Guild Wars 2

tolunart.2095:

…
To say that you have already done everything there is to do… you want me to believe you’ve levelled 15-20 toons to 80…

To advice starting over again leveling from 1 to 79 only confirms the OP’s point: there is not nearly as much interesting and accessible PvE content for level 80 as there is for lower levels.

raynemaker.2731:

People seem to think they can enter a dungeon with the same build they use in DE’s and soloing…

If everyone would build their characters with support in mind,

How does a support build work out for DE’s and soloing?

I wouldn’t want to respec traits every time i’d switch from DE/solo PvE to dungeon.

“Just seems like a massive flaw in peoples mindset”

Perhaps, but it is also in the nature of the RPG genre in its current state, simply due to there being an extensive leveling system that dishes out these rewards.

Jason King.2647:

identifying the root cause of the issue has been difficult

Given the large number of events that are bugged, is it seems to me that the cause is not event specific, but is caused by the underlying more general event code.

Thank you for your patience as we continue to work on this.

Sorry but my patience is starting to wear thin.

If i’d report all the bugged events i come across, i’d spend more time reporting than playing.

Seeing the many suggestions to do something else besides lvl80 DEs, pretty much everyone seems to agree that there is very little DE content for lvl80.

http://guildwars2hub.com/features/editorials/80-things-do-level-80

Literally only one of those 80 things is about dynamic events, which underscores the complaint that many have about lvl80 content: there are very few on-level dynamic events for lvl 80 (the fact that of those that are there half is bugged doesn’t help either).

Compare that to the huge amount of DE’s available for lvl 1~79.

GW2 dungeons are intended as hardcore content, so that’s not for everyone. By Anet’s own admission crafting and exploring/map completion is not for everyone either. For lvl 1~79 that’s not an issue because there is so much else to do.

Whichever way you turn it, the game changes rather drastically once you have reached level 80.

“There has to be ways to keep you busy at max level.”

I’d be happy just to do DE’s as i did from lvl 1 to 79.
Challenging DE’s that is; the downscaling in lower level zones doesn’t work very well in that department.

Bluebird.1890:

Being in my late 20’s, I grew up on video games as they originated (Or, at least fairly close to how they originated.) Mario and other NES games did not have a “carrot on the end of the stick.” The reward you got for playing the game was the enjoyment you got out of playing the game itself.

I’m a bit older and my game education started with Quake multiplayer, but i agree with the sentiment; it is perfectly possible to have people play a game for years, many hours a week – without any carrot on a stick – without so-called progression except for the human behind the keyboard becoming more skilled.
The enjoyment is the thrill of combat, the reward is victory – or even just a game well played.

Just look at all those offline games that people keep playing, none of which have a carrot on a stick: ie football, paintball etc.

Ethos.3902:

Their entire design philosophy is flawed. They say they want “endgame” PvE to be everything from 1-80 and stay the same at 80, but at 80 you have no character progression, no story progression, no gear progression, no exploratory progression, no content progression ect.

I don’t care very much about those progressions. They are just nice additions to what imo is the core of the PvE gameplay: dynamic events. I want my gear just to be good enough for whatever needs to be done, and i want to tinker with the looks of it.

The problem is that lvl 80 chars don’t scale down properly for lower level areas to be much of a challenge. It’s still nice but not the challenge that on-level content is.

If they want all of the content to be suitable for end-game, they might just as well do away with the leveling alltogether. They’d have my blessing.
There could be an optional noob/tutorial area, a vast main world to play in with some differentiation in difficulty (but not as much as lvl 1 vs lvl 80), and there’d be some hardcore dungeons for those who like dungeon crawling. There could still be crafting and some progression wrt specialization, gear and skill unlocking. But the point would not be to run the gear treadmill, the main point would be to fight battles.

Wasselin.1235:

Map completion, getting better gear, getting a variety of gear skins, finishing my personal story, leveling crafting, working on crafting a legendary, achievements, exploring the environments and finding out lore. And PvP. And then Alts.

At any rate, not PvE/DE’s – much unlike what the game is like at lvl 1 to 79.

Spitwyld.1963:

Having a game free to play, in my opinion, really limits the developers’ ability to regularly produce new and exciting material

Indeed.
Having a monthly fee might be incentive to create time sinks in game (a bad thing) , but having no monthly fee provides little incentive to keep customers’ attention – after all, they already got our money.

A suggestion to get the best of both:
a very low (ie $1) weekly fee to be payed only for weeks that the customer has actually played the game. That should give the devs both the resources and the incentive to improve and expand on the game content.

You enjoyed the sub-stories and character plots up to level 80, what keeps you / will keep you playing and why?

Story and plots not so much, it’s the DEs that kept me playing, and it would keep me playing at lvl80 if there’d be more lvl80 PvE areas. Oh, and they should fix the numerous bugged events in Cursed Shore.

“Every game needs “that” zone – the zone that gives you anxiety when you don’t want to be there”

But should it be the only max lvl zone with dynamic events? That’s what it is in GW2.

Seriously, what happens if you die when you have less cash than the fee to the nearest waypoint?

Apathy.6430:

Press H, go to the bottom tab on the left, and click the button.

How does PvP solve the lack of dynamic events for lvl 80?

My female ranger has a wardrobe of like six different coats and six different leggings. Al look more or less nice.
The ones that she wears look quite feminine and i found those well before lvl80, transmuted several times to keep the look.

The only problem i have with some armors is that skirts/dresses are often to large/to wide/ bulging in the front as though the avatar is pregnant.

Evil.7529:

There is plenty to do in game, people are just lost without the gear treadmill.

I could not care less about any treadmill.

In fact as far as i’m concerned they could do away with all or most of the leveling. And although i appreciate crafters and i’ll gladly gather the mats and coin needed to get them to make gear for me, crafting is not my thing either.
I’m here for easily accessible, challenging-but-balanced multiplayer combat (which means WvW in its current state is not an option for me). Dynamic events offer that for lvl 1 to 79, but there’s very little of such content for lvl80.

Shootsfoot.9276:

In my opinion this wave of complaints about “end game” are coming mostly from the hard-core “gotta-max-level-asap” crowd who rushed through a game that wasn’t designed to be rushed through.

Your opinion is wrong.

Fact of the matter is that there is only one lvl80 zone, and one or two dungeons.
Compare that with more zones for lower levels than you need to visit to level up to 80.

Not to mention that dungeon grinding is old-school. Nice for those who like that sort of thing, but not the innovation that sets GW2 appart from other mmorpgs.

Diva.4706:

Now we have Guild Wars 2, a game without direction.

The intended direction is lvl80 tier 3, or is that tier 4? How many character tiers are there anyway, and why are tiers not explained (except for crafting tiers on the official GW2 wiki)?

Yes we have the Hearts, …they are NOT the path through the game.

Hearts do have level requirements. It’s not a narrow path but a path nonetheless (not that it bothers me).

And from lvl 80 it’s mostly old-school tier grinding (which does bother me).

Clay Ray.7140:

^^
Or just WVW and problem solved

WvW requires PC performance that’s a least twice of what is sufficient for PvE, is usually very unbalanced (one team r*p*ng another), and involves ridiculous long walking distances.

So no, WvW is not an alternative to PvE.

Tom Gore.4035:

/m is your friend (and perhaps /g). Call backup.

That’s a workaround for a problem that used not to exist. It does not change anything about low population areas.

Vivik.8259:

Sorry but I don’t see it. After leveling my first character I’m back at it for round two with my second. I have yet to see any “dead DEs” on my server.

Which server is that?

“The feeling of grind melts away, and you just enjoy yourself.”

That is, until you hit lvl 80. Then it’s basically the same old tier grinding that all the other mmorpgs offer.
Sadly, we’re supposed to keep running that treadmill until we have acquired the highest tier gear.

Wrt dynamic events it looks to me as though Anet took a couple of pages from Rift and vastly improved on it. Kudos for that, it was fun while it lasted. Sweet but sadly short.

There is armor that costs like 40,000 karma a piece.

Yes it was to be expected; a huge world, many events – but by now the majority of players are doing endgame content. So only a few weeks after launch most of the world is already pretty much deserted.

In way it’s a shame that so much of the content is essentially rushed trough, and people end up repeating a small part of the content over and over again – but such is the design of the game.

Sure you can visit all those lower level areas that you haven’t seen yet, but you won’t be able to do most of the group events because there are not enough players there anymore.

And yes you can roll another character, but you’ll run into that same problem with low population areas. Also rolling another character as a solution to lackluster lvl 80 gameplay only proves that lvl 80 gameplay is lacking – at least so for casual gamers.

As easy as it was to find players doing group events in the lower level areas, so hard it is to team up after lvl 80. Lvl 80 gameplay only really works well for people who are in large active guilds, it’s not for casual gamers.

In spite of all GW2’s innovations, level 80 gameplay is essentially old-school tier treadmill that involves mandatory dungeon-specific grouping. That also brings back the limitation of timeliness; even if you are with a guild they might do any dungeon once or twice a day, if you miss out then you’ll have to find something else to do for the duration, which can be a few hours.

That is in sharp contrast with the gameplay at lower levels during the first few weeks after launch, when the lower level areas had sufficient population that you could go anywhere and participate in group events.