Cevilo

Cube, on 19 May 2013 - 10:10 PM, said:

we're not talking about you, we're talking about the majority of people. There are people who reject these systems. but the majority either like/accept it, or hate it but still play, especially if they have people who help them stay ahead in the curb because psychologically any thing that costs time+effort has value (look at the long lifelines of games like WoW EQ and Rune scape that require grind). but once people stop having things to work for,  its relying solely on how much enjoyment they are getting from the game, personally I'm still getting a lot of enjoyment, I've enjoyed every class and have leveled one of each up. will probably start map completion for each one next then hopefully I find some thing else to do after that. but a lot of other people get to 80 and don't enjoy t/spvp or wvw so they quit.

tbh I don't think this game is any more or less social than any other recent MMO out there. I played 1-80 solo in WoW didn't touch a dungeon or raid wasn't about to bother with the gear treadmill. I was in a huge guild we talked and organized things but any thing we did was my choice, I could have done the entire wow experience with out any social interaction at all. EQ I made it to 40s I believe with out any sort of group/social interaction required. I found a big guild there too that made it fun, but the whole experience could have gone with out needing the social aspect. I think gw2 is the only game I've been doing random questing (in terms of gw2 quest system) and suddenly found myself in a group of completely random people and ended up continuing on to find more Quests to do with in the area.

I feel like this game has similar things to offer as other MMOs just the removal of needing to work for it, or a vertical progression system cut the life of the game for a lot of people. there are dungeons to run, end game meta events. ect but essentially what are we working for?
gear with similar stats but a different design? (I can't speak for others but I personally don't like most of the weapon/armor designs) at least in gw1 there were several awesome and highly desirable skins to shoot for, and we could bring our goodies into PvP when we were done with the PvE experience (which was pretty short lived early on, with prophecies and no skins worth trying to acquire)

here we can't bring our pve characters into PvP and a lot of people will argue the PvP experience isn't really worthwhile any ways. and in WvW you're really just another face in the crowd any ways. so I still stick by my statement. for a longer life, gw2 is going to need more progression and accomplishments, things that are worth while and take time, things that you can WORK for and not be given.

honestly it's to be expected, when advertised GW2 was the game you could buy, play now, put down play another game and come back to later. there was never any game design made to keep people playing the game. and the "monthly" content being pushed out keeps people busy 1 day to a week tops? there's no gear treadmill, nothing you really have to maintain or build so a lot of people get bored and leave. if the guild dies, you find another one, if anet does some thing interesting that will keep a lot of people playing longer in the PvE area, then your guild could have a huge turn around. but the sad truth is you're going to either A. Step up and try and do things to inspire your community, such as guild events that don't require an officer to be there (In PACT we have people running around clearing zones, running dungeons, running to important WPs ect) or B you can find a new community guild to play with.

Trei, on 18 May 2013 - 09:55 AM, said:

no, and yes. haha. I'm not 100% masterful of that game, there are plenty of people who are.
First I want to reply specifically to the end of your post, these critical posts are  coming from people who have played and enjoyed a previous game played and enjoyed/hated this game, and in the opinion of that person, these criticisms are formed. it's not a "fair" "unfair" situation, If I play some thing, and find it bland or boring, you can't tell me I wasn't being fair because you don't agree. a lot of people were walking in with a positive attitude and high expectations for gw2 not this "oh god I'm going to hate this bull crap" attitude so I think the opinions formed are more than fair.

I'm pretty sure you've not played a lot(or any) of guild wars 1 because you'd notice a immediate difference in depth of combat and the flow of combat. pick any class walk in to Random arenas and mash buttons you're going to die, you put together a build full of trash skills, no elite. you die. you don't pick the right target to kill your team will lose. some one dies in a fight, if you can get off a hard res, you may still have a chance.

go play gw2. if you go in and mash buttons you can do decent in a scrap melee, come with a crap build? as long as you keep moving and grab key points you can still win. picking targets doesn't even matter (as much) in gw2. you can't even see what class each profession is, all you see is cloth, heavy, medium... until they use a skill, and even then they are all just doing damage there aren't any meaningful buffs to watch out for to make a target any more of a threat over the other. in a full team melee, even the pro's say usually first team to have some one downed is the one who loses the fight. and in that situation usually the rest of the full team battles end that way.

the "all you do is mash buttons" is a over exaggeration, but in probably 99% of the skills you use, are knee jerk moves. used just because the cool down was up. yeah some skills have very specific uses or are better used at a certain time/situation but it's not enough to make the game play interesting. like the roots you talked about, you don't target the ele because of xxx or the thief because of yyy. you root who ever your team targets, which is usually the most exposed person. and you root them because your cool down is up. and the second your cool down goes up you'll root them again with out a second thought because they are kiting or running and need to cut that crap out and die already. the exact same thing goes for knockdown/interrupts except there are specific things you NEED to look for with those, like stopping a finisher on a teammate or interrupting a channeling tome guardian. if you're fighting some one with no channeling skills or no worry of a some one immediately being downed you pop your knockdown interrupt as it comes off cool down. no questions asked, no thought involved.

I agree some noob friendliness is good. GW1 pvp wasn't noob friendly but the pve was pretty forgiving. things get easier the more you discover your class, good skill combinations pop up. and there was a LOT more to discover. having over 1000 skills to play with because of class and cross class combinations. the choices for gw2 really aren't there. honestly you could probably go from lvl 1-80 with out popping a single utility or elite skill. my girl friend just hit 51 and I still have to come behind her and put in her attributes she's not added for 5+ levels or pick skills on her skill bar and she does just fine when we play together. her bar is actually full of signets because she doesn't really think to use any other skills besides 1-6 and those are used as said before, because the cool down was up. and It feels easier to play with her, even though she is clearly unskilled I don't feel like I'm carrying all the weight and she does fine when I'm not playing with her. on top of that, at lvl 51 (no alts) she's sitting on about 13g right now, I remember I had about 4g at that level my first run through. I kind of felt like being knowledgeable and knowing where to go/what to do, screwed me over because she clearly made more money than me (and I didn't spend a dime until lvl 80)

((my opinion))
yeah there is always room for improvement, but that improvement needs to come from the devs side not the player side, we've done pretty much all we can with the skills they provided for us, but the combat depth just isn't there. they are trying to treat it like a fast paced fps game. (I say that because they try and compare it to FPS in early interviews) but it's not a fps, being knee jerky and and chasing people around a map isn't fun in a RPG environment. I can appreciate  the fast pace, but they need the combat depth skills need to do more than damage + X, League of legends does this well. ultimately the goal is to get inside the other persons base, but the encounters are crazy to watch and it takes a real amount of skill and understanding of the game to play at high levels. and that's some thing a lot of people agree gw2 doesn't have. the fact that it's yet to be an e-sport even though they announced that's what they were pushing for that before launch further proves the majority share this same opinion.

I'm one of the people still enjoying the game, but I am disappointed with the end product. I think Anets biggest issue is they wanted a wider audience so they made the game with the intention of even the most brain dead being able to play and "be good" at the game. the thing is, the games with a long life are generally the "easy to learn hard to master" but there's really nothing to learn or master here. even if they balance out the combat system it wont make a difference. they removed all the control we had in GW1 over the flow of combat. I have a friend who loves the mesmer class, and stacked nothing but interrupts on his skill bar. and would sit there and troll the hell out of any one who played against him
"oh all most got that 3 second heal cast off... and denied..."
I cringe because he would do it to me a lot, but It's what made GW great, High risk skills with reward. you can control combat by buffing/healing your team, you can debuff, remove buffs hurt and shut down your targets and you HAD to do it systematically. Monks and Mesmers were high priority targets for a reason.

honestly I think the BIGGEST mistake they made with their combat system was removing cast times, and interrupts. sure we have some fears knock downs ect. but it's something most people just do with their skill rotation. I understand the idea of having only a few skills, there was a LOT of trash in gw1, a lot of it (in spite of how many people claim to "love to make builds") was based on the meta builds in the gwpvx. but even with the fewer skills there's a lot of trash in gw2. now with the removal of depth to the combat system it's do damage or GTFO. I think the game would have been great with the same amount of skills gw2 has but the depth of combat gw1 has. being able to interrupt, and slow casting times or slow down physical moves would have added a lot to this game pvp and pve. I think anet missed the point and thought "constantly pressing buttons = entertaining" but the core of gw1 and their fan (old) fan base wasn't just pushing the button. it was knowing the when and the why. and if they want to make this an E-sport, they need to make the combat system more interesting and skill based. not some knee jerk skill rotation. it's good to have simple systems. but in high level play you need to be able to control every aspect of those systems and I think most importantly there NEEDS to be a high Knowledge/skill gap so you know your getting better. There's a reason League of Legends Made it as a E-sport, is because on the surface it's easy to follow the action, but there's a lot of depth to the combat, and some very big skill land marks that make playing as interesting as watching.

what I was expecting when they were advertising the combat system was a sort of martial arts movie where the combat flowed quickly but with elegance and grace, what I ended up getting was the equivalent of 2 ratty kids who don't know how to fight, tumbling and flailing on the ground. we'll see where they go from here though.

I'm not in the same boat but I can understand. this is basically a completely different game with the name "Guild wars" slapped onto it. the things that made gw1 great are not present at all here. I like the game, but I wish they would have kept the gw1 combat system, then evolved every thing else. I think it would have made it into E-sports that way.