My views on the future of Guild Wars

I have been playing since beta and I quite like the game. Not so much the community but the game. That is, until recently. Due to the invention of heroes this game has become a single player game, that you need a password to play. The way I see it as any future chapters will be pretty well destroyed by this fact. Instead of trying builds for missions with people, heroes will be used. Nobody will do anything but buy/trade with others in the game.

I do think heroes were a halfway decent idea when they were originally thought up, but I don't think the consequences of adding them was thought out. If I wanted to play a single player game I could do so and not use bandwidth or waste time even being bothered by other peoples crap in the chat window.

Players also have no idea how to play the game anymore either because of heroes. I was helping a guildie with Ring of Fire and I saw a Warrior using Mending then spamming Defy Pain. That is all they did. A minion master is Dzagonur Bastion had no minion healing and he had every single minion spell. People run around with no elite, which sometimes is not bad but it is usually good to bring one. I think Prophecies did great in teaching players what to do, and havign characters in both Elona and Cantha had led me to believe players are not really being taught the game by those tutorial sections.

Domain of Anguish helps with the problem of players not being the brightest in a way. But it is more of a "who can sit at their pc the longest" type of deal. Some coordination is needed but after awhile its so long some peopel might stop caring. I know it happened to me with a very good communicative group. I stayed all the way until the end when everyone quit at once. But I was dozing off while playing or just not paying attention.

PvP is just as bad if not worse. The test changes to Heroes' Ascent did very little to help the situation. Yes people actually got some new temporary builds that did well that weekend but no longer work. But with the huge ebay/ingame account selling for rank situation you can no longer tell who is actually a good player. They might be rank 9 and be quite bad with no idea what is going on, but due to the way the game is you have to actually fight and lose battles to see this.

Arena.net needs to implement a very large skill balance or change. Alot of things are very overpowered and it is evident. The weekend sort of helped, again, but still had some problems. Heroes' Ascent would benefit with a change to large numbers of skills because people will find new builds to run. I don't like running any gimmick builds. Though some that look interesting I will give a try, but I usually don't play them more then a few times. The districts are nothign but people spamming for groups yet nobody makes groups. And when somebody does you can barely if ever find players who are decent enough for a good run. It is even better when you lose and the players actually contribute ideas as to what went wrong and how to improve.

The game was great with its original intent but now it seems to be slipping away. The greatness the game once had it fading rather quickly. I would like to play future chapters but if they are going to go the way of Nightfall and be a single player game I think I will invest in some other game. Perhaps the developers shoudl take a step back and reanalyze what made the original good and work from that. It could be changed enough to be different but keep the quality of the original and not have a rushed product like Factions.

I'm getting real tired of reading long winded posts about people's life stories of how they can't deal with this game on any aspect..

If you don't like heroes, don't put heroes in your group. If you don't like PUGs then get a better guild. If Domain of Anguish is too challenging for you then don't do it.

You have a problem with Heroes Ascent and rank issues? Live with it. It has always been like this.

And then we go to this stuff about balance changes. Why don't you enlighten us with what should and shouldn't be changed? Merely saying these vauge generalizations doesn't help anything... "alot of things are overpowered...would benefit with a change to a large number of skills..."

Would you also explain to me why you don't like running these so called "gimmick builds". It seems so contradictory, first you can't find a group and then when you find one you don't like it because it is running a "gimmick build". What a joke. What do you want? When does a gimmick begin and end with you?

Not one positive thing to say, it is like you threw a bunch of common forum complaints all into one long unorganzied post.

If you can't come up with an original Heroes Ascent build then you could at least come up with some original complaints to put on this forum.

Whining and complaining maybe, but the fact is the end of Nightfall is desserted.
I dont think Anet realised the effect Heroes would have on the game.
Basically it is now a 'CRPG' with a password, for seemingly thousands of players.
Talk in outposts past Vabbi is non existent, except for Title Runners offering their services,gotta get that title, though for what reason I do not know, its not like there is anyone to show it off too outside of Kamadan.
So last night, after I commented on the lack of any community vibe, a fellow player mentioned that the community is better in Tyria, so I checked it out, and he was right! Almost every outpost people were chatting, people LFG's etc... Not all conversations or talk I wanted to join in on, but life at least!!! People actually participating in an online exchange, it totally freaked me out, it is a totally different vibe, and all I can atribute it too is the lack of Heroes on native Tyrian 'bound' characters.
Players starting with Nightfall are at a disadvantage I think, introducing the heroes I think has a hidden message kind off effect, I mean here you start playing an online game, where youd think the emphasis should be on grouping with others, as it is in those two quests in Pre, but in NF, right away the game starts giving you 'Heroes', its almost as if they are urging people away, however subtley(spelling?), from grouping with other players.
People can say what they will about this game, the facts speak to me clearly, when I play in Elona I am playing a single player game. People trade in Kamadan, and S.H., but conversation is rare, and I have to go out of my way to group with people. I really just cant believe how desserted the game feels while still under 6 mos old. I think a lot of players probably just quit after not being able to get by GoM, or one of the other harder missions(turns out there are a few tuff missions after all), and being that there is so little group dynamic happening in the game, make that none, they quit, or go to Tyria, or go farm by themselves.
THK was packed for a long time, and was still quite crowded last time I was there, a few weeks back(didnt hit THK last night).
Im not trying to join in a whine fest, If I want community I'll find it, if I want too party I will,I'm just relating how it looks to a player that loved the experience that was Prophecies,my first real online game, and While I have enjoyed Nightfall, I feel worried for the future.
Where are the players?
For the casual player, not the hardcores, the guy who plays a couple a times a week, the guy that just wants to party with some strangers, and complete a quest or two ? Who knows maybe he'll meet a friend to group up with the next time hes on.
This is the type of thing I mean.
The hardcore will be fine, we will still play the game, we dont support it tho, the larger population does, and it is this way that I think they need to take GW's.
Quit trying to please the elite players, its an impossible task anyway. Thats what the elite areas are for. Open them up!!
Bring back the really fun experience, you have to make the missions fun, its not enough that they are just hard. They need to be fun, they need to encourage people to work together, but not be so hard they are the domain of title runners and a handful of elite.
I really hope Anet is paying attention to the ingame patterns that I am seeing. I can't see how they could not be aware of the situation, so I assume they are, and hopefully,they are working on some ideas to re-invigorate the party dynamic that was so much a part of the classic Prophecies. Thats what I hope for, its too good of a game to think otherwise.

Heroes are not the problem. The community is the problem. When the community stops being filled with juvenile delinquents and can get along better then you'll see more people willing to group up together. But in the meantime, Heroes are a damn good thing.

Also, just because there are less PUGs doesnt mean that people arent playing with friends and guildies. Now stop exaggerating about the bit about GW turning into a single player game. It's cliche and untrue. PVP certainly isnt single player.

Heroes brought me back to the game. I'm not alone in that, I'm sure. The inaccessability of high level areas to solo/small groups supplemented by henchmen was the main reason I stopped playing and didn't buy Factions at release. Now that heroes are around I can have a full customizable party with just another friend or two being online, so problem solved.

GW is wonderfully distinct from other MMO's in that it doesn't force you to deal with other people unless you want to. I would dearly hope that, in any future changes Anet would make, they would keep in mind that there are a lot of us that are playing this game over the competition specifically because we don't want to PUG.

A-Net should do a thing. A very IMPORTANT thing.
Automatic delete EVERY wtb/wts in Global Chat.

Since ppl started to ONLY SELL in cities, gw is no more a RPG.
Where the Role Play? All ppl is roleplaying a merchant -.-?

I'm saying that if there is a "if u trade in global chat u get 24h banned" system,
ppl will start to talk about other things than items.

If A-Net do nothin in that sense, gw will surely become a "pvp/sell-perfect-items" game.
And this is a lot boring.

I hope you all agree and ANet make a BIG change in this sense.
They should give to this the priority, because pve is becoming boring.

Want to sell or buy an item? Use the trade chat. Wanna talk/have fun/tell something/discuss/make parties/share ideas? Global Chat

That's exactly one of many problems why there isnt more socializing in GW. Too much trade spam. And spam in general. And then there isnt any sort of moderating in chat to weed out the tards. So most people don't even bother talking to others.

Now ppl is anti-social in cities, the only thing they do is sell.



I'm the only one, or YOU ALL are VERY TIRED of this too?
Would you all like to see ppl talking, have fun, tell something to others,
discuss, make parties, share ideas or make role playing?
Or you all like to play pve as a drop/sell/buy game?

A-Net, i think that all players will be very grateful to you if in the global chat
is impossible to trade, i'm sure of this.
You just have to ban all the ppl that ruins the game in this way, or just FULL BAN
the trade messages in global chat.

I hope you all share my opinion

People don't seem to know what they want. I'm also tired of all this complaining that the heroes suck or the players suck. If you don't like it, don't play it.

Heroes were created in the first place because tons of people complained about henchmen being idiots and wanting more control over them. So Anet decided to answer this issue by creating heroes, and what do they get as a reward? Tons of people complaining that heroes spoil the game and that they should be removed.
I think heroes are great - they're perfect for filling in the missing spots in groups and for doing small things that you generally wouldn't get a group interested in (like taking screenies in hard areas, or doing exploration). If you really wanted to play with others, then you could just ditch the heroes and get human players.

If more and more people end up using heroes for missions and stuff, then there's obviously a problem elsewhere. Why would people want to take an AI along, that is clearly inferior to an average human brain? With a good group, you can beat missions even faster than with heroes and don't need to bother with flagging and cursing when your heroes break aggro due to kiting.
Still, many people opt for heroes, when they're clearly inferior. You know why? It's probably due to the fact that the average player in GW has an IQ even lower than a hero. Most times player groups just ignore teamwork and mindlessly spam whatever they can just to annoy everyone else. They don't bother to learn the game, they don't bother to think about their own skills, they only want a pre-chewed game where they can chat to other tards in pretty surroundings with cool titles and fame.

Good gamers, on the other hand, tend to join guilds with likeminded people, and then do missions with full player groups from these same guilds. This is one of the reason all the towns are empty of local chat and people looking for groups. Players who like teaming up with others usually just ask their guildies, instead of going through the teeth-grinding annoyance of a PuG. So, if you want better teams and more socializing, join a guild.
It would be nice to have more socializing outside of the guild too, but thanks to the people who don't want to learn the game, this has driven most people to just turn off Local channel.

I think this will always be a problem in GW. The game is trying to be too many things at once. It's trying for single-play, while also wanting socializing. If they wanted the game to swing completely into co-operative mode, they should just create more difficult missions that require two or more human players to get past them.
This would, of course, irritate the single players, but hey, an online game is online simply for the socializing. If GW was meant to be for single players it would be an offline game.

Oh yeah, and then there's always PvP which most PvE doomsayers tend to ignore. That's never single-player.

This topic is always coming up and I'm always split on how I feel about it.

I totally sympathise with you on feeling like the heart fell out of the community. I've been playing since around a month after launch and like many "hardcore" guild wars fans, have at least around 2000 hours of gameplay behind me. So I've seen many changes for better and worse.

One thing that feels really different is meeting new people. This game was my first MMO and I can't compare it to others, but it seems empty when it's not.

I'm generally anti-social and will play a game as far as I can with only henchies, in fact other than the few times in factions when you have no choice, I've done it all alone at least once. But it used to be that after I was done I would go back and help new people through the harder parts, making new friends and sometimes adding new people to my guild. And that I miss. It would actually take some effort in most towns to get someone to even want to team up because the common thought floating around is that you are a noob if you need "help." It's either that or your class is looked down upon. So being social loses out.

The pacing of prophesies tended to make better players of people who really had to invest time into makeing their builds work for them. Most of the friends I made back then are still friends now. But after that joke of a training island in factions and the new addition of heros (which I will tell you why I actually like them in a sec), the quality of players has degraded tremendously. This led to PUGs being abandoned like I mentioned above, and is just too frustrating to have to go through over and over again, time most people just don't want to put in.

I think part of this is the fault of having to buy your skills. When you got a new skill in prophesies you added it to your skill bar and took that sucker out for a spin. You had a nice trek to the next town, and might have had it a while before you leveled, so each new skill was kinda neat in an odd way, even if most of them ended up junked. Now most players I run into don't have any skills and don't know what to buy anyways because they make snap descisions about skills that they never tried out in the field, never found the nuances that you sometimes only experience by accident. It's not really their fault a lot of the time either, fully buying all of the available skills can be costly (beleive me, I have ten characters, one for each class and have spent well over 2.5 million by my last count on armors, dyes, skills, guild matters, and even some charity.)

Weird thing is, I still love this game and am continually drawn to buying new armors, working on crafting new weapons, progressing each character, and helping out friends.

That last thing is the oddest part. Now, because of heros, it's even easier to get them to attempt missions without a full compliment of real people. It's never really been a problem getting them through with only henchies, but it's way easier. Now my wife is more likely to hop on her account and play around, sometimes even joining me in a mission (she's never beena social person and will only play alone.) And many of my old friends have lost the desire to PUG and heros keep thier interest in the game alive by making it "feel" to them that we have a complete group.

I also love having the control we do over the npc's. The synergy that you get with a henchman that you fully outfit can't really be matched by most real people now adays, no matter what people say. It allows you to much more freedom in solitary exploration because you are able to more fully control the diretion you want to take things in. Henchmen will do, but heros are far better. Real people get annoyed at you pausing to watch something happen on tv, and I personally got sick long ago of people constantly going afk during a mission that I've already done before and I'm helping them through.

So in conclussion, if it is that at all, I love the heros, but I miss meeting new people. I won't disband my guild of close friends to do so, but I don't really see a community out there. I also won't give up the mechanic of heros, they are just too neat, so I hope they stay. :/ I could ramble on more, but I'm going to stop here.

A-net's tried to listen to too many people... I think the game is more difficult than Prophecies/Cantha this time around, but the learning curve is much steeper as well. So newer players are often worse than a henchie team, and older players don't want to lose a mission because one player and their hero/es is dragging the team down.

One of the original selling points of GW was that you didn't have to play with people, and that's true... the community's never been amazing, but now there's no real incentive to pass knowledge along, now that you don't "need" other players.

I'll miss making friends in PUGs though... only times I meet new people is in AB.

Hi,
I don't mean to offend anyone, but is there a contest among elder players to win the "best post on what I think of GW, its demise or future"? If so, shouldn't it be "let's all discuss what's important among the dozens, if not hundreds, of improvement suggestions around"? I understand that the forum is indeed here for expressing your views, but don't you realise the amount of redundancy between all those posts?

(and I REALLY DO appreciate posts from long-time players who share their history and experience, but not when it's for ranting and basically asking "do something about the situation"; I'm sure those players can bring more to the community, e.g. educating us newb or explaining why such and such feature is better than this one for example, and hope they will)

You should cross out the names for that screenshot.

Btw I never had problems with WTS spam on local, maybe I forgot to turn local chat on?

I always enjoyed helping new people out BUT most of them were VERY annoying. During one particular mission this new guy keeps spamming "can i have tat weapon plz" almost everytime when an item dropped for a party member. But theres also some very nice people who you will gladly help them out

IMO gw is a very hard game to play good in, I hope Anet can have a better tutorial system in future chapters like those quests in pre searing which does teach you about how the game works.

I still remember that particular hammer quest in pre searing which thought me about knockdowns when I first started playing. "You have to use Hammer Bash to interrupt that ettin's skill" Ahh good times, fun fun.

You don't offend. And we realise it's redundant, but the community really is so different it kinda just makes us all just sigh and spill our thoughts. We don't mean to annoy either.

I think most of us still help newer players out, but it's no longer people we meet inside the game anymore. The community is just so dead. Most new people we help are just people we bring into the game from outside it or who happen to join our guilds. No offense, but I wish the game was like it was where people would talk in towns and you could get in on a good joke. Then after all the laughs were done, you would team up and head off to kill some stuff and move to the next town. It's no longer like that and we "elders" miss it.

Stop whining.
Get a guild.
/Not signed.

That is hard to do and getting into a good guild and recruiting is even harder than it was before.

The Advent of the heroes was a good call IMO. With 3 chapters out and another coming, the number of people available for certain missions will drop. Now you can add who you need without having to rely on the henches running up to heal you and constantly bunching for AOE. Just like in THK or Hells Precipice, someone who knows what to bring for a team build can supplement a group with "experienced" members of the group. By experienced, I mean npc's with full skill bars in the group and knowledge on using those skills.

I've all but quit the game due to spamming. Its pathetic to see people making others mad thinking they'll sell what they have by the volume of chat entries they have. I still support my guild by signing on nightly and saying hi so they dont appear to have an inactive player. I've also moved on to another established game until this is somehow resolved. If you think the trade spam is bad, try an American district in Temple of the Ages when America has favor. Its a madhouse.

Guild Wars is a great game, some of the people playing though, need some lessons on getting along with others. Its not the games fault for this, but the fact that conduct is allowed is why people have a fuss. I've used "Ask A Question" numerous times to see if they'd do something about the volume of spamming that goes on. The replies I get inform us to come to a fansite and air it out for the community. So Lmao Roflus, if you have a problem with the content, I shall direct you to Guild Wars Support. The gripes in game are directed here from them. Numerous posts have been made about spamming being out of control, and they send us to a fansite to discuss it. The volume of posts about this has surely caught their eye, but no luck in alleviating the problem besides the Party window with minimal ad space to use.

I can deal with new players and helping them. If others actually helped new players rather than call them noobs or simply kicking them to the curb, maybe more experienced players will evolve. What I can't deal with though is the sheer number of people who disregard others with their disruption of the game itself.

Better get yourself a large guild for socializing.

Heroes are fine.

I kinda agree and disagree.
When I quitted guilds, having no Tag nor Cape gave me a lot of whispering.
Finding a guild is easy.
If you're not pleased with your guild, warn your guild leader and leave. As soon as you will be in town you'll get a lot of whisper for joining.
There is no "good guild". There is "like minded" guilds. Guilds for fun. Guilds for hardcore PVE. Guilds for HArdcore PvP. RP guilds. Guilds with only 18+ guys in. Guilds with only girls. Only some of them may suit you.
However I agree recruting has become difficult. Not because there is a lack of players. But because too much players nowadays see guilds as a supermarket. When they join, they ask for help, items, plats or whatever, and when it comes to ask them for a GvG or HoH, nobody's here.
The issue here is not recruting, it is recruting the good people.
GW's community will feel better when most of players will stop asking what their guild can do for them, and start awondering what they can do for their guild.

This is so sad. I always knew I started playing GW too late and the game has evolved such that spam/scam and n00b (as opposed to newb) became major annoyances (even to newb like me). I'll probably never see that, unless I'm lucky in finding a good guild (I'm taking my time here) or one of the nice guys I can read here apparently.

May be we need to start an online strike or a virtual revolution? Bring back the spirit in the game? (instead of waiting for him to come back ... hey people! come back to Tyria! outposts are empty ) This is not the kind of thing a little nothing like me can do, while elders and guilds can easily start a community movement.

Guild Wars II: The Rebirth (utopia? )

If you choose to make it a single player game then it is a single player game, but the choice is yours. You can still find a group for just about anything if you want


Finding a "good guild" is simply finding a guild you mesh with - Niche Guilds are the way to go - we recently decided to re-vamp our guild to a couples/families guild. The change around takes some time but we anticipate it will be worth the effort.

Find one that matches what you are looking for.

you need a good guild for PVE???!!!! ok thats it. now i know GW is dying....

You can't expect to get into a "good guild" with no experience.
Players that started playing GW 1,5 year ago know how hard it was to make fame and win battles. They made experienced through that and they became more succesfull. You just can't expect them to let a newbie join, just like that. They prefer people they played with over time and have a Friendslist to use too.
The game became overflooded with players that were lucky to join a good group and have r6 in no time. Reading the post to an end will show you that I know that this happens!

Hence... to prevent getting a Guild to disband fast because of too many players. The "good guilds" are difficult to reach.

As is my own Guild
For example:
- We recently decided not to take people under 18. They just didn't fit, was our experience, in our Guild where the average age over 15 players is 25.
- We never made a problem with low ranked players since we look for people that fit with the rest. Lots joined and made r6-7 within sort time. Having fun and playing is a must. But the Fun was getting less and less after allmost everyone reached r9/10 and new non-ranked players kept holding us back. So we felt we needed to change the rules... after we did that we increased the succes.

I write this to give some idea on how many "good guilds" handle new members and why they are hard to reach.

You don't even need to be good yourself for PvE. If you're decent at the game and can make heros that don't consist of Koss using Mending then you'll be fine on your own throughout the game until the gate of Pain, and maybe even through that. I may be wrong, but I believe all Tyrian and Canthan Missions are also doable with just heros, but I haven't completely thought that statement through so I could be wrong.

So true, I was asked to join an australian guild once, since I am dutch I would be on at moments that the rest of the guild would be asleep. They needed me to do GvG matches but i'm not gonna do those at 4 o clock in the morning. Some other guild wanted me to join as a faction farmer because they held House zu Helzer, I love an AB match every now and then, but I'm not going to play them because i HAVE to bring in 5k faction a day. I'd rather go for some serious PvP then since AB isn't much of a challenge anymore anyway.
The best sort of thing I have been in until now was a PvP/PvE alliance because me being in actually made a difference. I helped a lot of people finishing missions with my monk back then and they were really happy to have me around and I always got nice presents since I am too lazy to farm. Some PvP as well from time to time. A win/win situation really (Too bad the alliance leader kicked all the guilds out because he/she was kind of a fruitcake but hell, shit happens :P).

I share a handful of your issues, but before I talk about what I do and don't like I have to say:

Saying that someone should bugger off if they have complaints about the game's system is complete BS. Just because you don't like something does not in any way mean that you must simply stop playing. If you care about a game you WILL criticize. That is what makes everything in this world the best it can be: criticism, reexamination, and improvement.

It really steams me when I see "zomg stop complaining and go play sumthin' ELSE!?!!" That's such unecessary BS, and saying it makes you about as useless as the buttcrack of the person who was originally criticizing some aspect of the game that they would like to see improved.

- - -

I will say to the original poster that you should probably be more specific with your issues concerning Heroes Ascent. What sort of skills should be rebalanced, and how? Should more skills be introduced, or a few completely removed? Just give a few more details and I think you'll recieve fewer complaints about your criticism.

Heroes are, to me, great. I love having customizable henchmen, but I think that my reasons are split 50/50 based on the actions of players before and after the update (Nightfall) which added them into the game world. That is, at first I thought they were great because they were little buddies I could control, give weaponry that suited a certain build to, etc. I could also use them to try out my new ideas for PvE builds in the field, often several different builds at a time - For instance, I really love playing a Warrior and with my Koss and Goren Heroes, as well as my own tank, I can run three different tank builds at once without having to tromp back into town and reset, meaning I can go out to areas where the enemies are decent in strength and test builds one at a time if need be.

These days my reasons for why heroes are great have changed. Heroes don't complain when they've accrued up to 60% death penalty, no matter what the reason for that accumulation. They simply look at me and say "what should we do?" Heroes are as good as the players in charge of them (I usually have each skill bar above my own and manually control a few at once), which means that if I am feeling good I can usually get things done with them, without the griping of others. Heroes also do not rage quit. I can't tell you how many times someone has said "BAH!" and left in the middle of a mission, has dropped their connection, or has suddenly popped into a tough battle with "sry guys, gtg." I understand that some of these things can't be helped, but for certain missions I'd rather get things done the first time through.

As for Heroes Ascent, I can't really comment much on it. I don't PvP too often anymore. I just don't have the desire to right now; I've been asked several times, especially lately, but I haven't had it in me to go look for a group, trudge through a few runs, gain a few fame and go back to what I'm doing. I usually only PvP if I feel I'm in the mood for a long session, as that's what a few runs quickly turn into.

- - -

As far as the silence in towns and outposts go, which others in this thread have commented on, I can't really offer a solution. Anet changed local chat to automatically move WTS to trade chat, but now folks are just using W-T-S or W T S, or W|T|S, etc. You can't get rid of all the variations of it, so I would imagine that now that global chat is this way, there won't be a viable solution to it any time soon. This is why I usually head a few districts back when going to large cities like Lion's Arch, Kamadan, Ascalon, etc. (Shing Jea is an exception, as, while Factions may not seem as active now, it is always full of chatty, fun folks) if I want to do anything other than buy or sell, because you just can't escape it.

- - -

I'd love to find a good PUG these days, but I find that, outside of Tyria, it's not extremely difficult, but oftentimes too taxing to be worth my time to try and hook up with some real folks for a mission. The solution offered earlier by someone, being "Find a better guild" is such a juvenile solution. This game wasn't created with the mentality that you will only find good players within your guild to help you. If it was, the folks at Anet have some serious growing up to do as far as approaching a Player Versus Environment situation - Tyria and the original comraderie of the gamers within Guild Wars proves that they had the best intentions in mind which, for the time, worked wonderfully.

It's got to do with mentality. I was watching This Old House on television yesterday and one of the individuals on the show was commenting about the Energy use of America - the fact that we contain 5% of the world's population and use 25% of the world's energy. To him, the reason for this mass consumption was a mindset. We had the money, so we felt we were entitled to as much energy as we could afford. The same goes for the mentality of a vast number - definitely, DEFINITELY not all - of the players I've saddled up with in Guild Wars since the introduction of Nightfall. We have heroes, the missions aren't hard, so we feel that because we have the means to do things by ourselves at the first whim we can just drop a group or play like the group is a bunch of heroes whose goal in life is only to support us, etc.

Disclaimer: I understand that most of what I say here is very personal, but as I only see the world from my point of view directly, though I understand and respect the point of view of others, it's the angle from which I have to speak, based on my in-game experiences over the time I've owned Guild Wars: Prophecies, Factions, and Nightfall.

Diablo 2 > Gw

Out of all the "guild wars is dying" and "guild wars used to be good" Threads, I think you have hit upon a very important aspect that no one has commented on. I was thinking about all the threads on this subject and I thought about this aspect of the game as well.

I think the threads about this issue are about complaining WITHOUT any constructive ideas or reasons why things have changed. What I think players should do is look at the reasons why they love Prophecies so much and then look at what changes in the new chapters has hurt gameplay in their minds.

Lord Dobo has hit upon one of the reasons for the so-called "degradation" of the game. Pacing. Pacing. Pacing. Prophecies, in my mind did this very well. Lets look at some examples.

Pre Sear: I, for one, LOVE the idea of the Pre Sear area. I love that fact that new, low level characters are kept seperate from the high level players and equipment. No level 5 characters wearing the highest armor in the game or carrying a max damage weapon.I like how there are a set number of skills for each class to get and learn to use. I have commented on numerous occasions how I did not like how the new chapters allow the mingling of low level characters with high level characters. I think starter islands should be just that: For starting characters only! Reinstituting this would begin to help the game I think.

Skills: In Prophecies each class has its own line of quests that give skills as rewards. This was a great idea. You continued to earn new skills and most of the time you at least tried them all out to see what worked, Like Lord Dobo pointed out. And you continued to earn skills throughout most of the game, even for you secondary. This getting a handfull of skills and then having to buy the rest for 1K a pop is just ridiculous IMO. Some players cannot afford to buy all the skills they need for both their primary and secondary profs. Some players are completely ridiculed when asking what are the best skills to buy. NEWS FLASH--They may just be trying to save themselves time and money on NOT buying useless skills. Give them a break and help them out.

Leveling: The pace of leveling was near perfect,IMO, in Prophecies. Heck, most of the time, people wouldn't hit level 20 until they got to the dessert! Reaching level 20 was a goal, an achievment, something special. Not with the new chapters, they rush you to level 20 so fast its just crazy. Why? Why do we HAVE to be level 20 to enjoy the majority of the game? It makes absolutely no sense to me at all. Now when you reach level 20 all the enemies you fight are lvl 22 or higher. Back in Prophecies, you could be level 15 and get owned by a mob of lvl 10 monsters if you weren't careful. Please, please, please Anet, put a slower leveling curve in the new chapters.

I also think that all max armor and max dmg weapons should have a level restriction on them. You can't wear the best armor or carry the best weapons until you are level 20. That would help to keep the high end items OUT of the low end arenas. This would give a very good reason for reaching Lvl 20. As it is now, it means nothing to be lvl 20 at all. Heck, I would even be ok with lvl restrictions on missions. This would make things interesting.

Running: Hey, I had no problems with the running in Tyria. You played through the game with one or 2 characters and don't want to have to do every mission again with a new one? Fine by me. Just as long as you have to be lvl 20 to wear Drok's armor. Want to be power leveled to lvl 20 by a guildie? Fine by me.

The thought of having to do every single mission in the new chapters with each character I want to bring through makes me physically ill. Number one, I just don't have that kind of time on my hands. Number two, I loathed the city in Factions and never want to do those missions again. So why should the areas I want to get to be closed off? Like I said before, if you put lvl restrictions on armor and weapons I know that I am either going to have to do the missions (ugh), grind out xp from killing monsters, or get power leveled before I can equip them. How would this affect anyone else? How does it affect the "balance" of the game? I don't think it would. Running allows people to skip parts of the game they did before and didn't like and would rather not be forced to do again. Big whoop. How does that hurt me?

These are just a few exact reasons why I think the game has changed so much since the "golden" days of Prophecies. I don't like all the complaining threads anymore than the rest of you do. Instead so just saying why you don't like the game, give us EXACT ways you would fix it.

Heros are a self-destructive notion to the PuG in the first place. Why do people hate PuGs? Half the people have no idea how to prioritize targets, and when someone is calling a target, you're lucky if anyone at all listens. Heros, on the other hand, can be locked on to your targets and commanded to do whatever.

People in PuGs tend to believe they are god's gift to GW and tend to overagro and perform acts of stupidity as a result. Heros, can be ordered to stay back, or follow their leader if you're trying to sneak around a difficult mob.

People in PuGs tend to have the worst choice in skills ever. Everyone has been in a party with a monk who goes echo/mending, a warrior spamming frenzy and power attack, an ele using firestorm, etc. With heros, you can make good builds from your own unlocked skills that will work in a particular situation.

So the good players who can't stand the PuGs heroway everything. The bad players on the other hand tend to believe heros suck, generally because A) They suck and can no longer rely on the other humans to pick up the slack, or B) Because they've been using retarded builds, they have no skill selection and equip their heros with retarded builds, making half the team gimped. So the bad players continue to look for PuGs and the good players move on to heros/guild teams, and eventually there are no decent players left in PuGs. The problem compounds over time and soon it'll be impossible to get a PuG for anything.

Any idea how many times I failed Gate of Pain trying to use a PuG? Finally I just brought monk heros set to spam LoD and prot skills, and the mission was an easy success.

So in conclusion, heros are indirectly causing the destruction of the PuG. I can't really think of a viable solution to the problem, although personally I think that your 3 heros shouldn't be in your party by default, because it's already hinting at the fact that you should pick up some henchies and go. You almost never see anyone in a city without the little blue "4" over their head.

I'm going over my in-game History in my head, taking into account my time spent in Prophecies most carefully, and I did really enjoy the quests - extending through a majority of the game - to obtain skills and the like. The introduction to certain skills within pre-searing, and certain other skills in just-post-searing Ascalon, and beyond were wonderful.

I'm not exactly sure why A-net decided to allow you to purchase the majority of the skills you have unlocked in Ascalon City, now that I think of it. Straight out of pre-searing my elementalist was able to purchase Rodgort's invocation, Meteor shower, and any other number of high powered skills. I did so, figuring "hell, why not?" After a little while I really wished that I didn't. I didn't need those skills at that level, and felt no sense of accomplishment for having them in my bar, as I didn't have to work towards obtaining them other than to jump out of pre-searing.

- - -

The idea for restricting the armor available in the game with level requirements based on the Armor Rating is magnificent in my mind. While it is a very different game, I recall playing through the original Neverwinter Nights and discovering a piece of armor within a crypt in the first explorable area (the plague-stricken city), only to find that I was level 5 and had to be level 7 to wear it! Man, I was so put out, but when I finally got to wear it (though it was fairly unnattractive), I felt so accomplished.

Being level 20 to wear drok's armor, or perhaps being Ascended to wear the various 15k sets of armor, created a sense of accomplishment that does, to me, give you a reason to reach higher levels, to spend enough time playing and familiarizing yourself with the game (or, if you feel like being cheesy, to be power-leveled).

A system for the restriction of weapon useage that I always found interesting was one I found in an older game called "Arx Fatalis." I distinctly remember being unable to wield a certain dagger which I took from a dead rat-man until I had X number in my dexterity attribute. Something along those lines would interest me for Guild Wars, though with the requirements currently set on weaponry I don't ever forsee it occuring, as Anet would have to re-set the workings of Prophecies, Factions, Nightfall, etc. Just something I always found interesting.

- - -

I'm not sure that anyone is really going to go for this idea, however, of restriction as far as armor is concerned. The mentality of the average player who wished to have that max armor before they are of a max level is just too far gone - like the mentality of the energy-user that I mentioned in my previous post, the "I have the money, so I should be able to obtain/do whatever I can afford" is a very strong one that many will fervently defend.

Good stuff, though. I really think that this is a "right track" to be heading down.

Sorry but no.
You've all right to complain or rant or vent if:
- You're not telling your e-life.
- You back up your rant with facts rather than feelings, numbers rather than "everyone" "a few" or "a lot".
- You actually make propositions to improve the perceived or real flaws in the game, like the PVE island, the auction house, the smart armor system.
- You have READ the forum RULES and did a SEARCH before posting any thread. Having a "GW is dying" post popping up every day is useless. Even more if it is adressing topics (Pugs/Heroes, Repetitiveness, etc...) that have been beaten to death.
- There are a lot of petitions/suggestions on this forum. Just sign them, unsign them, or leave them. Many propositions are made by smart players to improve the game. You've just to browse the forums.

If none of this rule is applied before making a thread, do not wait for a good feedback. Because such a thread has most chances to be, as you so kindly said Anghardel, BS.

But don't you have a chance to earn these same skills by completing quests? I cannot remember for sure, its been a long time. If so the you really had a choice. You could spend the money you had to buy the skill OR you could wait and earn it later on in the game for free.

Hmmm....maybe......um Im thinking about skills and the whole sense or accomplishment and your comments on how in other games you had to be X level to use item Z and so on. Maybe the reason why people think so many skills are useless and that there are too many of them is that we get ALL or have access to ALL the skills in the game (barring Elites) so early on in the game that we A) don't take time to actually use "useless" skills to see if the actually do work in some instances or B) pick only the "best skills, ingoring all others.

If skills were given out in a similar way to Prophecies, where by you had to progress through the game and earn the majority of your skills doing quests, maybe you would see people coming up with more uses for "useless" skills. I mean really, you would have to make what you were given work or you would die. Now, Once you unlock the skill, should they be unlocked for you account so you are not forced to do them again? Hmm, I would have to say Yes, once you did the quest to get the skill then you would not be forced to do it again.

Thoughts?

The note on being more specific is one that I agree on. I do not, however, feel that bashing for the constant asking of the same or similar questions is necessary. I would hate to see how some of the people on this forum and within the game would treat their own children. Having worked with young ones and interested older individuals for the whole of my life to date I can say that no matter where you go you are going to run into folks who would rather ask in the hopes of recieving new answers different from what were given to the previous questioner than simply look for past solutions.

I can see it now. "Mommy..." "STOP ASKING QUESTIONS! Go ask someone else."

The only thing that unecessarily crude comments towards people who ask questions do is discourage the asking of questions altogether. While I can understand that repetitious questions might become a bother, you aren't a teacher, and aren't obligated to respond to anything that you may see.

Want to know where the comraderie has gone? I don't have to look much further than responses like that to know *shrug*.

The point I make is that the unnecessary rudeness is not needed. Manners are in short supply as it is; interjecting to say nothing more than "zomg use search" doesn't do much. While the subject matter may be similar, on an issue such as a person vendetta against something, or a personal reaction to something, the creation of a new topic in which to detail your concerns - though the original poster here should have offered more specifics - is not useless.

I say this not in response to this thread, but to the countless others, questions both in and out of game, that are met with such contempt and disdain. I don't know about you, but I don't play games to be met with the same negativity that I see every day in the world outside of one such as Guild Wars. It's not that hard to kindly provide a link to another thread the individual could have used instead, or point to the rules and say "you may want to read this," or to ask politely for more details. Snide remarks appear far too often on subjects like this.

- - -

I'm not sure if you can acquire the skills that I mentioned through quests - it's been a while since I quested for skills myself - but what I was hitting on was more of what you mentioned in your second paragraph, which is having access to so many of the higher level skills so early on in the games, especially in Factions and Nightfall, where questing for skills is all but nonexistant (In tyria it's still a feasible course of action).

I've spoken with people in-game about my skill bar only to have them ask "why do you use [X] skill? It's useless." I just answer with "I tried it out a long time ago and it worked." Only having access to certain skills, at least in the lower level areas, can in a way force you to make use of things you wouldn't otherwise. I've found uses for a lot of "lesser skills" in this way - things that are too situation for some, useless in the face of better, costlier skills, etc.

Still when I play Tyrian character to this day I do my best to stay away from skill trainers until I've acquired everything through quests. Because I don't make new chars in Tyria often, I can easily forget the usefullness of a skill available to me early on over time, and it's nice as a refresher. Sometimes I go running out into an explorable area with the most awful build in the world only to find solutions to problems in it and uses for skills in other builds I had in mind.

Beyond the sense of accomplishment, I feel it makes for a more diverse player, which does again increase the effectiveness of that player. Even a skill like Frenzy has its place, albeit a very small one to most people. It's all about how you use it, really, as with every other skill that you would automatically think of as "crummy."

It's not a bad thing that we are given the option of pursuing more complex skills early on in the game, but I am right with you as far as instituting a Tyrian-esque presentation of skills in the earlier parts of the other Guild Wars titles. It could definitely bring about better uses for useless skills, and a wider repertoire of builds per player, potentially. It does all depend on the player, but it would be a nice option to see. I didn't know what the heck I was doing in Factions and Nightfall when I started having to purchase newer skills, and would have preferred questing for them and giving them that quick spin that I did in Tyria.

umm no. the lag in d2 > gw lag though

[QUOTE][QUOTE]then get rid of henchmen as well to force grouping.
DO THAT I AM GONE
you answer your own question and all your reason were there before the heroes.
heroes cant be the problem so it must be the jerk players because the jerks came first right from day one.
not heroes fault........player fault
again not heroes fault
point you make FOR heroes
again player fault not hero fault
player fault again
another point for heroes
.
player fault not hero fault
another point for heroes
exactly why they are not wanted
most of the anti PUG is because of the jerks/spoilers not if they are good.
a so-so player with a frendly approach is usually welcone .
or used to before people were MADE so sick of PUGs they wont touch one now
again player fault
another point for heroes
wrong.
the PUG killed itself long ago and every time they improved the HENCHMEN more people could use them and ditch the jerk PUG
and the PUG is directly responsible for that

Using heros or not is your own choice. You always has the choice to drop your heros and start inviting people. And always use the party search button. There are mission towns full of people but nobody is using the party search button. Heros are only there to fill out the missing roles such as nuker, tank, and healers. It's not about the heros, it's about how players hate to sit around in outpost and wait for 10-20 minutes trying to form a group.


Newbies exist and it's ok! Remember, we all been there. We're not all born pro.

DoA actually need A LOT of coordination. It's almost impossible without using voice communication.

This is why you need to invite people with low rank to join game. There are many 0 rank people out there that are actually good, but never given a chance to join HA groups.

You really think it's about "balancing"? NO! The "balancing" was never part of the game. The skill changes are mearly trying to give you a fresh appeal to the game.

If you play 10 hours a day, of course it'll get boring fast. It's the same as every game. GW was designed to be a MMORPG that actually have an end to it. It was even said in an interview that the dev want to give players the choice of leaving the game at anytime and return to the game years later. So, if you want quit now..it's ok! That's what the devs wanted, to give you the freedom to choose. Or...you can go play WoW if you really have 10 hours a day to play, you'll probably enjoy that more anyways.

Heroes have made the game easier, but I'll bet Anet will just make the next chapter harder, as they can see now the full impact heroes have on the game. Even in Nightfall, there are several missions which are much easier to do when you have at least two real players, as you can more effectively split up to do two different tasks.

I concurr with alot of what was said so far.

Too many life stories and complaints.

Notice, I said complaints, not logical ways to solve actual problems.

In very few games does actual role playing get done, very few people(comparitively) get a kick out of thee and thou, learn to live with sales in a city, you can't sell stuff in the field, so eat it.

Hero's are a great addition to the game, some people only want to play with a couple of RL friends, 90% of the people you meat randomly in a Pug really are stupid. Some people don't have the time required to devote to a guild.
Don't like them, don't use them. There are plenty of guilds with 80+ active members always looking for more people, or so they say.

The only real problems with GW, are smaller technical ones.

For sales and trading.
They need to set aside a district just for peole to trade in...........oh...wait
That's district 1 of any given major city, my bad.
If you want conversation, or even the RPg, use guild chat, private chat, or go to district 2, maybe 3-whatever.
SAles isn't perfect now, and there are plenty of suggestions to fix it, go there and post your solutions.


Aside from those notes of worth, glountz, you did perfect, hit the nail head on and drove it home with one swoop.

This whole thread is a troll/complaint/stfu thread though, and I think it needs to be closed, it became one big outlet for complaints.

Anet have given us all the options we can ask for.

You want to play solo - grab some competitent heroes and some not so competitent henchies and have a go.
Have fun doing it!
Believe it or not a lot of people play this game solo, not because they have to but because they WANT to.
Many people outthere don't want the guild chat experience, they want to play the game by themselves. To those people this is a solo game with some online annoying chat. Good for them, it's a perfectly good single player game.

You can also PUG it! Due to the higher number of outposts now that chapter 2 and 3 are out, Heroes are required to reduce the need for full real players to progress the game. Otherwise waiting for that "need another monk before we can start" would always be there. Thank you Anet.

For those true Guild buddies who regularly/only play with guild mates - well nothing has changed has it. A silent town doesn't hurt your progress through the game now does it? What's the problem?

I really don't know why people are complaining that heroes have ruined the game - they've only opened up more possibilities for many players and addressed the diversification of the player base through 3 chapters which was in danger of seriously killing the game with successive chapters.

Heroes killed GW = fact.

Anet killed farming = fact

Thankgod for Vanguard where you have to work as a team , come join me brothers - Guild Wars is a sinking ship.