Elite missions and the casual player

Hi all! First of all, I apologize if this topic has been discussed before. I consider myself a casual player, meaning that I usually do not have the 4 or so hours needed to PUG through an elite mission. I do belong to a nice guild, but it's hard to put together a 12-person guild group, nonetheless; and please excuse me for saying, I don't usually trust alliance members as much as guild members, although there're some outstanding people in our alliance. So to sum up, I have pretty much exhausted my options in terms of people and time, and I'm faced with the seemingly inescapable conclusion that elite missions are not casual-player-friendly.

And to this end, I have come up with some suggestions to make elite missions more casual-player-friendly:

Add "save points" in elite missions. For instance, after every 3 or 5 rooms, you end up at a temporary outpost or "save point" that you can resume from later on. Obviously, you cannot map to these "save points", and once you map out of a "save point", you cannot go back. If the group gets wiped, you get teleported back to the start of the elite mission.

The advantages are:

1. You don't have to spend 4 hours straight in an elite mission, so you can do it in chunks, at your leisure.

2. If someone leaves/disconnects, you can replenish your ranks at the "save points". You can also choose to join another group if you find your current group not to your liking.

3. Your inventory can get full pretty fast and you can sell your loot and buy supplies.

4. It doesn't make elite missions any less "elite", since if your party gets wiped, you still get teleported back to the beginning.

5. Not sure what to do about DP, though.

That said, I do realize the above suggestions would take a lot of work to implement on ANet's part, and may very well be too late now. It is only my hope that these suggestions will be taken into considerations for future updates/expansions.

As a sidenote, someone of you who are hardcore PvE players may say that elite missions are supposed to be "elite", and so they're not for everyone. If that's the case, I'm very sorry that's the way you feel, because you would in effect be closing the door on a significant portion of the GW community, who happen to be casual players, myself included. Personally, I would rather be constructive and find a way to make it better than to make it exclusive to a smaller group of "elite" persons.

Lastly, please note that these are my own views and do NOT reflect that of Guru in any way, shape, or form.

Suggestions and comments are always welcome!

"Add "save points" in elite missions. For instance, after every 3 or 5 rooms, you end up at a temporary outpost or "save point" that you can resume from later on. Obviously, you cannot map to these "save points", and once you map out of a "save point", you cannot go back. If the group gets wiped, you get teleported back to the start of the elite mission."

Very nice . i want to see this

owell, to:

1. save points -- why ?
these missions are elite mission, so they are for the elite. elite does not only mean having the best items ( a general misinterpretation btw ^^ ), but knowing what to do in the current situation, how to work as a team, how to deal with current, maybe dangerous situations.
save points would easy the mission too much up.. if a team cant keep its dp 'under control', then it does not deserve the reward at the end imo.
that some do not have 4 hours for the elite mission is ofc understandable, but its important that it is on big chunk. After all, where is the elite thing in getting a new group according to every new 'part' to just wipe the monsters out.
Being one big way, you have to think about the right beahviour and team setup right from the beginning.

2. leavers ... well, thats a problem in general, but its not the fault of the mission. and elite mission have been done with 8 ppl already, too, so even if one discos it shouldnt be all too hard to compensate that. your reward is a higher chance too get good items, then. That you need a 'team' for that is obvious, but after all, its an elite mission ^^.

3. a full inventory is a general problem. take salvage tools along to salvage the crap and make room for new stuff that way.

4. eh, basically, it doesnt make the mission less elite, thats right. but we know, try to flip a coin from 100m distance into a small glass ... the elite one who deserves the elite 'price' makes it on the first try, due to knowing how to due it, due to having the right equip, due to being 'elite'.
the other one, how hits the glass after the 1006th try, the only thing he'd deserve the reward for is his dedication ( which wouldnt apply if he would do 1 shot per day, means playing from save points in your example ). but the rest was sheer luck.
by getting the same reward, he lowers the price of the elite players reward ( more things on the market-> lower price ). Thats unfair considering the work the elite player put in being able to do what he did.

5. dp is a punishment for not acting as a team ( pulling too much at a time, not listening ( great problem >< )). since a 12 men team definitely needs organization and teamwork, an egoist team should be punished and by that denied access to the reward.

imo elite missions shouldnt be only for the "elite" ( careful with that word tho ). everyone shoudl have the right to try the mission, a chance to get the reward. But the reward should only be given to those who have proved themselves to be worthy of it ( managing the whole mish ), mainly through teamwork and dedication+the ability to learn from faults and others.

WARNING: World of Warcraft analogy immenent!


In World of Warcraft, the 40 man raid dungeons, which can take an upwards of 5+ hours and hundreds of gold in armor repairs, are not designed for casual players: this has been stated repeatedly.

In Guild Wars, these dungeons, where difficulty is high and length is long, are called Elite missions.

I repeat. Elite Missions.

Does Elite = Casual? No. Hell no.

Yes, I may sound elitist. But not everything is created for casual players in Guild Wars; Heroes' Ascent being the best example.

One question I'll pose: Are FoW/UW considered casual content? I'd say no, with the FoW armor being the primary indicator.

This is the way it is in PvP. If you want to become elite then you will have to dedicate some time. Sure you can do the storyline mission as well as low level PvP but anything else requires you to work for it.

I am sorry, milias if this is the first time you realized that some or even most of the game is not designed for the casual player. There are some parts of the game that casuals will never see. It is just the way the game was designed.

I have conflicting oppinions on this matter.

I myself as a player love to go down to the deep. I would call myself a casual player, and it turns out that 1/2 of the deep runs I have made have been interupted by me doing something in real life. Putting asside 3-4 hours to do an elite mission is a tough task.

However I think casual players can achive this. This would be once on the weekend or something. After all it is an elite mission... something to be special and not something to be farmed the crap out of (although I do admit I truely enjoy the deep). I can usually do one or two elite missions per weekend. Its just too time consuming.

What you want to do is break down this mission and turn it into something which at a first glance(in my eyes) makes the mission a LOT easier. Not only that, but I think your idea would be very difficult to incorperate. Even if it were possible, I think it would require such a major re-design that it would be a waste of ANet's money and time.

To be fair, I think it would help if a few players were more patient. Seeing as everything is quickly servered to the GW community on a gold platter(heh) people want to race on through a mission with no patience.

It seriously would help if players could just stop halfway and have a break when needed.

As to the disconnecting issue, I have an old oppinion on this. GW needs to incorperate an interface in the login screen where you could chose to re-enter the last PvE instance you were in, or go to the last outpost you were at. Im not sure how this would be cached, but it would certainly help counter the feared 007 error, which is a MAJOR problem for these long missions.

For the moment, just make sure you make your elite mission party builds so that if one person leaves, another can back him up.

Final Comment, Dont think the elite mission is something you can hop on to every day. It was designed so that players could get together with some good planning and a LOT of time. Its unlikely that this was expected every day. I like to think of it as a potential "special event" that players can schedual in their own time.

Good comments so far!

Please correct me if I'm wrong, I was under the impressions that GW was created to be something different from WoW, and to fill in the gaps left by games like WoW. I believe someone from ANet has said that GW was designed around the casual player, and not so much the more hardcore players who can afford to dedicate a sizable portion of the day to this game. You can see it in the design of the missions, quests, etc.

You could argue that elite missions were designed for the "elite" players, but I think even if it was ANet's original intention, they have reversed course on that, in that they're in the process of making it available to everyone, and not just the holding alliance.

I personally don't know what the ratio is like of casual players to hardcore players, but I would assume that a significant portion of the GW community are in fact what you would call casual players like me. I just don't feel comfortable with anything that would help to exclude a significant portion of the community because of something that can't really be helped.

Now let's look at the definition of an "elite" mission. I take it to mean that the mission is "elite", in that they are tough, not the people who are actually playing them. Again, you can see this in the fact that ANet is opening it up to more people. So if something helps casual players to overcome something that's out of their control, i.e. nothing to do with how good of a player they are, I honestly don't see any valid reasons to exclude them.

I have to agree with you Zinger 100%. I hate to do so because I am a casual player, and I will probably never have the time necessary to run some of the Elite Misssions in GW. You are very correct however; they are called "Elite Missions" because I believe they were designed to be of a caliber to challenge those players in the game who do regularly spend the time to get good enough as players to complete these missions. For those of us that can not spend that kind of time ingame, well...oh well. The reality is undeniable.

and yes Zinger, you did sound "elitist", but for good reason.

I forgive you

Guild Wars and World of Warcraft are the same genre. Henceforth, comparisons are inevitable and acceptable.

Also, Alex Weelkes said they would think about opening the Elite Missions to everyone...what, 2 months ago? With Nightfall coming up in 2 months, I think ArenaNet has backed out of that plan.

I agree on this!

I love long and hard missions with a balanced party, especially the first time when you only have a very diffuse idea of what to expect. For 8-12 ppl during a 5+ hour trip, the disconnects are a major problem. A possibility to direct return to the party and the spot you left would be very welcome! Maybe if you log on in 5 min after the disconnect?

However the elite missions is not very "onsight" friendly. All those special party whipeout traps laid out, makes it almost impossible even for a very skilled party to get through it without knowing anything before hand. I remember doing Urzog first time. No one had done it before and one player was checking the wiki for tips during the trip. Even then we had a whipout in the room where you can not enter the whole team, not on our way in, but when we went back to that room afterwards to kill the Bark. Second try went well though, but without getting some tips from the wiki it would have taken ages to figure it all out by ourselves.

The Underworld/FoW/ToPK are somewhat better that way. But even then, if you do not know about the quests ("do not take them if you are really sure you can do them") you are up for a very nasty surprise in UW. Hard is good in elite missions, but why make a succesfull run so much depend on using other peoples experiences?

Regards,
Cloudbunny

I agree that comparisons between the two are probably inevitable; however, I don't think they're actually in the same genre. WoW is the quintessential MMORPG, while GW is what's called a CMORPG (or something like that, I forget ). I think there're notable differences between the two. WoW is more grinding, and GW is more about player skill. To me, elite missions in the state they are right now, can be attributed more to grinding than actual player skill, in that you need an insane amount of faction just to hold a mission town. I was very happy when ANet announced they were going to change that.

Yea, it's been a while, but I'm willing to give them benefit of the doubt. I won't presume to know how high up in their priority list this is, given that they probably have a ton of stuff on their plate right now. I do hope that it's going to be rolled out soon, though.

Milias-
I've seen lots of your posts, and agree on nearly everything, but not with this. I feel the elite missions are not for the majority of players. It is for the elite. Something A-Net put in to satisfy the players that will spend the time to figure them out, then do them. They aren't for casual players. The save points would take away from the eliteness of the mission, as would the ability to sell of your stuff. Of course, I've ran out of salvage equipment, and had to leave stuff, but that's the way the game is set up.
Don't worry though, I've quit both Urgoz and Deep. Not as fun as FoW or UW imho.
But if you need a monk or tank, look me up, tell me it's you, if I'm not already helping someone, I'll join up with you.
Don Holiheart
Koksu Waji

Well, i don't think a save outpost would work out to well for many reasons. For one getting a 12 part group together is enough, getting them all to meet back at a prescibed time would be even more mind-boggling. Neither elite mission takes more then 3 hours to complete, Urgoz being the longer of the 2. UW can take about 5-7 hours to do everything, FOW about 4+, so the elite missions are some what of a walk-in-the-park. I don't think save outpost would be bad, but i think they would be tough to impliment and organize.

The lack of inventory space making it physically impossible to pick up all your loot is a feature?

Also: why do people keep citing "4-5+ hours" as the time it takes? The Deep, after your first time or two, once you learn it, takes one and a half to two hours to complete, at most.

i agree with som eof what you said, and unfortunately it is like this. the only problem that i see is that ANET advertises GW as a game whrere your game experience is not effected by amount of time that you spend in the game. therefore, it also means that a player whos shedule is tight but that still chooses to sacrifice his fre time to GW should not be restraint of the "Funnest" places in the game.

i have started to go in FOW before i had any *golds*, i had a collector bow, 1.5 armor and the only elite that i had was barrage. yes i had no clue what i was doing and whats the point of this place, but no groups ever failed because of me alone.

Heh, looks like I'm in the minority on this one

I think making it exclusive was ANet's original intention, to cater to the more hardcore players who asked for this feature. But in doing so, I think ANet also risked alienating existing casual players in the process. Granted, you can't make everybody happy, but I think it's in ANet's interest to make as many players happy as possible. In my opinion, by making elite missions more accessible to casual players in a non-intrusive way to the more hardcore players would be a great addition to the game.

If GW was truly based on skill, then I don't foresee more hardcore players having any problems with this. Sure, more people will play this, but if everything's based on skill, only the skillful (or elite) players will be able to finish it, be they casual or hardcore. Right now, the way I see it is that the more hardcore players have an (unfair) advantage over casual players in this regard, in that they can devote more time to any undertaking in-game. This is not related to skill in anyway, but rather a real-life limitation that can't really be controlled.

No on the save point, reasons being

1. Too difficult (relatively) to implement
and
2. Makes the mission easier by having a place to change attributes/skill bar to tailor yourself to imminent challenges.

However, I'm very much in favor of splitting the elite missions up into shorter, individual missions, and buffing up the difficulty of each encounter. For example, the first portion of the deep with the 4 way split can be a mission of its own, with the mission ending by killing the kanaxai aspect of pain. However, there would be significantly more difficult enemies and a more variety of enemies to encounter and defeat, including more monks and mesmers.

Instead of dropping 3 greens like the BIG kanaxai does every run, the mini bosses at the end of each mission would drop 1 green per run.

This way, the missions will still take planning and skill, but one run should be no longer than ~1 hour or so.

Forgive me for singling you out, but I have seen too many threads asking to make PVE content easier (which is my interpretation of this thread). The Elite missions, UW and Fissure are all supposed to be HARD. Do you really want all parts of the game to be easily conquered? I like the challenges, but occasionally resort to tips from the many GW forums (Wiki and guru rocks for tips).

I can totally relate that the OP does not want to spend 4 hours doing a mission. But the rare occasion that you can, isn't that an especially rewarding experience.. something special. Do you really want to cheapen these ELITE areas?

/unsigned ALL of the suggestions.

I would not be opposed to a merchant being strategically placed somewhere midway, but ehh...

Well, I guess I was asking it to be easier, but in a real-life sense, not in an in-game sense. I agree that elite missions should be difficult, and should stay difficult, just not difficult on the player's real-life schedules and obligations. That's all I'm asking.

By the way, I do like Mithie's proposed alternative

I'll agree with you Milias.

As I recall Guild Wars is supposed to be equally as open to the person who can afford 20 hours of their time a day, to the 8 hour player.

I see the points everybody has raised, but I feel nobody actually bothered to read Milias' original post in its entirity.

Phoenixfire - Your post goes on about 11006th try or whatever, but each new try after a party wipe out begins from the start. These check points I think would only be if you choose to disconnect whilst in them (so u cudnt nearly die and just Alt+f4 out)

Also Milias never said that it had to wipe DP, I'm sure the Devs could come up with a method of remembering DP.

I'm sure a person who only spends 20 mins a day playing can still have the skill to finish an elite area, just not the time, and why should they be put to a disadvantage over unskilled players who can try the areas to their hearts content simply as they have the time?

The only part I dont like in Milias' suggestion is the traders, entering elite areas (FoW, UW is my experience) is about running out of space for items, and having to sort the good from the excelent, So I wudnt have them.

But yes for checkpoints so people can continue along, as long as they dont clear DP, and only work when you log out in them.
No to traders within them.

5 hours that is insane!!!!! on a game

If ya get a group thats good you can do the Deep in about 1 n a half hours, but as stated above they are meant to be hard. If they were easy then there would be no point in doing them. The items from elite missions would be overfarmed and asides the chance to do them for the first time there would be no reason to ever go back.

While this game is made for causal players, this does not mean that anet will do everything for the causal player. They need to get people that play insane amounts and keep them hooked. You cant have a game that completely focuses on one type of player or not enough money will be made and less people playing it. While it is geared towards it, elite missions and titles are put in the game to keep vet players happy and busy.

Not to be an arse, but...by it's very definition in terms of gaming, elite != casual.

That's pretty much end of discussion right there. People wanted long, hardcore pve missions. The fact that not everyone can do them isn't a good reason to dumb them down for the people who can do them.

Umm... they said they were going to think about it, they never said they were going to open it up, they haven't backed out of anything. I've never had any trouble getting to the Warren or the Deep, i've never FF nor am I a member of a controlling alliance.

Just wondering Milias, have you ever posted about the lengthy UW and FoW being inaccessible to the casual player?

I suppose you've never played Risk.

Anet is very determined on 2 things:

-Making this game a social game
-Making this game competitive

I'm sure they listen a lot to what players wantt and that they perfectly understand how rpg players would like the game to be changed. Yet almost every update introduces something to make the game move more towards the 2 lines above.

Elite missions (I think it was a bad choice to call them so) make those 2 objectives meet each other in a perfect way: You need to work together and only the best can complete them.

Nothing wrong with that... As long as the causual player has enough alternative events that meet his/her level. I don't mean the existing missions and quest, but real special stuff. At the moment it looks too much like Anet mainly supports the best of the best. Look at their homepage: world championships and high level competitions. Than elite missions for the very best parties. Causual players often feel a little bit... Lost!

I've seen a lot of posts from people talking about approaching this game with a work ethic, or going on about how they average five hours a day. I have to wonder, do people like this realize that this is a game? I'm definately a casual player, and I really don't like the concept of buying a game knowing that I'll never get through a good amount of its content. Just something for anet to keep in mind. This isn't even counting the added frustrations of having to beg someone to take you to the content in the first place. I didn't notice it that much in Prophecies, but Factions definately seems a bit hostile to the casual player, especially in the relm of PvE.

Eh, I have mixed feelings. It sucks if you are a skilled player, want to be really challenged, but can't often carve out 4 hours of solid playtime. It is sorta lousy if the only time you can play the game at your level is when you have half a day to spend on it.

On the other hand part of the prestige and difficulty from Urgoz and the Deep comes from their size, and it would suck to cheapen that.

While in a way I think save points would be awesome in some instance, I can only find them remotely concievable for all hench instances. Meaning that for elite missions this is not possible. Technically the Elite missions take about 2-3hrs, the problem for you is not the time needed to complete the missions, but the fact that it takes nearly 1-2hrs to ORGANIZE A BLOODY GROUP!
Without a solid group planned out from the start and a start time and everyone being ontime and coordinated and so forth, it is just highly unlikely to be able to get it together and done in 2-3hrs. We usually decide to do the Elite missions hours before and set our skills, with the hopes of picking up some ready PUGs when we get there (NEVER HAPPENS!) The fastest we have gotten a group for the Deep is an hour and that was with 8 of our own being guildies and already set. Then came the issue of err7s and people suddenly going "Oh crap gotta go!" - add that to the hour and then its 2.5hrs before we could even get to the next room!

By the time we get to the third room I am so exhausted by stupidity such as: Are we there yet?
How long is this mission?
CHEST LETS GET HALF THE PARTY KILLED FOR IT!
....The list goes on and on! I rarely do the elite missions cause it takes so bloody long to get the group together and get a solid start, that I usually have a migraine by the time we hit the 3rd room and I push forward with the group and I never get anything out of completing it.... Satisfaction maybe, but thats about it lol.

Good luck and I'm sorry but I just cannot agree with the idea of this for Elite missions, no matter how fun it might be for me for take some time away to sooth my migraine -_-

Also what makes them more elite is beaing able to coordinate with 12 players, and being able to make it with 3 leavers, plus the people with Res Sig, would be able to use it more often

The Deep mission is too easy already....no need to make it easier by adding "save points"
We could use a more challenging elite mission in Nightfall.

Shouldn't this be in sardelac? And, no, the idea isn't really for me. I just don't see it happening, is all.

It's already been said so I'm just going to "me too": the elite missions are not intended for casual players.

I dont recall GW team saying that *all missions* will take less than XX hours to complete

what ANET has harped upon is balancing skills and gear

someone that only plays 30minutes can compete/teamup fairly with someone that plays 40 hours (assuming they are both talented players)

Ever play Monopoly?

I think you missunderstood me!
Mainly since I did not expressed myself clearly!

I want HARDER elite missions!

Today the elite missions is almost impossible for a party to do "on sight" without any knowledge about whats awaiting them. But...after that, the difficulty dropps considerable.

What is the problem with traps and spawns when you know exactly before, where and what is coming? When you can 3 ppl party Urzog and solo farm UW, something is absolutely wrong! Solo farmers is not insanely good players, they only know exactly what awaits them and have a build specialized for that!

I want harder unpredictable areas (random spawns, random monster types etc). The difficulty of the missions should depend less on the knowledge about the area and all traps and spawns and more on actually hard resistance/challenges. A deadly trap is not difficult if you know where it is and can avoid it.

Many "casual" players are not bad players, they can actually be extremly good ones! But they might not be able to dedicate 7-10 hours on one mission (10 hours is the longest an UW trip have taken me, 4 hours to assembly the party and 6 hours to do the clear out). It is not "elite!" to be able to dedicte 15 hours a day to play gw. But it is "elite" to be able to take on the hardest the game can through at you and survive!

Please give us harder, unpredicateble, but also somewhat shorter missions!

And Err 07 is a big threat to any player in a long mission. If you as me play with international parties, the possibility for problem grows. I have had friends got diconnected 1 min before completing "Restore the monument" quest, that is not funny. I would not liked "resting points" in an elite mission, but I absolutely would have liked a "return to the party after err07" feature.

Elite missions should be hard, not easy farmable! (my mantra!)

Regards,
Cloudbunny

As stated a long time ago, guildwars is not meant for hardcore? =P

Honestly, the Elite missions are meant to be three hours long and exceptionally punitive to death to provide something DIFFERENT in GuildWars.

If you want to do an Elite mission that lasts an hour or so, then go to the Tomb of Primevil Kings.

I personally love the format of the Elite missions, as they provide something different to do. Entering save points, ressurrection shrines, etc...basically takes away the biggest and most enjoyable parts of those missions - the "marathon" type feel that makes you feel like you earned/accomplished something when you've finished it.

That's why I relish doing them even if, in the end, I don't get one of the greens.

I made a similar suggestion for the Elite missions a few weeks ago.

One of guild wars themes is that skill is valued more than time. The Elite missions unfortuantely don't follow this theme. They are not difficult, but they do require a fair amount of time (especially for a PuG group). Which group (provided both groups know the appropriate builds and strategies)would have a higher success rate (able to kill Kanaxai): an average group with three hours to play or an above average group with one and a half hours to play?

I want something about 3 hours long. That punish you if you die, but not if you err07. I also wants something extremely hard that only gets slightly easier and faster when you have done it 100 times than when you do it the first time without knowledge about it.

regards,
Cloudbunny