

Maybe we should indeed. Or we could also realize that there is no game in existence even remotely as time consuming and high cost to produce and they really do need their own set of rules. It would be different if ANY MMO had worked this stuff out at this stage in it’s life, but that hasn’t been my experience.

I think people need to rewrite their expectations to reality, not to artificially impose a set of requirements for a genre that has never met those requirements.

Lol! You’re actually advocating that we lower out expectations to include bugs and glitches in a game? Seriously?

I wish the rest of the world worked that way. When things don’t work properly in real life there are recalls and class action lawsuits.

I’m advocating having realistic expectations. It’s not a question of lowering our standards. It’s a question of looking at what can be reasonably accomplished in a certain amount of time and expecting it.

If I were building a house and I expected it to be done in a week and done “right”, I’d be sorely disappointed. To know whether or not something can be constructed both within budget and on schedule takes a measure of experience, and even experienced guys get it wrong, because unexpected stuff crops up in construction.

The same is true when you’re building a program or a world. Just because you have unrealistic expectations, admittedly born of your lack of experience with the genre, doesn’t mean I need to share those unrealistic expectations.

When you show me the game that has done better, then we can talk. Until then, you’re arbitrarily setting numbers that have nothing at all to do with reality.

WoW and GW1. Easy.

And I think they spent 5 years on this game, not a week. What is a realistic timeline to make a relatively bug free and balanced game? Seems like 5 years is reasonable, no?

ScottBroChill.3254:

Thank you, clay, I have no idea why i forgot to include that. The realm of the gods was some of the most incredible stuff, from the feel of it, to the rewards, and to the difficulty of it untill speedclears came about. But even then, speedclears take a lot of focus and timing, which requires SKILL.

Even solo farming was more difficult and intrinsically rewarding than anything in GW2.

Lol Vayne, every time you post about GW1 you keep contradicting that you liked the game. Seriously, face it, you didn’t really like GW1 and don’t see why it was so successful. It was just a pretty game to you.

Vayne.8563:

clay.7849:

Aristio.2784:

clay.7849:

Aristio.2784:

clay.7849:

Leo Paul.1659:

The thing I found the most annoying at the moment are guilds that require “24/7 representation” which ultimately detracts from the concept of multi-guilding altogether. I wish influence is shared equally among the guilds you have joined (probably scale the amount to minimize exploits) or something.

Just one more, of many, poorly implemented designs so that the game could be released in time to stop NCSoft’s plummeting stock prices.

Oh shut up about this.

Can you name me ONE, just ONE Triple-A MMO that has EVER came out with EVERYTHING totally fixed and balanced? Where there were zero bugs, and all the content that the devs wanted to ship with, got into the final product? Just please lift me from my ignorance that a AAA MMO cannot be release with an absolute perfect product! Show me one MMO that was absolute perfection at launch.

If you can’t, move along and stop complaining. You sound like an entitled little child.

Wow. Sad that your expectations are so low for a genre. Personally, I prefer to spend money on games that work.

How long should we give an MMO to get their kitten together after launch? I would think 7 months would be plenty? But, there’s arguably more problems now than at launch.

Plus, your crybaby act telling me to shut up won’t work. Nice try Internet tough guy.

“Games that work,” oh seems to me that Guild Wars 2 loads up fine (Works perfectly too on the new Windows 8 ) and I have been playing since launch with no more than 2 crashes since. Get over yourself and “setting the bar low.” MMOs come with bugs and always will come with bugs. It’s part of the genre. You would have known that if your first MMO wasn’t World of Warcraft.

Again, name me one AAA MMO that came out perfectly at launch.

For god’s sake, there are barely any games at all that don’t come with performance issues, bugs, glitches, and the like. Software development is a hell of a field to work in and anyone can that works in it can confirm that there is rarely a perfect program.

Maybe we should stop calling them AAA if they can’t get their kitten together.

Maybe we should indeed. Or we could also realize that there is no game in existence even remotely as time consuming and high cost to produce and they really do need their own set of rules. It would be different if ANY MMO had worked this stuff out at this stage in it’s life, but that hasn’t been my experience.

I think people need to rewrite their expectations to reality, not to artificially impose a set of requirements for a genre that has never met those requirements.

Lol! You’re actually advocating that we lower out expectations to include bugs and glitches in a game? Seriously?

I wish the rest of the world worked that way. When things don’t work properly in real life there are recalls and class action lawsuits.

Vayne.8563:

clay.7849:

Aristio.2784:

clay.7849:

Leo Paul.1659:

The thing I found the most annoying at the moment are guilds that require “24/7 representation” which ultimately detracts from the concept of multi-guilding altogether. I wish influence is shared equally among the guilds you have joined (probably scale the amount to minimize exploits) or something.

Just one more, of many, poorly implemented designs so that the game could be released in time to stop NCSoft’s plummeting stock prices.

Oh shut up about this.

Can you name me ONE, just ONE Triple-A MMO that has EVER came out with EVERYTHING totally fixed and balanced? Where there were zero bugs, and all the content that the devs wanted to ship with, got into the final product? Just please lift me from my ignorance that a AAA MMO cannot be release with an absolute perfect product! Show me one MMO that was absolute perfection at launch.

If you can’t, move along and stop complaining. You sound like an entitled little child.

Wow. Sad that your expectations are so low for a genre. Personally, I prefer to spend money on games that work.

How long should we give an MMO to get their kitten together after launch? I would think 7 months would be plenty? But, there’s arguably more problems now than at launch.

Plus, your crybaby act telling me to shut up won’t work. Nice try Internet tough guy.

You would think seven month is plenty, yet you’ve admitted to not playing any other MMO besides Guild Wars 1 (which wasn’t an MMO). Seems that your 7 months is plenty line is inaccurate.

Because MOST MMOs not just a few, but just about all, at the 7 month mark were barely playable. Maybe your expectations are off because you never actually played a 7 month old MMO. In which case your lack of insight should be forgiven.

The fact is, by this point in it’s career, games like AoC, Warhammer, Rift, SWToR, and yes even WoW were really buggy and imbalanced. There are very few MMOs that could say otherwise 7 months after launch.

Maybe you need to stop comparing everything to one game. In fact, this game is far far more ambitious than Prophecies was, and I’m sure that 7 months after launch there were still plenty of complaints about Prophecies.

It takes a couple of years for an MMO to mature. Maybe it’s just an impatience thing. And no, the game isn’t arguably in worse shape now than it was at launch, it’s in a different shape. There are a whole lot of people who think it’s in better shape, including a number of people who left and came back.

WoW wasn’t. Imagine which game is still dominating today. The rest never lived up to expectations. Not even close.

I have always said I didn’t like heroes. Having heroes is not the antithesis of good combat in GW1, it merely ruined the cooperative need on GW1.

No, seriously, play with just 1 and 6 and you can play the entire game from beginning to end. And, it is objectively bad because of that fact.

Vayne.8563:

ScottBroChill.3254:

Oh no, trust me, I wanted a fully persistent mmo don’t get me wrong.

I have never had any trouble with any of the missions or pve aspects of this game. Fractals is different, because the challange keeps increasing, but that’s all they got and it’s tacked on and added vertical gear progression. In GW1 I would often have to repeat missions to make new strategies in order to beat them, THAT is fun for ME. (opinion, I lack a challenge because It makes me think). And I never grinded to the point where I could deck out all of my heroes in equipment, armor/runes, skills, and all the other best things because that took a ridiculous amount of time on it’s own. So, I never felt the easiness of having the npc’s do all the work and found the game increasingly difficult when people started to leave.

I like the combat system. I never said I didn’t. I said I didn’t like the fact that there’s no depth into the customization of the combat via skills, traits(this is hardly customizing, just makes everything usually more gimmicky), weapons, and the second half the skill bar may be customizable, but really? they are all high cd abilities that hardly affect the majority of combat.

I’m not using that “one line” from the manifesto as my whole argument, I’m using it as a basis for why I might be mad at the false advertisement. Everything else they advertise is here, but what about that?

And your telling me that one character representing the same role of Kormir in a someone crappy storyline, in which the general public seems to agree is underwhelming, is supposed to be enough of gw1 nastolgia? I’m not looking for gw1 easter eggs in this game. They ruined how the lore from gw1 could have went and made it unengaging.

I’m looking for more of parts of gw1’s character system, skill system, armor and weapons, and things of the like. Really the only thing that has stayed is the class names and weapon and armor skins being only cosmetic. The latter sort of blows because there’s so very few attractive skins in this game unless you are a heavy armored character. This upsets me because they literally have one of the best art teams out there, I’ve seen the concept art and everything is epic. Why hasn’t any of the epicness transferred over?

GW1 felt the way it did because of it’s skill system. Being able to reload you skill bar in town and customize it to your liking. They kept the ability to change it and not get stuck in one bar, but took away customization to a higher degree than I think they should have.

snip

I’m telling you that a lot of the same sensibilities in this game are from Guild Wars 1…and that I see them. That I play this game very similiarly to how I played Guild Wars 1. That I get the same feeling going around the world. They may not have quests in this game like Guild Wars 1, but they still have an epic feel to the world that many MMOs miss. The challenge, however is hit and miss.

For example, yesterday I was in Wayfarer Foothills. It’s a starter zone. And I’m near the wurm cave. So we’re doing this event and suddenly one of the storm events from the living story starts. Out of the blue, on top of the event we were doing. Well, now there are ice elementals in addition to a couple of veteran ice elementals, and you know, we’re scaled down for this. So then a portal opens up right in the same area, and we have dredge and charr coming through the portal. There were a bunch of people there, but it was still tough.

Do you remember going back to Ascalon in Guild Wars 1? How you’d take your 20th level NF or Factions character back from LA to get the first missions. And how there was no challenge at all, you’d just run through the entire zone? With a 20th level character, and heroes, most of Guild Wars 1 was silly. And remember the game didn’t launch with hard mode. That came later.

So here you really can make this game more challenging for yourself. There are all sorts of champions you can try to solo if you want. There are tough group events in out of the way places you can do with less people than you’d normally need. Some of these battles are hectic.

There were only 25 missions in Prophecies. That’s it. The other stuff all came later.

So when you compare this to Prophecies, we’re just around the point where hard mode was introduced. Prophecies had nothing like the fractals, had no dungeons…people need to give this game time. Content takes time.

They need to solidify the core game before they go onto make the game harder. But the harder still will come. It’s just a matter of time.

If you take away Nightfall, Factions and Eye of the North, a lot of the stuff I liked best about Guild Wars 1 personally, including hard mode, wasn’t there at launch.

UW and FoW weren’t available in Prophecies? Funny, I’m pretty sure I played them then… Also tombs, GvG, RA…

Odd…

Vayne.8563:

Dante.1508:

Vayne.8563:

@OP, I agree with some of what you say. The combat system in Guild Wars 2 isn’t as deep as it was in Guild Wars 1. That’s a trade off. Guild Wars 1 became impossible to balance and it causes no end to troubles.

Which is strange because i’m seeing just as much imbalance here in GW2 even with the trade off as we did in Guildwars 1, so i don’t believe for a second the combat system here is any better..especially the lack of skills part..

It in my opinion is because they balance the game in a tiny part very few play spvp..and let the other two parts pve and wvw get messed up..

Actually, I don’t think that the balance in this game is near as bad as it was in Guild Wars 2, from a PvE standpoint.

That is to say, if you ran around with certain heroes, you could do pretty much anything in the game, including soloing hard mode dungeons. A couple of rits in your party and there really wasn’t much you couldn’t do, even if you didn’t play.

Someone said the skill system in Guild Wars 2 is bad because you can get through the entire game hitting the 1 key. Then the skill system in Guild Wars 1 must have been terrible, because my heroes didn’t need me to be there at all.

Ever go clear CoF with a speed clear team? Ever try it with other teams? Ever try conditions instead of DPS?

Yea, PvE balance is broken too.

Vayne.8563:

@Clay

Except that I don’t see gear progression, in and of itself, as bad design. I see content gating as bad design. Gear progression, handled properly is fine by me and always have been. There’s a difference, to me, between optional gear that makes you marginally more powerful and required gear that you need to enter an instance.

Anyway there’s a bit of inconsistency in some of what you say. For example, you claim that the game is easy because you can get through the game using just the 1 skill. Then you claim that there’s gear grind in this game, because people need better gear. But if the game is that easy, arguably you shouldn’t not only need that better gear…you shouldn’t even want that better gear. It will only make the game easier.

So which is it? If the game is easy enough to beat in exotics, you don’t need ascended gear and there’s no problem. Or do you really need to grind gear, in which case you can’t play the game because it’s too hard without it?

Gear Progression and content gating go hand in hand. If they don’t then there is even less reason for gear progression. Just because you think it works doesn’t mean there is an argument for it.

I honesty don’t know what point you’re trying to prove about the game being easy and gear grind. The game isn’t easy because of exotic gear, the game is easy because the combat system is garbage. There is no need for skills 2-5 and 7+. Not because of armor.

ScottBroChill.3254:

Well then why was I promised that the game would include everything I loved about the first game? and they stopped caring about gw1 so I can’t go back and am now stuck with this “new” direction.

Exactly. Ill tell you why: they wanted your money more than they cared about making a good game for their ridiculously dedicated fanbase. Really GW2 is a slap in the face to GW1 players.

Aristio.2784:

clay.7849:

Aristio.2784:

clay.7849:

Leo Paul.1659:

The thing I found the most annoying at the moment are guilds that require “24/7 representation” which ultimately detracts from the concept of multi-guilding altogether. I wish influence is shared equally among the guilds you have joined (probably scale the amount to minimize exploits) or something.

Just one more, of many, poorly implemented designs so that the game could be released in time to stop NCSoft’s plummeting stock prices.

Oh shut up about this.

Can you name me ONE, just ONE Triple-A MMO that has EVER came out with EVERYTHING totally fixed and balanced? Where there were zero bugs, and all the content that the devs wanted to ship with, got into the final product? Just please lift me from my ignorance that a AAA MMO cannot be release with an absolute perfect product! Show me one MMO that was absolute perfection at launch.

If you can’t, move along and stop complaining. You sound like an entitled little child.

Wow. Sad that your expectations are so low for a genre. Personally, I prefer to spend money on games that work.

How long should we give an MMO to get their kitten together after launch? I would think 7 months would be plenty? But, there’s arguably more problems now than at launch.

Plus, your crybaby act telling me to shut up won’t work. Nice try Internet tough guy.

“Games that work,” oh seems to me that Guild Wars 2 loads up fine (Works perfectly too on the new Windows 8 ) and I have been playing since launch with no more than 2 crashes since. Get over yourself and “setting the bar low.” MMOs come with bugs and always will come with bugs. It’s part of the genre. You would have known that if your first MMO wasn’t World of Warcraft.

Again, name me one AAA MMO that came out perfectly at launch.

For god’s sake, there are barely any games at all that don’t come with performance issues, bugs, glitches, and the like. Software development is a hell of a field to work in and anyone can that works in it can confirm that there is rarely a perfect program.

Maybe we should stop calling them AAA if they can’t get their kitten together.

Aristio.2784:

clay.7849:

Leo Paul.1659:

The thing I found the most annoying at the moment are guilds that require “24/7 representation” which ultimately detracts from the concept of multi-guilding altogether. I wish influence is shared equally among the guilds you have joined (probably scale the amount to minimize exploits) or something.

Just one more, of many, poorly implemented designs so that the game could be released in time to stop NCSoft’s plummeting stock prices.

Oh shut up about this.

Can you name me ONE, just ONE Triple-A MMO that has EVER came out with EVERYTHING totally fixed and balanced? Where there were zero bugs, and all the content that the devs wanted to ship with, got into the final product? Just please lift me from my ignorance that a AAA MMO cannot be release with an absolute perfect product! Show me one MMO that was absolute perfection at launch.

If you can’t, move along and stop complaining. You sound like an entitled little child.

Wow. Sad that your expectations are so low for a genre. Personally, I prefer to spend money on games that work.

How long should we give an MMO to get their kitten together after launch? I would think 7 months would be plenty? But, there’s arguably more problems now than at launch.

Plus, your crybaby act telling me to shut up won’t work. Nice try Internet tough guy.