“Understanding is a three edged sword: your side, their side, and the truth.”
“The objective is to win. The goal is to have fun.”
@ Svarty.8019
I probably worded myself a bit unclear there. I want to know what ANet’s design vision for the game mode, what it was on release, as well as how they view it currently.
Because I can not see it as a competitive mode the way it is now. And it reminds me of what ANet commented that it was supposed to be a half way between pve and pvp, so I’m curious if that also applies to “half competitive” and what their take is on it.
@ Chinchilla.1785
WvW was definitively shown as a competitive mode, but it has always been a “half way in-between”. One of the main purposes with the mode at launch was to be a middle ground between PVP and PVE, to attract players of one kind more towards the other.
Considering how it has been played over the years, including that we’re the smallest game-mode, I’m curious where it stands in regards to that goal, and how it has changed ANet’s design vision for the mode.
A lot of the suggestions I see around on these forums are aimed pretty heavily toward making WvW more “hardcore” and “competitive”, but depending on what level of “competitive” ANet actually wants WvW to be or not, those might not be relevant.
I want to know just what they want the game to be, both originally and currently.
@ Gudradain.3892
Sorry for the slight take-over of your thread Gudradain Your comparision of how the numbers/voting is the effectively competitive mode of this game, just reminded me once more that we just don’t have any way to know just where on the competitive scale to put this game-mode.
And honestly, recruiting/voting is a horrible competitive system, at least for anything that last more than 10 minutes.
I also fear/worry that if ANet where to try to adapt a “identity” at this stage, we’d end up with a faction system as little developed as the EotM ones, or with Stronghold style NPC’s replacing Siegebreaker. And honestly, I can’t see it is worth their time to direct more resources at developing it.
+1 Still want this.
@Gudradain.3892
A very good read, thank you. I can definitively agree to most of your post, love the comparison used.
The more I read, watch, play, talk about and analyze WvW, the less I see it as anything resembling a competitive play-mode. At this stage, I think people should just embrace that it is a completely casual mode, and ANet develop it as such (if they ever do).
Which is why I really would love to hear ANet’s actual vision/goal/purpose for WvW, since it is meaningless to argue if WvW should be casual or competitive, unless we know what ANet wants with the mode (or wanted).
So for the next stage of WvW, Reality Wars 2, we should start changing the entire WvW over to voting wars, at the end of each match, the server with the least votes (active players) gets kicked from the game. Until there is only 1 server left! That feels like the logical conclusion to the current WvW
Basically a EotM variant for WvW ? I think it could be interesting to see/try, it’s likely the only way we will ever be able to fix two of the main problems of WvW format: Population and Coverage.
It still won’t fix the third: Fairweather syndrome.
But something like a 7 day long match using EotM teams, and using EBG for map rotation? Since it would need to add/destroy map instances constantly, or did you mean you wanted to just fill the queue’s and ignore that?
The borderland maps might work in this, but I suspect people would be annoyed that they’re designed to favor one side, though I don’t think it is super relevant.
Having played FF, I wonder why they can’t just let us level every job on a single character.
The first game had a secondary profession system where you could pick up pretty much anything from another profession and meld it with your primary.
The least they could do for the second game is to let us learn and switch professions, as long as you have to level all of them from level 1 that’s not much different from having alts, with all the things that are already shared between an account’s characters.
The only issue is that character slots would suddenly less attractive, so they would probably have to sell the option on the gem store.
Would love this, the one thing in FF14 I do really miss in GW2. But yeah I can see why this would impact Character Slot sales, and refunds sigh
Uhm, not entirely certain what you’re trying to do here ? You wanting to move from NA to EU or other way around ? Since other than WvW there exist no other reason to transfer server, that I know of at least.
Just going to add some general info here, since I don’t know exactly what you’re asking about.
I’ll join what so many others have stated here: I played GW1 for a good while, and enjoyed it back then. But after experiencing GW2’s combat, I can’t go back at all, GW1 combat is just so amazingly boring compared.
I would much rather want a “remake” of all GW1 into GW2 engine/combat. So I could finally finish all the GW1 stuff I never did back then.
@Dayra.7405
Love that old video, and it does sum up WvW pretty perfectly.
Now if that is all that 90% of the population want, blobbing over opposition effortlessly, then the current WvW structure doesn’t even encourage that unless you merge everything into 3 servers, 1 of which has 90% of population. And then what cycling around so random players are the 5% on each of the other servers ?
That sounds so utterly boring for anyone interested in something resembling fair fights or competition. And once the more “hardcore” players leave because of that, you’re left with only fairweathers to fill those 10% ? Then you have 90% vs 0% and 0%. Doubt they would find that much fun.
Keep wondering if they should adopt something closer to Aion’s system, of having 1vs1vsAI instead of the 1vs1vs1 server structure we have now. At least the ones that just want to karma train can run over the enemy AI instead or when the other side isn’t showing up.
Interesting. Definitively interested in seeing how this turns out.
Guys, new tanking meta! get on the ship
Make it a sport, teach all your roamers, to pretend to “lone roamers caught off guard”, and make bets on who can lead them around the longest. Much fun to be had, when the commander realize that single “roamer” just baited him around the entire borderland once.
Couple of quick examples from top of my head:
They do make some good events, but a good bunch of them are meant to be just filler for people to do to get xp etc. In short, a bit similar to most games quests, that are there just to give generic XP.
I do agree that I’d like to see more complicated and different events. And will be following this thread with interest. Just want to clear out that not all the events are the same.
Edit: should mention that the general quality of the “launch” materials tend to be richer in terms of creativity and variety. Not a big surprise that later content aren’t quite up to that level.
@Yuffi: Like the idea. Just to be clear, you’re not thinking about rewards for how server scores in this, other than the bragging rights ? Also really would love to have the tiers broken up like that, so I could go play what I felt like, not what I rolled this week.
@Straegen: Well, the only thing they would have done would be to remove the random glicko modifier, and just mash 1+2+3, and 3+4+5 etc against each others. And just let the servers slowly rise and sink in glicko through normal means.
The problem becomes (and is) when there simply aren’t any servers close enough to give an even fight. And if there are, getting 3 of them into the same match-up means that every other match-up is a bloody mess!
This is actually linked with what I consider the #3rd largest problem with WvW, Fair-weathers. “We’re not leading, I’m out of here! Silver-wastes grinding is calling me!” While whatever side is leading keeps their fair-weathers, and thus double/triple their manpower.
Hmm, not quite the same, but could be fun to see something similar to the old toxic tower inside that, semi-openworld dungeon/group content.
On the whole, not a giant fan of the idea of adding heroes to the game. But I do have to give credit that the suggestion above would have been a very good way of doing it, if they wanted to add heroes to the game. +1 for well thought out and limiting it to instances etc.
I can understand the wish for many to play through dungeons etc with NPC’s, some people doesn’t like the grouping aspect of the game, and some content is “locked” behind that. Though to be fair, there is very little of that, so I don’t see it as a big problem.
(Saying this as a person that still haven’t gotten around to do all the dungeons, because I largely dislike trusting in pugs. And is considering trying to solo the dungeons for the heck of it)
Yeah, a couple of those would at least make me look at getting an enrichment slot for once.
GW2 has a “high fantasy” theme, always did. And with a touch of the Steampunk/Magitech.
You said it yourself: A touch. The complaint is about it having taken over and destroying the part oldtimers like me loved dearly about the game.
Do remember that the Humans first took Ascalon from the Charr to begin with, so by that logic it’s Charr’s by right of first claim.
That is correct, but cats being all into metal is just another ridiculous implementation. Their architechtures look awful and displaced in a fantasy world IMO.
Then again, I’ll take that over the whole computer high-tech crap anytime. By the looks of the leaked material for Expansion Pack 2, many of the new elite specializations (and with them most likely new armor sets as well) look totally high-tech as well. Bye-bye, classic Guild Wars, you will be missed.
Regarding the Charr turning to machines and technology, I feel that makes sense, considering how they got burned on the flame shamans, and become distrustful of both magic and gods. Their focus on machinery is a pretty natural change.
I do agree that most of their machines looks horrible (like a mix of warhammer 40k Orkz with the super spiky bits from Chaos Ugh).
Though to be fair, personally I miss GW1’s more low fantasy setting, never was a fan of high fantasy myself Ah well. But ANet would rightfully tell me to just play GW1 instead in that case. And I’m way too much in love with GW2 combat to ever go back to GW1, even if they made the setting into a starwars ripoff (shudders).
I would love to see more of Ascalon, or even similar theme! It’s the beautiful places to run around in!
I still hate that Charr allowed to build their crap over the Beautiful city of Ascalon just like that!
GW2 Humans are betrayers for GW1 Ascalonians (also our older characters )
Do remember that the Humans first took Ascalon from the Charr to begin with, so by that logic it’s Charr’s by right of first claim.
Illconceived Was Na.9781 & DeceiverX.8361 +1
Personally I’ve barely noticed anything about a new expansion, not really paid attention and not even heard much rumors. Which probably isn’t a good thing, as basically no one of the people I play with and hang out with in this game bothers to read up or mention it.
I’m not really all that interested myself, I’ll probably pick it up just to support ANet, but I’m not going to bother pre-order or buy it straight away. Just not interested enough in all the living story stuff and story lines. So will have to look at what new features and content they add outside of that.
At this stage, I’m starting to miss having some semi-vanilla servers for PvP and WvW, where they remove the specialisations, 4stat gear, new runes and food etc from HoT. Because I honestly haven’t enjoyed those at all, made fighting super boring, and basically burned me completely out of WvW. Just let me keep the Autoloot thing, because that is the one thing I really can’t live without from HOT.
GW2 has a “high fantasy” theme, always did. And with a touch of the Steampunk/Magitech. Every person have their own taste, likes and dislikes. I’m not a super fan of some of the parts myself (You can shuttle the asura with all their stuff to the moon for all that I care). But they’ve made it this way so that everyone should be able to find something they like somewhere.
Ascalon maps, the Charr areas, are in general some of my favorites. Like the terrain and all the ruins, though personally think the charr is too fond of all their machines. Ah well, when I need a break from that I can go to Siverpeaks for more unspoiled nature, or to Kryta for a more traditional “fantasy” setup.
What we will never get: GW1 back in GW2. For good and bad (depending on the person and their taste). And it would probably feel like a waste for most of ANet to make GW1 maps over again for GW2, they tend to have plans with any maps they create (for story etc), so it seems unlikely they have a use for a “GW1 map” again.
/rant
Just remember that you can set so anyone can START guild missions, then anyone can whenever they want, start a TREK, and go find a single location press F and get reward, and abandon it. All you need for the personal reward.
So if the guild completed the Trek together, cool nice. If anyone didn’t get reward, just start another one and put everyone on the same spot and press F. Done, or if even that doesn’t work, teach them how to do that solo.
Trek is probably the easiest one to get reward for.
The summary: The only thing we can agree on is that we can’t agree on Mag being the best or worst place to go for fights.
Personally I think that since the linking, most of the servers been sort of watered out so it doesn’t really matter much any-longer. It’s just numbers, find one with large numbers and you get as much action as this game mode can still offer.
Or, just go EotM, it works better at this stage.
Want GW1 style back, head separate from costume, toggle both on of independent of each others.
Obligatory: If it is your first character, no need to be in a rush leveling. Enjoy the game however you like, you’ll level fast anyways, this game is pretty easy on the leveling.
Then you can just save up tomes for leveling further characters.
Couple of counter arguments:
If ANet ever removes either DBL or ABL, I’m out. I’ll still play as long as both are there.
Love this idea, been wanting for this same thing since release basically. But then again I’m a nutcase for exploring open world nature.
Unfortunately I do admit that it probably isn’t worth the resources. But I know that if I got a summer job or something at ANet, it’s the first thing I’d ask about “Can you guys teach me how to fiddle with the animal AI’s on my free time so I can make some of this?!”
Just commenting on the WvW is a strategy game part, here is my view on that:
WvW always reminded me of this little known game called Command & Conquer – Sole Survivor, where players are divided randomly into 2 sides, and each given a random unit from the C&C game, so you could easily end up with a Buggy vs a Mammoth Tank.
Or a bit like Majesty, an RTS game from back then where you trained heroes to fight and protect you, but had no direct control over them, and had to put out bounties to motivate them to do tasks for you, and then try to regain as much of as you can on taxes on blacksmiths and potion vendors etc.
Basically, WvW is like a strategy game, where you have RANDOM units of RANDOM quality, that does their own RANDOM thing. And no amount of changing the basic system to resemble a more traditional RTS game is going to change that, because it affects the most crucial part of RTS design, the unit.
Small characters is a boon in most cramped JP’s, and the Mini tonic is a blessing for us Norn players. Just wish it came a few years earlier, back when I completed all those JP’s on my big fat norn!
Aw yes, but you can look back with pride on that time, and in fact, someday you can drive your grandchildren crazy, with talk like, “Bah! Back in the day we did real JPs with real skills. None of that fancy tonic stuff for us!”
Small characters is a boon in most cramped JP’s, and the Mini tonic is a blessing for us Norn players. Just wish it came a few years earlier, back when I completed all those JP’s on my big fat norn!
Aw yes, but you can look back with pride on that time, and in fact, someday you can drive your grandchildren crazy, with talk like, “Bah! Back in the day we did real JPs with real skills. None of that fancy tonic stuff for us!”
I’m going to be too busy talking about “That time Gaile double posted on the forums! Hah! n00b!”
On the positive side, by then I’ll be able to dual wield longbows, so I can use them as crutches.
Topic: So far liked the new tonics added to the game, the mini one helps a lot on JP’s and a few other spots around in the world. And the Kodan was really nice, since we’re not going to see them as a new race. Hoping ANet keeps making some new ones, like Tengu, Largos (for all the Drizzt fanboys *sigh), and Risen (so we can hide in Orr).
Personal favorite would be as the Veteran Sentry guard in WvW…. but I can definitively see how that would be way too trolly!
Never did try the actual “guild war” system used in BDO, so can’t really comment much on it. From what I understood it was basically guilds declaring war on other guilds over the rights for specific “nodes” (Which has nothing to do with the gathering nodes we got in GW2), which are sort of a road-map point so controlling it controlled trade and taxes over that area (vague, didn’t read much about this as I had little interest).
Obviously some of those features wouldn’t fly in GW2, like player guilds being able to tax anything gathered in an area etc. Nor the open world combat, even if limited to a Guild vs Guild only, goes against the general design they want to keep to PvE.
But the idea of having guild “competing” over map specific bragging rights can be interesting, and could be done in a few different ways.
Obviously one could be combat, say one of the tower areas in one of the OW maps, clip it out and make it an instance (many of them are already used that way in Personal Story, so could be re-usable), and allow 2 guilds to setup a “guild vs guild fight” there, where one defends the tower while the other attacks. Put up some rewards, and allow for some vanity like banners/colors on the tower etc for X time. This could be an interesting variation for Guild Missions.
Other options could be linking up to some of the existing activities or guild missions. Like racing each others in various guild missions, or setting up vs matches in Keg-brawl etc.
There are multiple ways to make something like this work, that doesn’t even have to scare away the PvE players
TLDR: The main thing I got from the OP was that he wanted things for guilds to do together, in some kind of competition vs other guilds. As a way to increase interest in playing with/as a guild, and to improve on guild pride. Not just slap PvP on top of PvE and go gank everyone.
(Though, I am game for that!)
Small characters is a boon in most cramped JP’s, and the Mini tonic is a blessing for us Norn players. Just wish it came a few years earlier, back when I completed all those JP’s on my big fat norn!
@Dawdler.8521
Definitively agree on how awkward that would get, but I don’t think it could work any other way than “first kittens”, anything else would likely turn into a even larger mess.
That way an organized group could at least focus fire with their heavy hitters etc. But it would completely wreck pug zergs in some situations.
As far as I know all characters have the same size/shape hitbox and there is no way to change it.
Tonics, outfits, race etc. is purely visual.
What she said.
I remember they specified this either before launch or early after in regard to pvp/wvw. There is no benefit to playing a Asura over a Norn for example, as they will have the same “hit boxes” and all things related to size. No matter the size of their actual animation.
Yes, last friday, on even numbered months. So yup.
Also, if the number is too low, it would create some other weird situations. For example max 5 people can deal damage to 1 at the same time, and I know a few roamers that would take on plenty of zergs solo. Even 10 might be too little if the 10 aren’t very good etc.
It would be a tricky number to get right.
I’d love to see more intelligent AI’s in general. Wolves calling other nearby wolves into packs (not just the summon spell), lots of yellow mobs just trying to run away instead of trying to fight you etc.
Heck I’d love to even see some natural movements and perhaps even a cyclic migration path for different creature types But yeah that’s not going to happen.
Would prefer states just drop Daylight Savings to begin with.
Hero. +1
Also for those wondering about the Daylight Savings, the servers run on UTC (Universal Time Central) which does not use Daylight Savings. Because the entire world isn’t as insane as to use that horrible stupid daylight system.
(Unfortunately my own nation isn’t smart enough to drop Daylight Savings either sigh)
Personally I was late to the party of Orr, and avoided the maps for a good time because of the theme (undeads and wastelands, never been my faves). So once I went there they had already done the largest difficulty reductions. And I find myself really sad that I missed that, because the maps seems so obviously designed to be the first taste of harder maps in the game.
Personally I’d love to see them go the other way, and make the Orr maps harder, you can already solo all of it easy enough by either using class mechanics (stealth for some of the harder HP’s etc), or the karma stealth items as Penelope said above. But I really do miss a map that actually encourage you to party up. You can do all of those with a couple of people, I’ve done them with 2 players me included.
Heck if I was to go wild with ideas, I’d even love to see Orr maps incorporated into WvW, so enemy players appears as zombies you have to fight!
(1) “World Chat” – We have map chat, which tends to be decently lively on active maps and utterly quiet one the less popular maps. Personally I have to turn some maps off, especially queensdale… Also as other suggested find a guild and join, that has always been my main reason to join guilds, to have someone to chatter silly stuff with.
(2) “Dead-game!” – Really you don’t need to worry about that. GW2 is still one of the more popular MMO’s around, and has been for 4.5 years. And they have no plans of abandoning it yet. Disregard the forums on this, forums always thrive on screaming out “THE END IS NIGH!!!!!” daily to get a reaction.
(3) “Random Dungeon” – Can’t help you much there, haven’t even finished all the story dungeons yet in 4.5 years! Then again, I’m pondering starting to solo them for self challenge! But I do know a couple of guys that are desperately trying to get the rest of hte guild to play some dungeons, if you’re interested.
(4) “Crafting” – As others said, use the /wiki to find the receipts. This is mostly important for Chef. The others follows pretty reliable patterns, and is just about doing the same thing over and over, replacing some blood with some posion sacks for different stats. (Honestly, if you don’t have a good use for crafting just skip it, and save yourself a lot of gold and headache).
Summary: I think the best thing you can do is find yourself a friendly guild, and they will help you on all of the above. Now different people have different needs from guilds, so make sure to ask a bit and figure out what you want, and don’t just join the first thing you see
The very short versions: Anything you like. No really.
I do agree that Ranger, Necromancer, Guardian and Warrior are probably easier than the others.
But really, you can play whatever you like, however you like for Open World. I had a silly self challenge, and played a Thief to level 45 without weapons… it took time but it worked. Gave up because it got too boring, could easily have completed it to 80. Just little point, since I’d repeat the same thing over and over.
I’d recommend you to just try out some classes you think sounds fun, and pick the one you like the best. And just take the time to play it and learn it as you level.
/15 quaggans in search for bugs
In response to the OP, it would have been interesting if open world PvE had as an option something like a challenge mode, where a player could choose to make the mobs of their level a bit harder.
There would be 2 potential problems with that — first, that “harder” should not mean more health, more damage, more defense but that the AI plays the mobs smarter. That would take a bit of coding work. Second, it would create a problem for grouping. The whole group would have to be in challenge mode or not. you couldn’t have a mix.
A challenge mode would actually make leveling a new toon kind of interesting, but as many have pointed out, the decision by the devs in this game is that it starts at lev 80, and they’re pretty much committed to that it seems
The thing is they would have to make Challenge Mode maps separate from normal maps, dividing the population between the 2. Like they did in GW1 but there that wasn’t a problem as the maps were always separate instances created for you and your party.
Yes, there are 2 ways I can think of to solve this:
Both have their problems. As you both pointed out. But ANet is not going to change the difficulty of the maps, as a lot of players enjoy the low difficulty.
Hard mode instances, would split hte player base, something ANet is against, as they want as many people together on the map, new and old players, to help each others etc.
Downleveling players for rewards will create a lot of issues with players of different power levels on the same map, so 3 normal leveld, and 3 downleveled players on the same event ? Lots of problems there.
That being said, I largely wish I could play some maps alone, if for nothing else to be left to solo events and champions. It can be fun
Leveling was never the main focus, it is not following the old school mmorpg ways. The game difficulty highly focus on couple of things – builds, compositions, teamwork and understanding what need to be done. Gear grind is not a big barrier like old school mmorpg, you get gears rather easily. In the entire pve, the only contents you can consider difficult will be raid and raid too will get easy once you know how to do it since it isn’t randomised, it is base on patterns. WvW is always evolving due to players against players but the slow developments have demoralized many.
Where the hek do you come up with this load of lies? Leveling in rpgs is not an old outdated system lol, lol, seriously I am laughing, leveling rpgs gets you new skills and new things to unlock that change the way you play, what your trying to describe is mobas and not everyone likes having all skills unlocked that is why some mobas do not do this.
GW2 is designed around trivializing leveling, you see it in how the game plays, you get xp for everything you do. Bunch of things that gives you a lot of XP all over, heck you get 8 levels just from map exploring the 6 cities. I’ve done a couple of 80’s just running through maps getting Waypoints, hero points, and random exploration and ignoring mobs.
You get most of your skill (slots) early, unlock most of the important features early. By level 21 you got first trait line, and 30 for elite. After that the only thing left is just a time-gate for unlocking more traitlines, hero points, and basically getting the level to 80 so you can equip exo80. The game lets you play the game at level 20-30, everything after that is just “time-gate”.
There are also several ways you can design levels to work. You could for example give ALL skills, slots, traitline slots, etc at start. So at level 1 you have everything open. But start with 0 hero points, and have to level to get more hero points to learn skills and trait lines to fill the open slots with etc.
The traditional MMORPG style of leveling is however becoming more and more outdated. People just don’t have the patience for that kind of long grinding mobs etc that MMO’s used to be about. Players have become more impatient, the older gamers no longer have time to waste killing 50 rats, and the kids with all their phones and tablets etc doesn’t have the attentionspan :p
Times are changing. Long drawn out leveling systems are most likely going to end up a relic only used in some hardcore singleplayer cRPG and jRPG games.
Miss GW1’s way to do this, I think it would have worked great in GW2. Levels 1-20 basically tutorial and unlock all the features. But give 0 hero points, and then you have to explore the world for heropoints in order to learn skills and trait lines. And perhaps get back the 1 skill point per “level” after 20.
Honestly leveling is a horrible “design”, and the older I get and more games I play, the more I absolutely hate leveling in any form in any games. Because it is basically a designed “time waste”, to artificially extend the duration of content behind “time-gates”.
Personally I’d love if I got the option to make a character, and choose to use the PVP system for the entire game. The level scaling system means I can still play the entire game somewhat.
Darn you Osc, you’re making me want to go back and play my old dusty Guardian ! (But I’m busy with FF14!)
Another alternative would be to reduce the stats all over.
If you reduced the stats of all gear with (example) 10%, it would make less of an impact on the total stats. Your base stats would still remain the same, thus weakening the extreme edges of stat stacking.
Example Berserker exo full set (taken from pvp amulet, from memory):
Power 1200 → 1080
Precision 900 → 810
Ferocity 900 → 810
While all the base stats remains at 1000, as per usual. Tweak the % around as needed etc.
Make GoB and GoE sellable. Problem solved.
Also, there is PLENTY of PvE in WvW. It’s possible to never kill, or be killed by, another player and still easily get your GoB.
This, or:
Dear ANet please remove Legendary everything from the game! They are the ugliest skins in the game, isn’t any better than ascended, is just a titanic boring grind (in all aspects), and is the largest cause for toxic posts on the forums with all these “make GoBattle/GoExploration so I can buy it for 5 coppers and a [Spike] !” comments.
It is clear the best solution for everyones continued sanity, and the betterment of the community on the forums (and in game) to just flat out remove them, so we don’t ever get another thread complaining about it (one way or another).
Put the skins for sale in the Gemstore.
/end (only somewhat sarcastic)
Can’t say I’m interested in an offline mode myself, and while henchmen could be nice for dungeons and other instanced areas, I see no point for them in open world. Anyways…
If what you wanted was to make a own map instance for yourself, they already have the technology for that with Mega Server, so theoretically they could do something crazy like setting map limit to 1 per map. Every player would play solo in every map.
Obviously this is never going to happen.
I don’t know anything about the server structure and loads etc, but I do seem to remember them saying that “number of maps” was one of the sources of straining the server. So might be a wash for server resources, or it might completely freak out in one extreme direction, I don’t know.
But theoretically they could likely add a way to make players opt for a “individual map copy” with map limit 1. I have no idea how much work that would be, just that MegaServer could do it.
But I don’t see why ANet should or would do it. They’ve made it clear from the start that they want lots of people in the maps, they want that helping each others etc. Most of the design decision for the game was focused around “You want to see other players”.
And you can already play the game mostly solo 90% of the time anyways. So I really don’t see much gain.
I can definitively understand the OP’s feeling, the Open World PVE is very very easy. And having played it for years, I’m down to having to yolo large groups of mobs, taking on champions solo, or making other kittened self challenges/restrictions.
My last one was leveling a thief without weapons, I got to level 45 before I just got so bored I gave up.
And yeah, first time going into WvW was a shock, hadn’t learned anything about well…. most of my class, or why I’d need stun breaks, condition removal, damage vs defense, or that players might not want to stand in my ground aoes, or just wait for me to hit them with a big attack etc, the wonders of being stun-locked, etc.
The game really doesn’t teach you to actually use/play the combat system.
And my next self-challenge/restriction for leveling is going to be a toon without armor. Haven’t decided on class yet, but tempted by Guardian, low hp and dependent on heavy armor. Should be painful.
Yay! The SIN Lead Squirreler is back!
Some progression would be good, i never even bothered looking at my rank when i played. It is totally meaningless, gold, mithril, platinum, the only use for ranks is to identify drivers for sniping. Without logging into my account i have no idea what rank i am. You dont even need to be high rank to max out all those siege skills that see very little use outside the blobs. Struggling to think of a time i poured oil.
As for balance, Anet balance around PvP. You can pick out any number of things in WvW that doesnt make sense from a balance perspective. These become less noticeable as you add numbers to the scrim. They become more prominent as you scale down to 1v1.
I agree on one thing and that is making it inclusive for new players. The early purchases in a tree or such should hold the larger gains, diminishing as you progress through the tree. Maybe have a special skin or title if you master out the whole tree as a carrot at the end.
This way buying into the tree early on as a new player would sees some (mad)gains. Sure the player with more points has higher (mad)gains but on a diminishing returns scale. So the balance isnt too far skewed that good play can overcome it.
You dont want it turning into we have x abilities because we are all Gold/Platinum+ rank, we win.
+1 very much.
On the whole I wouldn’t mind a new system to replace the WXP with diminishing returns and to select one at the cost of other options. But at the same time, I really think they have a mountain of other things I’d rather see them fix first. Class/Combat balance for one, that this would directly affect.
I liked the idea of making specific rune-sets for this. Might even be a part of a redesign of rune-sets in WvW in general (no idea how to solve, but would have loved to see WvW use its own Runes, so they can attempt to balance it).
Another idea for the idea suggested, would be to add F6-F10 buttons to these new features, as to avoid taking existing util slots etc. Though I think that would likely be pretty weird, and go a bit against the general clean(ish) interface of 10-15 buttons on most classes.
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