Resolve

Resolve, on 23 April 2013 - 05:48 PM, said:

That has got to be boring as hell..."And then I hit this thing with my sword, and now I hit that with more sword, and now this guy heals me, and then I swing my sword..."

A-net most definitely needs to make the high end armors look more like the Aion ones:

Sylvari based armor:



Other high end stuff:

I'll try and address each of your points from my standpoint, and explain why I'm still playing to this day.

dirkaderpa, on 07 March 2013 - 05:40 PM, said:

It's hard for me to address this post, because I don't consider anything in GW2 to be a grind.  I don't sit down to play and say "Okay, this is what I'm grinding for today".  Instead, I sit down, say hello to my guild, and find out if anything's going on.  I play with my friends.  I see if anyone needs any help.  If not, I take a look at the daily's for today, and see what I feel like doing.  Basically, I treat it more like I treat an FPS.  I hop on, pick a server, and just play to have fun.

dirkaderpa, on 07 March 2013 - 05:40 PM, said:

To an extent, I agree with this.  To combat this, explorable dungeons are ALWAYS a challenge, as well as Fractals.  If you don't like the dungeons, then there are always the tougher meta events to push.  Since you stopped at level 50, you haven't seen the temple events in Orr.  Those are a challenge, at first to get people to finish them, and then to actually complete.  More often then not, Balthazar and Grenth both fail often.  Sometimes I feel like the challenge isn't there, but it is if you know where to look.

dirkaderpa, on 07 March 2013 - 05:40 PM, said:

That gear does begin to matter, especially later on.  I also can't explain the feeling of finding an exotic in your drop list.  It's like finding a world purple in WoW.  It's just awesome.  Also, you can choose the quests you do, there are scouts that point you towards heart quests, and then the DEs you can come across while exploring the world.  I agree on Flow, but I've never really thought of Flow as a good thing in MMOs.  For me, it destroys immersion and makes the game feel like a chore.  I do agree on every item looking the same.  Cosmetic skins really don't apply till endgame, when it becomes way more about cosmetics.  Some of the harder to get skins are just amazing.

dirkaderpa, on 07 March 2013 - 05:40 PM, said:

This I completely disagree with.  While the game does help you progress with whatever style of play you want, you definitely don't progress at the same rate.  Also, the zerg no longer exists like it did at release.  While the earlier zones still have some population, it's nothing like it was.  So I'd recommend taking a second look at this point.

dirkaderpa, on 07 March 2013 - 05:40 PM, said:

Tons have changed since you stopped playing, but the thing I think you're missing is that you're treating the game more like a job.  Grinding, getting on just for one specific reason.  I might be wrong, but you don't seem to be playing to have fun.  BUT to each their own, each person has their own opinion on what is fun.  For me, it's just playing with my friends and guildmates, enjoying the game and DEs and temples and everything (:  I hope this helps a little.

Also sorry for the wall of text, cheese and rice.

Anyone miss the days of going to playing an area is GW1 and hoping to get a storm bow, or a celestial skin or a chaos axe?

What about the icy dragon sword that only dropped in the imp caves?

Yes, I know that there are weapons that only drop in fractals, and if you farm a dungeon a million times, you get enough tokens to get some awesome armor - but what about doing some events in a area with the small hope of getting that perfect rare drop that only drops in a few places?

I miss that.

I think it is a way they could get players in to under-inhabited areas.

EDIT. PLEASE READ:

I am referring to specific skins of rare quality that would make them highly desirable being dropped in specific areas - not as chest rewards by specific bosses.

The idea would be that even though you may have a very small chance of getting said item, it would be enough to make people re-look at an under-populated area as a place to play and explore by adding the very rare change of getting a highly desirable drop in the form of a weapon or even a piece of armor.

Kurosov, on 06 March 2013 - 06:02 PM, said:

I sure by "MF" he means mystic forge used to be able to make u a profit...

I do agree about the other items taking so much time/money you should go with those first.  Ectos are already dropping in price and precursors dropping more steadily (hopefully) will make the price fall.  Eventually they will have a different way to aquire them so maybe by the time you spend your 100g on the icy runestones... and then 100 lodstones... you have time to spend on these first before precursor...

So I've had a chance to actually sit down and read all this.  I'm not sure I like this change, I think it's probably going to lead to me eventually quitting the game if it continues.

I thought a few months ago when ANet said there wouldn't be be any more Ascended gear, that there'd be more stat allocations to choose from but there wouldn't be more actual items.  I really thought they'd learned their lesson from the FOTM debacle.

So clearly now we have six slots where the "best in slot" item is Ascended.  Why is this a problem?

Because the big draw for me to this game was the accessible PVP modes, that you weren't supposed to need the very best gear to be competitive.  So far this has been true, in all fairness, and at the present moment it still is and probably will be for months to come, but changes like this move us away from that reality bit by bit.

The thing is I'm not bitching that I can't get to the 30th level of some PvE mode I don't even play, that I can't reach maximum rank, or that I can't be a commander.  I am 100% cool with there being unobtainable perks in the game I can't get because I don't play enough.  I'm bitching that when a gear tier I can't get eventually becomes the new standard, that gates me off from the basic game mode I enjoy.

Gear treadmills turn regular content into gated content.

The best gear tier I can reliably easily obtain is Rare.  Exotics I can get, slowly but regularly.  That's okay, that's a good system.  See one gear tier of difference between me and my PVP opponents isn't insurmountable, and it gives me something to work toward to improve my character.

Legendaries are off the table.  I don't have an Ascended item yet, but I'm very close.  Note this is ONE item.  I have three level 80 characters so far, so I'm kind of screwed there.

When you have three or four slots where the best in slot item is Ascended, it's still okay, I'm only like 1.3 tiers behind.

The problem is when you have Ascended as the best in slot for all 12 items, and the ability to get these through guild missions, the reality is that eventually Ascended gear will replace Exotics as the "standard".  I will be two complete gear tiers behind on most characters.
That's getting into an area where I'm just not relevant any more; if Ascended is the new standard all exotics should be viable, but all exotics is something I can't easily do.

Even if two gear tiers isn't enough to make me obsolete, the next tier after Ascended will be a problem for sure.

I wouldn't be so butt hurt if Ascended gear was just a cool skin or particle effect for people who earn it, or if you couldn't use PvE gear in WvW or something, if either of those were true facts I'd say have all the gear tiers you want with my blessing.

Look player skill I can improve, leveling I can generally handle, builds I can figure out, but the reason I have quit most MMOs is I can't keep up in PvP with easily obtainable gear.  GW2 is heading that direction.  It's not there yet, and I'm not panicking just yet, but I am quite concerned.

The gaps in profession balance I can live with, they aren't that bad compared to other games I've played.  The problems with the game systems aren't insurmountable and overally are trending toward improvement.  I actually like this game a great amount, so far it's been a very good fit for me.

But I have other games I enjoy playing too and when I eventually reach the point I keep getting ROFLSTOMPED in WvW by not having enough gear that's probably going to be it for me.  Changes like this make this eventuality more and more possible.

I just don't understand why if PVP is the draw, why do they keep making these things that require so much PVE time investment?  I bet most of these guild missions are going to be activated on the weekends when I usually can't play.

I'm even okay with there being new gear tiers over time, but the game's not even a year old.

Resolve, on 26 February 2013 - 01:59 PM, said:

We are talking about ANet here.

Volkon, on 20 February 2013 - 01:37 PM, said:

My skill level doesn't change when I change gear, but the damage I do, and the amount of damage I can survive, changes. I don't see how that could possibly not change the clearing time. So yes, it is a fact.

On top of that, as for the utility infusions you so kindly listed above, 20% more gold from monsters mean 20% less time to get X gold from monsters, and +15% karma means 15% less time needed to get X karma.

1.Is it possible to add new daily chests for every dungeon, with specific weapon/armor skins  only  obtainable from said dungeons (like fractal weapons from fractal daily chest) - example:, Eternal Blade / eternal bow from Ascalonian catacombs daily chest, Obsidian Edge from Arah daily chest.

2.How about doing non-combat activites to earn some money / rewards based on time spent doing something (like doing jumping puzzles to get gold)? A dungeon can be 10 minutes long and easily net me 1g, while on the other hand a Jumping puzzle can be like 30 minutes long and I can't even get my WP fee back from the chest.

Before fixing anything, let's quickly identify the core problems with GW2's PvE today. And by "PvE", I mean only the open-world PvE here, not personal story or dungeons.

So, the problems:
- The world is dead. Other than cursed shore, the dragons, and lion's arch, it's largely empty.
- "Dynamic" events are hardly dynamic, as we were led to believe.
- The reward structure is really, really bad. This is actually the main reason for the first problem.

...aaand now how to fix all this, starting with the pre-requisites and moving on to more complex changes:

1. Better event scaling. Currently events don't scale well for large number of players (10+). You just get more mobs in pre-set spawn points that get aoed down just as easily. Anyone who's spent 30 minutes in Cursed Shore knows this. Some improvements were made in this regard compared to a few months ago, but it's very little. Events with more players around need to spawn veterans and champions and add additional spawn points, not just additional mobs. Basically, things that are not negated by AoE.

2. Iterative difficulty scaling for events. Most events never fail. Why not? Because they're too easy. Anet needs to add difficulty scaling that's not dependent on number of players, but based on the number of times the event was successfully completed previously (on top of number-of-players scaling in #1, not instead). Every event stats at difficulty 0 after a server reset. Each time it's completed successfully, the difficulty goes up by 1 point. 1 point of difficulty translates into 1 additional mob per wave, +3% mob health and damage, etc.

So instead of facerolling Shelter's Gate Camp for loot every 10 minutes, one day you might come there and get zerged by veteran spiders. Woah, what happened? Well, see, the last defense barely succeeded and turned the difficulty from 7 to 8. And they had more people than you did, so tough luck. But now that the event failed, the difficulty scale goes down by -3, so next time the event will be at difficulty 5. This system will calibrate itself to the average number of players in an area and add a huge amount of variety to the same events, while the +1/-3 system still ensures it succeeds most of the time. (The scale is hidden, so people don't intentionally avoid scaled-up events.)

3. More events. More, more, more. There are a handful of basic event "templates" in the game and 95% of all events fit in these: defend a point, assault a point, escort an npc, kill a boss, kill mobs until the bar gets to 0 (or 100%). I honestly don't see why anet isn't minting these like crazy. I highly doubt they take a lot of time to make, given that you already have all the components... just need to put the pieces together in a slightly different configuration in a different area. BAM, new event. Reduce the frequency of each individual event to keep the number of concurrent events the same, but increase the variety. I'm not asking here for a brand-new zone with brand-new armored crabs and a ton of scripting to be used one time and then abandoned. This would probably take far less work.

4. Balancing rewards. The base reward for completing an event is pitiful. 1.5 silver, some experience that you don't need at 80, and a bit of karma that's grossly outweighed by the daily jug. (The daily jug was a good idea, but it's just... difficult to outperform it. That's a different subject.) The bulk of the reward comes from the drops and drops from a single champion are much worse than from aoeing waves of mobs for 4 minutes. Most of the time the champion takes more effort too!

The second problem is the disparity between zones. Events in Orr are well-known (so everyone does the easy ones), highly populated and give max rewards for level 80. Events in every other zone are the complete opposite. To balance this:

- Normalize the silver/exp/karma rewards for lvl 80s throughout the world. Seriously, it's a tiny amount of money anyway and getting 1.5s or 0.9s won't really impact anything. All it does is make lower-level events look bad.
- Improve drops from champions. Duh. To avoid causing inflation, do not flat-out make them drop 15 silver, but simply add a chance for each champion to drop zone-specific items. Each zones or a group of zones could have things like unique armor sets and unique weapon skins. There are zone-unique weapon skins in the game currently, such as "Steam" weapons in Charr areas, but they're easily obtainable and thus can't serve as an incentive to go there.
- Also add tokens to champions. For X tokens from champions in Charr lands, you can buy a rare armor skin (that also drops only in this areas), but weapons can only be gotten as a drop. Something like that.

5. Worldwide and zone-wide event notifications. Another very simple addition, but once you've really made events dynamic (points #1 and #2), added more of them (#3), and gave the players a reason to go there (#4), tell people about them! Display all events happening in the zone on the map, with an option to toggle it off, and display MAJOR events happening in other zones on the world map, like Orr temple assaults, dragons, swamp monster in Queensdale, etc. People will see events and flock to them instead of wandering about empty zones alone or farming events in Cursed Shore as a zerg.

Also, display this next point in the corner of the screen (under your personal story) at all times:

6. Daily zones. Now we're getting into more ambitious things. It's time to really create a dynamic world. Each day 1 or 2 zones could become event hubs. Balefire means business today and made a pact with the ogres to attack Ebonhawke! The entire area turns into a warzone. You know, the Charr are really attacking. Basically, turn the area into Cursed Shore + difficulty scaling (#2).

Hearts are disabled (Farmer Joe doesn't really care about shooing away the gryphons from this cabbage when THE CHARR ARE ATTACKING). All regular events that fit the war theme are enabled with a majorly increased frequency (remember, we reduced it in #3 and increased the total number of events). There are additional events active: every outpost gets assaulted on a regular basis and after a successful defense, there are events to march out and take down a champ or recapture a lost outpost. Again, this is all just copy/paste stuff (#3). Optimize the templates and then make more events!

As a bonus, drops of zone-specific rewards are doubled for the day when that area is a warzone.

As a second bonus, if a critical number of events is failed during the day (this could be a rather high threshold), the zone is under Flame Legion's control for next 1-3 days, every waypoint is disabled, you still can't do hearts in it (Farmer Joe is dead, his head is on a spike, and so are the cabbage-loving gryphons), and after these 3 days, the map becomes a warzone for the day again. Same events are running with the aim of recapturing it. This time it can't fail.

7. Live GMs. All of the above would do a good job of making the world appear dynamic, as it was advertised in the beginning, but dedicated game-masters controlling the world would make it REALLY dynamic. Provided there's a good framework for creating events (#3), anet could expand it to create events out of pre-set pieces on the fly. Starcraft's map editor did it in 1999 by allowing you to create custom missions using building blocks already provided with the game, why can't we do it on a live server in 2013? This outpost is getting attacked by X waves, each one consisting of Y mobs for Z minutes. Oh and there's a dragon at the end, which I'm going to personally control and target people with it. Go!

A GM per server or even 1 GM per few servers could further spice up the "daily areas" and add an occasional special event to other places in the world. And once again, I don't mean "occasional" and "special" a la brand-new invisible precursor-dropping crabs that take months of development for one night of lag. No, "special", as in, there will be a unique event somewhere a few times per day that's not part of the game's default package. You know, something new.

-------------

Well, that's pretty much it. A game like this would almost certainly keep me playing for years, paying a sub fee, and buying all the expansions. (Provided those expansions also expanded the above model).

Resolve, on 13 February 2013 - 04:46 PM, said:

Mmm well I doubt many people would consider playing 5 hours a week hardcore. Since the average gamer plays 10-12 hours a week. I'm definitely middle of the road. Casual players NEVER get the same out of any system because they don't play nearly as often. It doesn't matter if they make it so you can complete an entire set in 1 week hardcore players would have it done in a day. Casual players aren't like hardcore players they don't care WHEN they get it as long as it's reasonably possible for them to get it. Hardcore players often want the items for prestige. They want to feel important so having it sooner makes them feel that way.

I can agree with that they haven't gotten a great track record here, but I believe at least they have shown good faith.

Resolve, on 13 February 2013 - 04:46 PM, said:

Agreed. I actually want to see this game do well and improve. I just want to make sure I'm giving them some good feedback every once in awhile since I know I have some really harsh criticism for this game on other topics.

El Duderino, on 13 February 2013 - 12:19 PM, said:

This need vs want debate is childish and littered with bad examples. You dont need anything but white gear to do low level as well as high level areas, the better items just make it easier. If this game had damage mitigation calculation like say Diablo 3 then yea'd need the better items, but as it is you dont. Certainly makes it easier though, no question there.

The bottom line for me isnt about how this is bad and unbearable though because it is only temporary. Its about why implement it half-baked first if they knew they'll upgrade it to the intended version 4 weeks later. I'll deal for the next two weeks and then its a non-issue (i hope, not sure what choices we'll have).

XPhiler, on 11 February 2013 - 10:21 AM, said:

Yeah, I could get all the karma needed for one piece of armor in 3 days. But let's see anyone getting all the laurels needed for an amulet in the same 3 days. The difference is that I can choose how much karma I can make / day, while laurels, no matter what - you can only get one / day. Just so you know, I don't care, since I'm not in a hurry to get 1 billion laurels or karma. I will get everything I want one step at a time.

Protoss, on 09 February 2013 - 07:36 PM, said:

Underworld and DoA without gimmick builds and con sets would love to have a word with you

Hyper Hypno Hustler, on 28 December 2012 - 07:54 AM, said:

Quality has nothing to do with AAA games. AAA games are publisher flagship titles that are guaranteed sales regardless of their quality, e.g. Call of Duty #, Assassin's Creed #.

These titles will sell millions of copies even if they are the worst games in the world.