Showing Posts For weli.8760:
The mists->LA travel we do now is an unnecessary time sink. Just forces you to load extra zones and waste time. Should simply be free to teleport to LA from anywhere
I would extend that to free travel to any major city, because the option is there already with the Azura gates (Mists->LA->Azura Gate to city of choice). This is how people travel who want to save money atm. Its a time sink though thats not really adding anything to the game imo
I don’t really like LA personally due to some annoying NPC dialogues, and cities like Divinity’s Reach have shorter distances from bank to TP
(edited by weli.8760)
On Gunnar’s Hold It’s getting to the point that Frostgorge Sound has more bots than players.
The center map “gauntlet” with the Grawl village (and a Skill point challenge) is permanently devoid of the should-be fast respawning grawls.
two different bot groups are constantly ravaging the whole place.
The most long standing group is composed by multiple, guildless, semi-undressed dual axe asura warriors with very random-chinese-ish names. They are always there.
They were two at the beginning, then one day they disappeared.
The next day they were 4-5 on it again, semi-undressed dual axe asura warriors with very similar names. They compose a sort of “train” that keeps navigating the same waypoints for the whole day.It’s impossible for the legit players to get any loot or get anything done, the area is just wasted.
Same for the various “ice canyons” east of that area. Despite the are is very dangerous due to the huge amount of ice mobs, there’s so many bots that you have just to tag along with them and you can go completely unharmed. Yesterday there were like 8-9 bots clustered together, flattening everything they came in touch with.
We also have a 5+ bot operation on the same server, same zone just south of the Troll Champion in the tunnels. Been there for 4-5 days now. Different people report them every day but still they carry on. Prices on Vials of Powerful Bloods also tanked from 18+ down to 10 silver now, same with the lesser bloods
People can enjoy content without endless progression.
Watch this: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tWtvrPTbQ_c
That is what makes people so blinded by progression in games. If you can’t enjoy the content for what it is and need some constant “progression” or skinner box/treadmill style game mechanics then I don’t see the point of even playing a game. Why do you care about getting an item when as soon as you get it the goal posts are moved and now you have a whole new goal you have to reach? Its about keeping you playing (and paying) past the point of boredom and beyond.
Never ending progression keeps me away from games like WoW. I have thoughally enjoyed GW2 and still like playing, despite the fact that I don’t really need more rewards. There are some things i’d like to have, but its not essential. I’m not trying to skip content in order to get to some envisioned “end game”. If I played a subscription game I’m sure i’d be no where near getting decent gear or high level, and I would probably feel like I was just going through the motions and not really enjoying my gaming sessions.
I just like the combat, I like exploring and taking part in group events. I like the epic big boss fights (despite the blue/green rewards). I like farming gold for more exotics. I like WvW, although the lag and character pop in can make it awkward, and I feel like i’m just part of a zerg sometimes
I understand people’s need for progression though, but I agree 100% with Arenanets model. They could accommodate these players though with more goals in between Legendaries, and then maybe even something beyond Legendary. Theres a lot of achievements people can do too, and more that could be added. For me I would just want more boss fights, maybe an easy way to find bosses with chests, generally more different things to do. The progression won’t stop me playing though, only if I get bored of the content
The main thing that disappoints me with GW2 is the lack of transition from PVE to sPVP. It feels very jarring and like I teleported to a different game rather than an extension of my own character in an RPG world. The guy you go to to search for a game even calls it a “game server browser” or something. Totally kills any sense of playing an RPG for me, and maybe one of the main things thats kept me away from it. I should be able to go to sPVP and feel like i’m still my PVE character, it should be optional to have the same skill set up as pve, similar gear etc and get rid of the “server browser” guy
I think people should concentrate on winning the engagement rather than trying to compete with team mates for badges.
Maybe drops from players should be something people forget about until they finished pvping, where they can then go to an area in their base that gives out their rewards based on the day’s contribution. It should be less about instant rewards during combat and more abstract, so people focus on the actual task at hand
The game definitely need to reward combat healing/buffing more imo. I don’t feel the Guardian is useless at range though
The scepter is actually a decent ranged weapon imo, although the slowness of the bolts and lag can be an issue (you fire loads of bolts and they all hit after a while in 1 big lump of damage or they hit after the target is already dead). You have a 1200 range attack with the torch and one with the focus
The staff is something you need to be versatile with. You can put the force field behind an enemy and immediately drop down your symbol on whoever you catch. The 600 range auto attack tags targets very well, and even hits through gates. The bolt is a nice medium ranged damage attack, but it can be buggy and unreliable as it gets stuck in “heal” mode and won’t go to cooldown until you press it again, forcing you to wait 10+ seconds to use it again. Would be nice if the bolts were sped up a bit. Empower would be nice as a channelled damage attack (so you can end it early for some damage in a small area, after the 2 second or so).
(edited by weli.8760)
I do feel that Arenanet need to be more vocal with the playerbase on this issue, and I will be surprised if they don’t release some info about a mass ban wave sometime in the future. The gold sellers will buy new accounts (or use any number of prepurchased/hacked accounts), then there will be another ban wave. Its just something that will continue as long as Arenanet don’t keep on top of it, as they have failed to do so far. They should have started instantly with the bans to at least create a little deterrent and send a positive message to the playerbase
Lots of good info in the OP anyway, just want to comment on one particular aspect
I think its a shame to imply that the rarity of some items fuels the need for players to acquire gold via real life money transactions. Just from playing you will have your full exotic gear set as you hit 80 very easily. There are even ways to completely bypass Gold by getting functionally identical armour/weapons through ingame currency, and can mix/match (some 80 karma pieces with some armour from TP, all with your own choice of runes to create your own max level armour). Legendaries are supposed to be extremely rare, and even then they are just a fancy skin. Without this extreme rarity some players would not have the long term goal there. You don’t need to rush for a legendary, and most players will never get one and thats just fine imo. Not everyone needs to be a crafter either. Part of the reason some players may be broke is that they don’t sell their ingredients and insist on being one of the thousands of crafters. There is absolutely no need for everyone to craft and you will save a bunch of gold by simply buying what you want after selling all ingredients, unless you plan on selling items you make and are prepared to compete with the entirety of the GW2 population of crafters
As for gems for convenience. I bought 2 bank slot upgrades and 1 player inventory slot, all from converting in game gold to gems. Anything else is up to the player to buy for their own convenience or for cosmetic variation
So I don’t think its right to suggest that players need to acquire this ultra rare stuff off the market and botters are creating a need to purchase gold by inflating prices. This is mostly to do with people realising the true value of items. Early on in an MMO it will take time for the true value of things to level out. Anything at stupidly high prices on the TP you don’t need anyway. Anything you grind for ingame is probably not something you need to have imo. If you just play and have fun you will get all the gear you could ever really need
League of Legends actually implemented a way to prevent runs of good and bad luck with crits. If you have 50% crit chance then for every X attacks you will always crit half of the time. Its like it ticks a crit every other hit but not quite as exact as that.
My understanding is that if you have a string of bad luck, your crit chance “increases” until you reach the expected rate, and vice-versa, so you still have a weak random element but the variation is smaller. Kind of messy but clever.
Thats interesting. Do you mean LoL uses a system like that or GW2 does currently?
On another note, I don’t feel its just crits that adds to the feeling of randomness in combat damage. There is possibly too much damage range on the weapons from which crit damage is calculated from too, and the way damage builds for certain attacks seems to multiply this randomness. I’m sure i’ve even done crits on basic attacks that did less damage than a normal non crit ones.
League of Legends actually implemented a way to prevent runs of good and bad luck with crits. If you have 50% crit chance then for every X attacks you will always crit half of the time. Its like it ticks a crit every other hit but not quite as exact as that.
In GW2 it just feels flat out random, and detracts from the player’s actions. I feel like I press my buttons and have no really expectation of my damage output