Guild Wars 2

Lockouts and Gating

Gating is probably a really controversial topic since ANet has in the past received a great deal of backlash on any form of content gating. You’ve seen it with the fractals where higher level fractals included an agony condition that you needed the right kind of gear to compensate for. It wasn’t supposed to be a big deal since you could see all nine fractals regardless since the higher level fractals were basically the same except harder. People still got pretty upset because they believed that any sort of content should only be gated by skill and skill alone. Then again, agony was mostly avoidable if not removable unless you count Jade Maw. A better example would be guild missions. You had to have enough influence in the guild to unlock the first tier of missions, the bounties and then you had to do enough bounties to unlock the next tier of missions. The content in this case was gated by guild merits and influence dumps.

If we look at the other perspective, ANet has to have something to keep people busy for a while. Now there are debates on whether following traditional approaches is the right choice. ANet isn’t so much keeping people busy as they are slowing people down. Traditional raids in other games like WoW you have gear gating or some kind of mechanism that controls your rate of progress. With non-gear gating, the thing is you aren’t really making something challenging by preventing you from actually doing it. Gear gating can be annoying but then people looking for a challenge could attempt a fight with sub-optimal gear. That won’t work in GW2 so well since the game is designed around not having a gear treadmill or vertical progression. Artificially extending the life of the content isn’t looked very highly upon nowadays.

What might work would be to have vertical progression limited to only the raid dungeon as some have suggested. I think we still run into the issue of players feeling like the game is artificially hindering their progress. If say ANet decides that skill is the only deciding factor in how far you progress then maybe the only gates should be the challenges in the raid dungeon itself. Let’s say that you have to complete all the objectives in one area to open up the next area. Does that sound like what’s already in place? Yes, most certainly. I think that we’ve simply been looking at things the wrong way. Most games out there that aren’t MMORPGs or RPGs have no gating mechanics at all. While GW2 is still not quite the perfect blend of action game and RPG I think it’s safe to say that certain outdated traditional RPG systems could make way for newer systems similar to action/adventure games.

Now with lockouts it’s not as big a deal since realistically a guild isn’t going to run a full clear of a dungeon every single day of the week. People tend to be alright with the current guild mission weekly reset structure. I think if pugs want to do the content though things could get really messy. You could be locked into a partially completed dungeon that you can’t complete at all since the group was just randomly put together. You could run into issues with scheduling, something very common with traditional raid dungeons, due to lockouts. ANet will have to find their own way of preventing players from going crazy with farming. Maybe they could make that the bosses the player has already killed less rewarding. That way they’re not prevented from doing the remaining bosses or the dungeon as a whole if he/she has already done a full clear. Something like a weekly raid bonus, similar to the current dungeon daily bonus on tokens, should work really well.

I read through the entire post and I have to say that I really like the idea of having content that is designed around a large and organized group of players. With that being said though, what GW2 lacks isn’t guild content. You’ve got guild missions, which provide a variety of things to do. Guild Puzzle I think is especially well done. The only issue is that the missions tend to be really short and are relatively easy once you’ve done them a few times. None of them are actually instanced but that isn’t really a problem.

Design

What ANet has been doing with MWF and AR show that they are capable of going beyond the traditional tank and spank mechanics of traditional MMORPGs. Guild puzzles are also really good examples of mechanics that can be implemented into these raids. I think that guild missions in general are a good indicator of the direction ANet wants to move in. Don’t get me wrong, fights with the trinity can be really complicated but at their core they’re still tank and spank. The reason is that you have a tank who will take damage for sure and a healer who has to keep the tank alive. GW2’s slightly more combat oriented design allows damage to be avoided entirely.

To go into more specifics, the mechanics of a fight should never feel annoying. This notion should not actually conflict with making it challenging. I did mention that AR was done really well but there was one specific issue I wanted to mention. This is in regards to the Mai Trin fight. You first have to remove Mai’s shield, burn her down, and then dodge cannons. Mechanically, there’s nothing wrong with it but I think most people would prefer not having to remove the shield. The real problem is that you have to repeat this three times, the exact same thing, before she finally goes down. While fights should feel long and epic the idea of having to repeat something over and over is not fun.

I think a jumping puzzle boss fight like Shadow of the Colossus could be really interesting but for people who don’t like jumping puzzles it could be really annoying. Of course, you mentioned something about splitting groups up. This could open up more options for players who prefer doing one thing over another. The most important thing is that all damage should be avoidable. That also means bosses or enemies shouldn’t immobilize you or knock you down because taking control of your character away was never perceived as challenging, just annoying. There are far more interesting things that can be done like rotating lasers, rolling boulders, swing pendulum axes, etc. When you are in complete control of your character’s well-being, even if you get one-shotted by a completely avoidable attack you will only blame yourself and not the game for crowd controlling you.

I think the OP was asking why the dungeon is around for only 2 weeks. I don’t think he was looking to go into a discussion about whether AR is the hardest dungeon in the game or not. His poor choice of words in the title would speak otherwise.

Siofra Crumble.2098:

Maybe, just maybe, dear Mai is trying to tell you that going all zerker isn’t the smartest thing to do. Everyone in my party has some form of a defensive stat worked into their build. No one got oneshotted by dear Mai.
Instead of complaining about getting oneshotted in a high risk/high reward set, you should reconsider your statchoices.

And keep in mind, this doesn’t mean you have to start stacking vitality/toughness to the maximum. It’s about finding a balance between your defensive and offensive abilities.

And the shot can be blocked. Haven’t tried reflecting it.

You make a really good point. I think it’s not just the gear but also the build and skills of the group as a whole. Condition removal, damage negation, and damage avoidance (through dodges) all contribute to character survival.

Drayven.6408:

Why should I be forced to change my build? Also hasn’t ArenaNet put out that they don’t like One Shot mechanics that can’t be dodged?

It’s true that they said they wanted to change fights so that bosses don’t one shot you. The only problem is that it’s very likely that they had started working on this dungeon before they said that.

Your character can participate in the living story regardless of what point you are at in your personal story. In order to avoid any conflicts or inconsistencies ANet chose to make the living story completely separate from the personal story.

It could be or he could be the real killer.

You can’t assume that they’re working on a new game based on one piece of concept art. Plus you would have to consider the backlash they would receive if people found out about it. Instead of getting the GW2 expansion you get a different game.

I’m guessing ANet doesn’t want you getting to it right now. :P I wonder what is actually there that they would need to keep players out for. Even Blizzard didn’t go to such great lengths to keep people from visiting unfinished zones.

They’re at Slavers Bay.

Is this in the Eastern Commons? I noticed there’s no way of getting to it. It might be for new content that is either part of next month’s update or Dragon Bash.

The dragon bash festival was most likely in the works for some time now or at least planned from the very start like how Halloween and Winter’s Day were.

The Living Story is not meant to be a continuation of your personal story. It is a side story that can occur at any point in time of your personal story. It’s true that these temporary events could be more solid or just made permanent.

As for end game, it’s unlikely that there will be raiding like in other games. It seems ArenaNet is gravitating towards guild missions as their answer to end game guild content.

I’m a staunch defender of ANet’s design decisions. I think it’s great that GW2 doesn’t have mob tagging so that players aren’t competing over monsters. I think it’s better that loot and resource nodes aren’t shared because it completely removes the issue of “ninja” looting. The only ninjas in this game are thieves and ironically they don’t steal loot but rather they assassinate enemies like real ninjas would. Another thing is not needing a target to perform a skill. It just feels more satisfying to being able to swing a sword whenever you feel like it. Tab targeting is still around but it’s more or less to help you. These small things actually make a huge difference. Although no one actually complained about mob tagging and whatnot players subconsciously felt there was something wrong. ANet fixed these minor annoyances and produced something truly great for it.

With all that being said though, ANet still lingers in the past in terms of certain design decisions. They’ve taken two steps forward and one step back. Monsters going invulnerable at all for any reason other than it being their ability should have been left in the past with all the other MMOs. People claim it is to prevent players from abusing mechanics. Perhaps in PvP players who are getting attacked from a higher altitude and can’t fight back should go invulnerable. As some of you have already found, it just leads to a lot of frustrating moments.

Even though most complaint threads are about ascended items, grind, lack of endgame, etc. somewhere in the backs of your minds you know there is something wrong that you won’t speak out about. I’m glad the OP brought this up because invulnerability is just one of those things holding GW2 back. Sadly it’s almost never mentioned because most people have accepted it as an MMO convention and never dare bring it up for fear of public shaming.

I know we get to fight Zhaitan in Arah story. But where exactly do you fight Jormag? How come I haven’t heard of this? I fought the Claw of Jormag but that was some event. Is it a new dungeon?

It’s sad to see there are people like that. They will likely never make posts on the forum because they know what they’re doing is kitteny. I think they got what they deserved when they got kicked after kicking you though. I can’t believe they would have the audacity to report you though when they were the ones doing the kicking.

I wonder what he wrote. “So we kicked this guy from the group and then we all got kicked out of the instance. He clearly griefed us and made us lose all our progress.”

I think some people tend to overreact to the idea of there being new content in general. There is a bug fixing team and there are teams creating new content. They are not mutually exclusive. No, I don’t think the game is perfect as it is but that doesn’t mean there shouldn’t be an expansion. The buy to play model actually favors frequent expansions because it works with something we all know to be true. That the being that people will pay for new content if it is substantial enough. There is uncertainty though when it comes to paying for vanity items like skins, make up kits, minis, etc.

Whether you agree with this guy or not he does have a point when it comes to staying competitive. WoW isn’t the only other player on the market now. There’s a lot of new games coming from over the horizon. While GW2 has the edge right now in terms of combat, the dynamic level system, dynamic events, the living story (we’ll see if it truly does live up to its potential), etc. we don’t know what the competitors will have in store.

Even if an expansion was announced I wouldn’t look at it too negatively. The bugs will always be fixed and new ones will always appear as in most games. Games in general need new content to keep players playing. A lot of the new free content is supported by player transactions in the gem shop. That can only go so far. If the amount of content is substantial enough to warrant a price tag then there’s nothing wrong with that. It would definitely keep the game going for a lot of players.

So Raka, where were you when people were constantly complaining about how world bosses drop horrible loot and demanded a fix? Maybe you were actually one of them? That would be ironic now wouldn’t it? Let’s just assume you’re not. You should have spoken out against these people who obviously didn’t see what the end result would be.

It sounds like more of a performance issue than a network issue. I can’t imagine everyone experiencing the same thing since someone must be damaging Claw of Jormag for him to die so quickly.

Is this a cleverly veiled attempt at praising ANet’s recent changes to loot which has resulted in a much larger amount of players participating in world events? Claw of Jormag used to take at least 15 minutes to kill. Less than 5 minutes implies an overwhelmingly large zerg of players. That would explain the lag.

The people that argue for the holy trinity can’t see how the MMORPG genre can evolve to resemble modern action games and yet still retain RPG trappings. They say that the trinity isn’t broken so it should be included in every MMORPG. They also say that Guild Wars 2’s dungeons are broken as a result of not having the trinity. Even if this were true they don’t consider that the vast majority of games ever made, yes even RPGs, don’t have the trinity system and they work just fine.

They know that the trinity is dependent on gear. They know it actually emphasizes gear over skill and even team work for that matter. Guild Wars 2 has taken a step in the right direction. There is still a lot of work to be done no doubt but you can see the potential. The trinity advocates don’t like the idea that monsters are coming after them even though they’re not the “tank”. They say dungeons in GW2 are zergfests and they keep dying over and over thinking that. They don’t realize that everyone has shared responsibilities of keeping teammates alive and monsters dead. They are simply afraid of change because it takes them out of their comfort zone.

HiddenNick.7206:

tigirius.9014:

It is so nice to finally see that the guaranteed drops are having a positive impact on the economy. Exotics are no longer 4-5 gold a piece and you can actually buy exotics and rares for 30 silver a pop.

Thanks Anet for your diligence in changing this problem and allowing players to get rewarded for their time in Tyria.

Hopefully this will repair this economy once and for all.

So now inflation is good for the economy then?

I think the word you’re looking for is deflation. According to the OP, exotics are going down in price.

UnicornViolet.3081:

The first time I played Guild Wars 2 I was blown away at how amazing and innovative it was until I got to high level and realized that there was no incentive or reward for playing the game.

Out of curiosity has this changed? Have they added a dungeon queue system, any incentives for grouping with other players, or significant and meaningful rewards for logging into the game and playing?

The last time I played GW2 even leveling a new character seemed irrelevant as you didn’t feel anymore powerful at level 60 than you did at level 40, and if you wanted to make “PVP” your end-game then your level really didn’t matter at all unless you enjoyed the talentless zerg fest WvWvW — I personally didn’t like this. Large-scale PVP is historically not popular even in other MMOs (Uldum, Isle of the Conquest etc.).

Have any changes been made to remedy these problems? Because I would love to play this game again without feeling like I’m investing a large amount of time to accomplish nothing.

There was this big patch that came out a few days ago. It added guild missions as well as new ascended accessories.

Bhargo.5306:

High player base is good for the game, and people asking for more to do is not a bad thing. Wanting more content and wanting a gear treadmill aren’t the same, but at least with gear treadmills I have something to do.

Content is something that takes time to develop. There has been new content released like FOTM and Southsun Cove. There’s nothing wrong with asking for more but it’s not going to happen over night.

There are two extremes when it comes to vertical progression. You have the ones that absolutely detest ascended gear and have threatened to quit because of its introduction. Then you have the ones that feel there isn’t enough vertical progression despite the introduction of ascended gear. They have also threatened to quit unless they get what they want. Both groups want opposite things. If meeting the demands of one group alienates the other then it probably makes sense to cater to those that are currently enjoying the game instead of those that are discontent.

DeWolfe.2174:

I agree as if I would have known Jumping Puzzles and Dungeons would have been the core to the game, I would have left it on the shelf….

I agree too. If I had known that there was going to be crafting, dynamic events, WvW, sPvP, and world exploration I would have left it on the shelf myself.

You can’t remove something that was never there in the first place. The lack of trinity is not the issue. I do however feel bad for you about the whole event where you were reviving people and not getting rewarded. The issue is actually how rewards are handled in dynamic events and how they calculate contributions.

For the longest time there had been an outcry by WvW players about server hopping and lower population and less competitive servers getting rolled by higher population servers. If your server was losing, people would leave and go to a winning server. In other words, if you are losing you will lose even more.

Many actually wanted ANet to charge for server transfers to dissuade server hopping. From the beginning ANet made it clear that they were going to charge for server transfers. Unfortunately, they didn’t want to do so until guesting was nearly available but by then the damage had already been done. Eredon Terrace, one of the servers I was on was one of the top 3 servers in WvW. All the big WvW guilds started leaving and now it’s near the bottom.

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PetricaKerempuh.7958:

i find that one, one of the hardest in game, so it doesn’t get much worse than that. you can relax and enjoy the game. runeblade’s comment can go ignored, because he is probably jp lover who is trying to brag.

Have you done the one with the disappearing platforms in Southsun Cove? That is probably the hardest jumping puzzle in the game right now aside from the clock tower, which isn’t accessible right now. The Breached Wall is challenging but I would probably put that on the same level as the other jumping puzzle at Diessa Plateau.

There are also a few others that are more challenging than the Breached Wall. You’ve got Goemm’s lab, Dark Reverie, and Tribulation Caverns. Dark Reverie is hard because you have to do Morgan’s Vigil right before it. If you fail and die doing Dark Reverie you have to do Morgan’s Vigil again just to get back to where you were. The same is true of Tribulation Caverns.

Well, maybe it’s not influence but Colin did bring up an example of one of the rewards. I believe it was cheaper waypoints. I’m thinking cheaper repairs, higher magic find, etc. will also be included. As for how you earn these rewards that remains a mystery. If ANet goes the same route Blizzard did then you would have to level up with your guild in order to access these rewards. It would promote guild loyalty and curb guild hopping.

People still do jumping puzzles even though the reward isn’t really worth the time you put into them. The reward is actually in the completion of the jumping puzzle. When you are at the end and you see the treasure chest you aren’t thinking that you’re going to get something nice. You’re proud of your own accomplishment and there is no greater reward than that.

Gilosean.3805:

Well, I was pretty excited for guild missions. Until I saw:

“Also, anyone who was in the guild that kicked off the mission receives an extra different type of reward, which can be traded in for a new category of personal guild rewards that can only be earned through the guild mission system.”

Because we definitely need another token system in the game on top of the 15+ we already have. Right. The thought of having to keep track of yet another currency is kind of depressing. Seriously, I know you guys are worried about the economy, but that doesn’t mean it’s OK to offload all the worrying on players as we try to balance the umpteen million different currencies we have to earn and store. Use karma, we need more use for it and it can’t really impact the TP anyway. Or one of the other token systems floating around cluttering up people’s banks.

They didn’t say it was going to be a new token. It’s most likely going to be influence points. They’ll probably add more things the guild can spend influence points on.

Nice work man. Really impressed with how it looks on the car.

He’s showing off but disguising it as a legitimate complaint thread. PUGs would always avoid path 3. Now that the difficult between all three paths is leveled you’re going to start seeing more tokens as a result of running not just two but three paths.

I’m finding it difficult to distinguish between legitimate complaints about bad dungeon design and complaints about certain dungeon mechanics being too difficult and therefore bad design. Your issue falls under the latter. Closing exploits is pretty much to be expected. The overall balance in difficulty could use some work I admit but the barrel part in path 2 is fine even with a pug.

I don’t think the updates are a complete mystery. There are some things you can and should expect.

The usual bug fixes
Tweaks to dungeons
More sPvP features
More WvW features (ways to earn ascended gear?)
Profession balancing
Expanded achievement system

There are things we most likely won’t see for a free patch. They include increasing the level cap, new races, and new professions. Then again they did release a new zone and new dungeon so it’s hard to say.

In terms of actual new content you can probably expect the following.

New events (centered around the Flame and Frost living story)
New fractal
One time events related to the living story
New stuff to do on Southsun

In this day and age such things are the norm. You can get banned permanently from a subscription game (from some big company that I won’t name) and get no refund on the money you already put towards your subscription. I would argue that ANet is the lesser of the two evils. By no means am I supporting it but if players don’t stand up to EULAs through public backlash then companies will continue to write them. Backlash is proven to have an effect. It stopped SOPA, Sony’s root kit, Nike’s outsourcing practices, etc.

While I’m not a fan of these threads that bring into question the game’s population it’s also the first of its kind to receive a red post. I think bumping this back to the first page will keep people from making new “OMG the game is dying” threads. I’m not so shocked by the threads themselves as I am by the lack of originality by the original posters.

zeromius.1604:

Farry.8259:

Even before WoW Blizzard had a well established reputation. At the time WoW was released the MMORPG market was not nearly as big as it is now. Their timing on its release was ideal and helped them gain a massive share of the market. People have invested a great deal of time into their characters and its difficult to just abandon them. Not to mention the community aspect of it. You feel compelled to stay because of your guild mates.

Contrast this with Guild Wars 2. ArenaNet was a new company with no games under its belt when they released the original Guild Wars (not an MMORPG). They couldn’t market their game based on reputation. Guild Wars sold reasonably well. I don’t have any numbers but Guild Wars 2 is proof that ArenaNet was successful with Guild Wars. ArenaNet has only ever made 2 games if you don’t count the stand alone packs in Guild Wars as their own games. They have built a strong reputation but it’s still not nearly as strong as Blizzard’s. Guild Wars 2 was also released in a market saturated with MMORPGs. They aren’t competing against WoW only. There’s a large army of free to play games, big names like SW:TOR, Planetside 2, Rift, Tera, TSW, etc.

The point being, WoW isn’t more successful because it has end game gear grind. It’s more successful simply because it was developed by Blizzard, it was released into a market crying for a game like WoW to appear, and it’s been around for so long.

I think what you say here is not true. WoW sold like 200.000 copies the first day. It was a record-breaking launch. I think its also becuase the Lord of the Rings movies. But it has been 8 years later now and there are still 10 MILLION people who pay 13 bucks a month to play that game. 8 years from now none will be playing GW2. That proves that ArenaNet is not doing it right. They want people to play GW2 every day, by this new GRIND based daily achievements and the new Acended gear takes atleast 1 Month to grind for 1 ITEM! ArenaNet just does NOT understand how to make this game more appealing for players after a long time of playing. I feel like they spent too much time creating the environment and dynamic events and less time thinking about what players should do after 1 month of playing and how they should be rewarded. You know the gear you get from killing Zhaitain at level 80, are level 40 items? Thats ridiculous. I dont know wther its changed by now, but Ive seen people who got it. That just doesn’t make any sense. And now, we have to do the daily GRINDS every day for 35 days for 1 freaking ascended ring. Is this what the GW2 community wants? I really dont think so.

I think you are agreeing with me on the point about sales. WoW did really well at the time because there was little competition. At least, it wasn’t worthy. Before WoW you had games that really were grind fests. They also put in mechanics to slow you down like making you lose exp when you died. It was a land of opportunity for Blizzard.

You can’t be sure that 8 years from now no one would be playing Guild Wars 2. It’s an opinion not backed up by any evidence. You also don’t know that WoW still has 10 million subscribers. It did dip down to 9.1 million at one point before the release of MOP and the game peaked at around 11.5 million. There was a post by Colin Johanson that said concurrent players have actually gone up over the past 6 weeks and are continuing to climb. I’m not going to say that slow and steady wins the race but I think Guild Wars 2’s population is pretty stable right now.

In WoW, prior to all the welfare epics and faceroll raids with the LFR system it would take about a month to get a single piece of epic gear. Anyway, I’m not sure which side you’re arguing from. There are people against ascended gear in general and want it out of the game. They are against this notion of end game gear grinding that traditional MMORPGs are known for. Then there are those that wanted gear grinding (the carrot on a stick) and felt that was what Guild Wars 2 was lacking to keep it going. I’m going to assume you fall within the latter. Now that they have this gear grind you are complaining that it’s taking too long.

Farry.8259:

wookalar.8952:

If you want the game to be more like WoW, I think you know what game you should be playing.

Hint: it’s WoW

GW2 isn’t WoW and I shouldn’t adopt its gear grinds. GW2 is its own game.

GW2 ~100.000 players at its daily peak after 5 months (I am guessing)
WoW ~ 2.000.000 players at its daily peak after 8 years (guessing)

Even though I am guessing, I think it’s pretty accurate. So someone is doing it wrong…right?

Even before WoW Blizzard had a well established reputation. At the time WoW was released the MMORPG market was not nearly as big as it is now. Their timing on its release was ideal and helped them gain a massive share of the market. People have invested a great deal of time into their characters and its difficult to just abandon them. Not to mention the community aspect of it. You feel compelled to stay because of your guild mates.

Contrast this with Guild Wars 2. ArenaNet was a new company with no games under its belt when they released the original Guild Wars (not an MMORPG). They couldn’t market their game based on reputation. Guild Wars sold reasonably well. I don’t have any numbers but Guild Wars 2 is proof that ArenaNet was successful with Guild Wars. ArenaNet has only ever made 2 games if you don’t count the stand alone packs in Guild Wars as their own games. They have built a strong reputation but it’s still not nearly as strong as Blizzard’s. Guild Wars 2 was also released in a market saturated with MMORPGs. They aren’t competing against WoW only. There’s a large army of free to play games, big names like SW:TOR, Planetside 2, Rift, Tera, TSW, etc.

The point being, WoW isn’t more successful because it has end game gear grind. It’s more successful simply because it was developed by Blizzard, it was released into a market crying for a game like WoW to appear, and it’s been around for so long.

penatbater.4710:

Myst Dawnbringer.9138:

I was awaiting the new Feb. monthlys hoping you would get away from forcing players into open world pve and into participating in wvw. But, alas, NO ! Just like WoW you seem bound and determined to force us toexplore and wait for DE to happen. Well, if that’s what I wanted to do I could have stayed on WoW.

I liked doing the monthly the first couple of months. Then you discovered you needed to force us into open world pve since you made them, but lots of us are not interested in them. You can scale our toons up or down to an area why can’t you let us do it in one location or in town instead of instead of insisting us on going out into maps and exploring running into DE’s, some of which can’t be completed solo!

I’d like to be able to do the monthlys again!!! But as long as you insist on part of them beingrequiring random amount of people do finish them I’m out. I don’t even like the dungeon runs but it’s more fun than being bored going around hopingto stumble upon a DE and it at least has a dynamic aspect to it.

I know some people like this stuff but there are a lot who don’t. Perhaps you could give us 7 monthly options and we need to complete 5 of them. That way the people who like the open world pve could do them and those of us who would like more wvw could do that too.

I just switched up the item points. Food for thought?

I like how you switched some of the wording of the OPs post to be about open world instead of dungeons. It just comes to show how anyone not getting what they want can still make the exact same complaint.

Peetee.9406:

I agree with OP.

I dont understand why it has become the accepted norm that the best gear has to come from dungeons/raids. Legendaries requiring dungeon tokens doesn’t bother me because they are suppose to be just that ‘Legendary’.

But Ascended gear should be obtainable through all methods of play, dungeons, crafting, karma, WvW. I am extremely disappointed to see that I am still forced to do content that I do not wish to do in order to be able to compete on an even plqying field.

Only the back piece requires you to run FOTM. The norm in MMORPGs isn’t that the best gear has to come from dungeons/raids. There’s a slight misconception there. The best gear is normally rewarded for completing the most difficult content. Whether you find dungeons to be the most challenging content in the game isn’t the point.

The laurels have made available ascended gear for getting daily achievements. Over time, you will have more options for obtaining this gear. Arena Net said this was their intention so I don’t really see the problem other than you wanting your ascended back piece right now without having to set foot in FOTM.

At least now people aren’t doing the kiting trick- not that they could even if they wanted to.

Another benefit of having more waypoints is that players new to a particular dungeon would be less likely to get lost. If they do get lost they can easily port back to a waypoint and that would help them get back with their group members.

In light of upcoming changes to the way that resurrecting at waypoints will work inside dungeons I think that it would be a wise decision to increase the number of waypoints available. Currently, with waypoints being so sparse it makes waypoint rushing difficult but not outright impossible. Once players are no longer able to resurrect at a waypoint while at least one party member is engaged in combat then there would be no reason to have sparse waypoints.

Having more waypoints has many advantages. If the whole party wipes on a boss it would enable them to get back to the boss sooner. There would also be less down time in general because players would spend less time walking then grouping up and actually engage with monsters/environmental puzzles. Waypoints in games just make them more streamlined. Fast travel is something that if done right prevents a lot of backtracking without trivializing things. Many people would not trade waypoints in the open world for mounts although they probably would like both.

The single most important advantage of having more waypoints is creating an incentive to do the content. Different people have brought up the topic of skipping in dungeons. One the main reasons is that there isn’t enough incentive to kill monsters. Skipping monsters gets you to the last boss and to your 60 tokens faster. If you spawn waypoints for meeting certain conditions like clearing out a room then people might actually want to clear that room. It won’t stop skipping entirely but at least there is incentive beyond the material things like loot. See, people will take the path of least resistance as many have pointed out.

Let me provide some background. Skipping in general actually carries with it a risk. If you die then you have to run back and past the monsters that you skipped. When you’re running back after dying you run the risk of getting killed by the very monsters you skipped. You could potentially lose more time from this then you gain. Call it karma if you will. However, most of the time the risk is within acceptable limits and you get called a noob for dying to skipped monsters.

Anyway, running back in and of itself can be a real ordeal. It’s why I am suggesting that more waypoints be added. Now if you were rewarded with a closer waypoint to where you might die for killing the monsters in a certain area then I think a lot of people will actually kill these monsters. They would probably rather have that safety net and not have to run long distances after dying. Don’t forget that skipping carries with it a risk. If killing monsters is perceived as the path of least resistance then players will kill monsters. If the perception is that skipping is still better then no doubt people will still continue to skip even with waypoint rewards.

It’s not perfect and no doubt it will not stop skipping altogether. Fundamentally, skipping isn’t a problem. The problem, if we look at it from another perspective, is the lack of incentive to fight what is skipped. Don’t get me wrong, there is in fact a real solution that has worked really well in the past but it will no doubt receive a lot of backlash. It’s a system where monsters never lose aggro and it has worked in WoW and countless other MMORPGs. I’m proposing something that gets around this draconic system by taking human nature into consideration.

I’d love to hear feedback whether positive or negative. I’m sure I’m missing something here. If you are against this, all I ask is you be constructive so that I at least know what the flaw with the concept is. If you are an ArenaNet employee please take this idea into consideration. I haven’t patented it or anything. If you want to reward me, do so not with royalties but by implementing this some time in the near future.

Thanks.

Cloud.7613:

Be honest, who said AoE was a problem before ANet even mentioned it? No one. This is bad news for WvW.

Are you absolutely sure that no one said it was a problem? Stating something as fact based on impartial evidence or no evidence at all is self defeating.

You are absolutely certain that absolutely nobody had issues with AOE? I take it that you’ve spoken to every single player out there.

Alucard.8297:

It’s not so much an issue with exploits as it is about your “crowbar” stance against using them… even in groups that want to use them to complete the dungeon more quickly.

This is more about adapting to what more of a group wants to do, and if you refuse to do things any other way than your own (lets say, not using an exploit/glitch that will make things faster or easier), and hinder the group’s progress because of it, then it makes sense that you risk getting booted.

Not everyone is worried about their honor, or the very subjective and constantly argued “right way to play.” If everyone in my group wanted to use a glitch I hadn’t seen before, I’d go ahead and try it. If everyone, for some odd reason, had a very passionate stance against using a certain glitch, then I would have to comply with their wishes.

It comes down to working with your current group or not working with them. If you want to avoid the issue altogether, then only play with people you know, who share the same views as you.

There is no real bible on how to play a game. My own opinion is that if there is something that will make a dungeon faster, and people are taking advantage of it as part of their strategy, I might as well too.

There is also a very blurry line about exploits and “glitches,” where I could say kiting mobs is an exploit, or:

- using walls & pillars to block projectiles
- standing in spots where monsters have trouble / can’t hit you
- using a healing seed to help regen the group
- alternating stealth skills and running past the majority of monsters
- purposely getting an NPC killed so it doesn’t aggro mobs along the way
- unequipping armor so you can wipe without any penalty besides the checkpoint
- leaving one mob alive at one side during cliffside’s last hammer part (before the boss) so that the rest dont spawn and heal the seal
- at the lower fractal levels using the mesmer skill mimic to absorb the asura boss’s projectiles (That inflict agony) and then shooting them at his robots (thus killing them nearly instantly)
- dying on switches in the dredge fractal and skill getting the bonus of them being active

i could go on and on. even if something is obviously not intended, there is a very hypocritical view against exploits where many people will use “some” but not “all” or “lesser ones” but not “major ones” with their own subjective logic etc etc.

what it comes down to, is that you have your own [subjective] view on “exploits” and being “against them,” but, if in reality, you’re not following a strategy the rest want to try and hold a rock-solid stance that will merely slow them down… how can you blame them for wanting to kick you, or getting annoyed?

this is more of a player personality issue, based around delusions of “honorable correct ways to play a game” (often filled with a number of personal contradictions), and not working with the team

Even though you may not be aware of it you are advocating subjective relativism. It is an ethical theory that suggests that what is right and what is wrong is entirely subjective. In this case, you are suggesting that what is right and wrong is determined by the players themselves. Sure, everyone should be entitled to their own opinions about exploiting. In case of a disagreement, there is no real right or wrong answer. The majority gets to decide what is right or wrong.

Unfortunately, it doesn’t work when you start applying this theory to other situations. Take for instance you are a pugger running with 4 people that are in a guild. You get to the last boss and they want to bring in someone from their own guild so they kick you. They all agree that it was the right thing to do and it is 4 against one so are their actions justified? Never mind how people can be so immoral to you. Everyone has their own view of what is right and wrong after all.

There would need to be a universal set of rules that define what is right and wrong. Exploiting is considered wrong by ArenaNet. Even if you disagree with this notion you are still subject to it because you are playing their game. These rules may hinder you but at the same time they also protect you from others. What is considered an exploit is up for debate but not exploiting itself.

I think the video is more or less a demonstration of how to kill a veteran karka solo as a thief rather than as a farming video. A lot of people have gotten no drops at all from the veteran karkas which makes killing them not worth it.

There definitely are roles like support, damage, and control in the game. The most successful dungeon groups employ these roles and manage to complete even the most difficult dungeons with little difficulty. The issue isn’t that there aren’t goals at level 80, it’s that they aren’t as attractive as the proverbial carrot on a stick.

See, there are two different factions on these forums. There are those that don’t want vertical progression and are really upset there is any at all right now. There was this huge controversy over the introduction of ascended level gear. Then you have those that feel the game is severely lacking in vertical progression even now and are “bored” because they don’t have goals to strive for.

Endgame was originally intended to artificially increase the lifespan of a game. It kept players playing even when most of the game’s content was depleted. It made perfect sense in a subscription based MMO.

I’m not ignoring what you wrote about Orr and high level zones. That has less to do with lack of endgame and more to do with the quality of it. I can’t really agree or disagree with you in this regard because I don’t really farm Orr or farm anywhere for that matter.