Is Anet Deterring Players from Playing Many Characters?

I have 6 characters on my account and I like them all. Nevertheless, I have lately decided to play mostly with my monk and here are two main reasons why:

1) Map and outpost discovery - with each new campaign, every old character has to be brought through it and every new character has to be brought through the new and old campaigns. Don't you just hate it when a friend says something like "let's meet in HzH dist 1" and you are like "oh, wait, my paragon isn't there yet". Someone with all characters would have to go through the nightfall storyline 8 times (with Tyria and Factions chars) and would have to do Tyria and Factions twice each (with paragon and dervish). That's 10 storylines for the 2nd campaign, 14 storylines for the 3rd and probably 18, 22 and 26 storylines for the 4th, 5th and 6th campains. Come on Anet, this is ridiculous, I'm asking that you notice this and do something about it before it gets out of hand.

2) Titles - it takes quite a while to earn titles and some of them even have benefits like treasure hunting and identifying, so I ask myself, when my one character has high rank at this, why do my other characters have to all transfer items to him when salvaging to get better odds? I think anet got it right with pvp titles, they are per-account and not per-character. When I create a new level zero character I can still display a high pvp rank which is the way it should be in my opinion. I think it should be this way for role playing titles as well.


If Anet is interested in making the game better (and having players diversify and play more characters is better in my opinion), here are three proposals:

1) Have outposts discovered by one character available to all other characters (this won't hurt the exploration title since only the outposts may be made available with the actual map remaining cloudy)

2) Make some (if not all) role playing titles per-account and not per-character. I can't help but wonder, why on earth the only role playing titles that Anet made per-account are the lucky/unlucky titles...

3) XP and skill points may also be per-account. If 2 players create a dervish, where one player has played 2000 hours of guild wars with many other characters and the other player is new to guild wars then the veteran is more experienced, even though he is creating a new character. I think we all have many skill points on our primary character which we never use, but our other charcters are sometimes in need of a few.

I'm not saying it will be simple to make these changes. If made, they will definitely screw up other things in the game, for instance, players who have farmed titles/XP and discovered outposts with many chars will say "why are people now getting for free the things that I have worked hard for". I'd like to hear other people's opinion about this

I think Guild Wars was never intended to be a grind-fest for titles, and while the demand for more rewards for huge hours played in PVE, the intent was never that to begin with. And skill points should be per character... per account means you could buy/unlock every skill right away.

I'm not sure if I agree with merging PVE titles... I mean, that's what distinguishes your characters, right?

And Lucia, did you ever have a character named Malaam of Highmoon?

I don't mind the repetitiveness of the campaigns. Prophecies was shiny and new, so I finished with all the toons. Factions I finished with a prophecies toon, and just decided I liked Prophecies better, so when my two Nightfall toons hit Kaineng Center, I went and finished Proohecies. Nightfall is loads of fun, and a bit more challenging. So far I'm done with my Paragon, and almost done with my Ele and War. I probably won't finish it with all of them.

The only thing I hate about Nightfalls, and Factions for that matter, is the farming for points. Like... 'Ok, stop saving the world for a second and go kill things until you're a general', or 'Ok, go save Fort Aspenwood until you've kissed enough butt to make friends.' When I say I hate this, I REALLY HATE THIS.

Prophecies had them both beat with the non-stop storyline.

What's the point in playing PvE if you start off with all outposts?

lol.. go straight to high end areas and get droks armor or whatever, go straight to ring of fire islands and cap whatever you want, go straight to the seer and get infused, or just go straight to the final mission to get the endgame items?

ridiculous..

This is exactly why I, essentially, only have one PvE character now; the thought of playing through the same campaign time and time again just isn't my idea of fun, I'm afraid. Achieving titles like Grandmaster Cartographer on multiple characters is certainly out of the question, haha.

Except that, in both cases, playing local quests solves your whole issue (well, you need to play one of the repeatable quests a few times on the side with the siege turtles - I can never get which side is which straight). Playing quests isn't grind - ignoring them (and in the case of Nightfall never taking a bounty until Kourna) is leaving out big chunks of the story. You may not like it - I absolutely hate playing through Thirsty River - but it is still part of the story. I'm willing to bet that my complaints about Thirsty fall on mostly deaf ears for the same reasons and you wouldn't want a "skip to the end, complete all things" button for the things you like regardless of if I hate them or not. I've never been in Aspenwood and got though quite easily.

Plus faction *is* global so you shouldn't be complaining about that. It already has your solution. Once you have the 10,000 faction (from quests or whatever) you never need do it again - unless you *choose* to spend it on something (and other than an alliance you miss nothing in the game by doing so, and if you are faction farming for an alliance then your complaint is pretty much null and void there also).

The only one that really fits your complaint is Lightbringer points and you do not even mention them - they quest rewards aren't high enough. You should be able to get to rank 3 with mostly quests (given the difficulty level, non-master ones in the RoT) and rank four be minimal grind. From that point on - grind away.

As is, playing two or so hours a day no big deal to get most of my ten characters through nearly everything - just can't goof around in towns. However, they tend to hit a brick wall once they hit the RoT and need to grind Lightbringer points for the skills. Unless the upcoming "hard mode" changes anything I'll probably get four or so through nightfall due to that. No big deal, not really a complaint, it most likely will stop just my assassin and warrior from completing it as the other four characters classes I use mostly for skill unlocks and to goof off.

Quoted by Lucia

I would like to add a little remark to this.

I think that the whole concept of giving PvE titles is now tottaly blown out of proportion.

Before I carry on, I point out that that I am not a PvP freak but more of a PvE freak although I am a rank 5.

If I am not wrong about this, the whole concept of having titles for PvE came about when moans and groans from the PvE'ers where congregated and heard by ANET.

I believe the moan was why rank3+ emotes bla bla bla.

Ok, having said this, I think ANET, wishing to keep the PVE side happy introduced the title system but where will titles stop, no one knows now as every once in a while a new title comes out.

I personnaly think that the outstanding titles for PvE should be the following 2 and I say why (maybe stating the obvious doh):

1/ Protector Title: It shows you were arsed enough to do all missions/bonuses etc.

2/ Cartography Title: Shows that you read the book, saw the film and got the t-shirt.

The rest of the titles are just stupid and in the majority of cases expensive to achieve like for instance the drunkard title and treasure hunter.

All for now .........

Original post is 100% spot-on. To truly deck out one PVE character with good titles, ie: Legendary Survivor, 100% explored, KOABD etc. takes an insane amount of time for one character.

To try to do it for more than one character changes it from an insane amount of time, to a ludicrously insane amount of time.

PVE titles should indeed be account wide. Except for Protector titles because those are the only ones that are quick to max.

Damn right - except for the endgame items, which should require total mission completion. Other than that, what's your problem? There's a heck of a lot still to do in GW once you've finished a campaign. Why should you have to grind through familiar missions/quests all over again? This is a game, it isn't life - there shouldn't be that much repetitive toil, just to experience a different class.

I think certain titles should definately be made account-wide, but not count toward KoBD (so as not to 'cheapen' it). Specifically Treasure Hunter, Wisdom, Sunspear, and Lightbringer. These titles actually have an effect on the game, and can be seen as required by some.

The other titles can remain character-specific for the main reason that it doesn't matter at all. I have 8 characters that I use regularly (all 8 are at least in Vabbi, 4 have beaten Nightfall, 2 have beaten Prophecies and Factions as well), and as far as titles go, I just choose which character I think would seem fitting to have that title. My warrior? The Sweet Tooth. My Necro? The Explorer. My Ranger? The Survivor.

I think as far as role play goes, it gives them a little more distinction. The four titles I mention earlier just seem to cry out "utility" rather than "personality", though. After all, once you get Kurzick or Luxon Faction with one character, it carries over to all, why wouldn't Lightbringer and Sunspear, as well? Just makes more sense, to me.

Uhmm...maybe you're just lazy? ;-)

I have 12 chararacters, 11 have finished cantha, 10 (almost 11) have finished elona, and 7 have finished prophecies. The fact that they offer character slots to buy also indicates that they are not trying to discourage you from playing more characters. In fact the last pre order package offered a free character slot. It can be a bit repetitious at times, as anything else in life, but perhaps Anet just wants you to have plenty to do for each character...

Lately in fact I had some fun just fighting characters from other campains back to Ascalon just for the fun of it.

As a side note: I haven't finished Prophecies with as many charactes since it's basically the campaign that give the least satisfaction to finish..the ending is sorta lame and there is no reward as there is for the others. A green Exalted Aegis is still better than nothing...

perhaps not all out posts, but what about cities, add a new location or re-vamp old one to be like a central point for all ur characters. only really need two in a new chapter. and I mean ur gotta get atleast one character there, right now 4 of my slots haven't even got out side of the cities the boat lands in.

I disagree with all of these. I'm very big on storyline. If I stop liking the storyline, I stop playing. I don't start looking for ways to get around the storyline. I don't understand why there's such a big thing with people wanting to play through all games with all professions. To me it seems a bit insane, but I guess everyone likes different things (Don't get me wrong. I am not flaming anyone. I am more insane than most of you, since I decided recently to get legendary defender of ascalon, and god am I sick of killing charr).

The whole point of PvE is to play through the storyline. Now, from a storyline point of view, having all characters able to access outposts that are halfway across a continent when they first arrive, or having characters with shared titles such as sunspear when they've never been to Elona, is just a ridiculous notion, you have to admit. And there's a few simple solutions to this:

1) Only play with one main character, and maybe a few others just casually.
2) Don't play through a campaign with more than one character at once. Have them spaced out across all continents, and play each at the same pace.
3) Don't play the game as much. Only play an hour or two per day instead of four or five or eight or ten.
4) Various combinations of the above suggestions.

So no, I don't think that these concepts should be added. However, I wouldn't mind seeing the wisdom and treasure hunter titles changed to account wide. For these two, I don't care if a completely new character starts off with a huge amount of chest open. Simply because of the cost that goes into these titles, and the absolute nuisance of switching characters just to salvage stuff.

why not?, it dosnt take much brain to figure it out.

Is it, where is that written?

GG

lol

i agree with aron searle.

What I do, is play the professions on non-primary characters, to get some kind of feel for two or more classes on one character (switch skills based on mish). Scythe thumper, melee paragon, fast-casting ele. They may not be 100% as efficient as a primary version, but it is PvE so it's not like it matters in most places. Though scrounging up skill points is a challenge sometimes.

Remember 4 character slots? No, I don't think Anet ever expected people to build up all primaries as they love to do....

Name me an RPG game in which your second/third/fourth/etc character can go ANYWHERE or do ANYTHING your first character can without any afford?

(Of course without cheating.)

Are there any? I don't think so.

Actually from a story point of view, it's nuts to have a character that can't visit some towns, even in his home kingdom, until he's done the quests and missions to get there. And what great fantasy epic features one character who does everything? I'd rather have a sense of an ongoing campaign that I can travel though, participating as little or as much as I wish. The approach from Factions onwards is like RPG meets Mario. I want freedom. By all means reward me for participation, but don't keep making do the same old stuff, or I'm going to be doing some walking of my own before Ch4 comes out.

If I (for example) want to play a wandering trader, who just buys and sells, or a drifter that chooses his fights for reasons entirely of his own, why shouldn't I? It's not your game, I'm playing, it's *mine*. My lack of interest in the story doesn't affect anyone else.

i think some of the titles should be switched from 1 chary to accountwide

*maybe* defender of ascalon

*maybe* drunk/sweettooth

lightbringer title could become "unlocked" at level 20, account based

treasure hunting and wisdom title account based

ive played the game for a year now, and i havent really gone after wisdom/treasure hunter title, apart from some chest runs in fow awhile back, so i might just reach rank 1 if its account based.

think all my chacters only have 1 maxed title, if that :/. most have a title however

jongo, nightfall (mainland) is semi unlocked, so u can get about abit without doing storyline, but u wont able to get too far

Well, I guess that puts me in my place. I must have an inferior brain because I don't understand why people want to waste that much of their life on playing a computer game. I mean, if you enjoy it, go ahead (honestly, I wouldn't think less of you as a person), but why complain about it taking too much time afterwards? And why make stupid, pointless comments like the one quoted thinking that it's a good argument, or it adds to the discussion? At least my posts have at least some thought put into them. It really doesn't take much brain to type more than two lines.

And let the flame wars commence. Bring it on, aron searle.

QFT

Outposts should definetly not be account wides. Certain titles such as Wisdom, Treasure, etc should but most should not.

This isn't a matter of Anet or GW encouraging you to play only one character - that's the way PvE games are. Since PvE characters represent an investment of time, the creation of multiple characters is always a 'waste of time' from an efficiency standpoint. This is the same in any MMO - if you spent all of your time working on one character, you would be 'better off' than working on multiple ones. The exception, of course, is the character that you make specifically to perform a task (assuming that character is much better at that task than your existing character).

Oh im sorry are we changing the question now?

Ill quote it again for you to remind you

Ill explain this to you, when you can explain to me why people like certain foods.

If you cant get what im hinting at, you fail.


p.s you also forgot to tell me where its written what PVE must be.

Those two quotes lead to exactly the same conclusion. Only one was phrased as a rhetorical question and one was phrased as more of an argument statement. I didn't change the question, just redecorated the argument to make it easier for some people to read what I wrote. Some people don't understand the point in rhetorical questions, after all.

Fail? Do I get a cookie if I pass? Hmm... Different foods... Does it have something to do with different preferences?

However, I didn't know you could compare food to GW... not even as an analogy. Food is something you need. GW is not (or at least I'll keep telling myself I'm not addicted). The primary difference, though, is this:

Food = more time... GW = less time. The two concepts are a bit antithetical.

ps... Alright, you got me there! It's not written anywhere. What I should have said is something like "The primary point of PvE is to play the storyline." That's not written anywhere either, but if you have a look at the amount of people who create PvE chars and how many of them are actually playing the game, then you'll get what I mean.

Ut oh, careful, I smell a flame-fight about to blow.

So as to be on topic...

It's already been stated. This is how most roleplaying games are. Yes it's boring going through with multiple characters, and yes it's somewhat unfair that certain PvE titles give benefits, but otherwise it would not make sense game wise. Why would one character have an area unlocked that they've never been to, but that's only been explored by another character? Why would one character have the benefits of a Devourer of Wisdom (assuming a character of yours has gotten that high in the rank) if the newer toon has never identified an item?

Guild Wars can only become a grind-fest depending on your goals. If you want to just relax and play and go through the missions but through a different perspective via new character, nothing discourages that. If you wanna totally deck all your characters out with max titles, be ready to set aside a couple hundred hours of your time and prepare for some dreadful grinding.

Yet another "PvE should be account based" thread. This'd kill the game. Completely. People that want to play the game want to play the game, not skip to the end and farm. Deal.

Of my various toons, I've got diff chars that serve different purposes. Monk is there to run through new campaigns to get completion since in PvE folks *always* want monks for missions. Its plain faster for me to blitz through the missions in the first weeks. Prior to heros, this was the best way to get into a group and have a chance at passing a mission. Really only have three Protector titles here. Decent progress on drunkard title - but only because I started drinking to make monking for PuGs interesting!

I also have my ranger who excels at mapping. One GMC and two MC titles on him along with Protectors for all three campaigns. Obviously, this is also my char for skill capping, identifiying, and treasure chest opening. Typically he's the third char I complete a new chapter with.

Who's the second char? So far its been a local newly created char for that chapter. Lets me enjoy and experience the stuff that foreign chars miss and see the differences. My mesmer from Factions and derv from Nightfall.... will prolly not do much more unless I run into some fun build or situation for playing.

A few other characters that I've played up to various levels for fun. My necro was great fun for farming UW til the patch. My ele is my mainstay for events - she's a great dancer and is awesome in snowball fights.


Would I like all my chars to benefit from the Ranger's explorations? A little darth on my shoulder says yes. Heck, I'm sure that GMCs would be much easier if the exploration of your entire group of chars was combined. However the sense of accomplishment I know I'll feel once I have all three GMCs would be diminished some how. Will I eventually delete my lesser used chars? Nah, I get free slots with each new chapter so its not like I'm desperate for space (I always leave one spot open in addition to my PvP slot just in case a preview event comes up!).

We all have our favorite character. Why not feel that character is the little bit better gifted because of the time you've put in? Nepotism is bad!

OT: I want a benefit for getting GMC! Why do folks that farm chests get improved performance? Why do awesome famers get increased balth limits? Sure I can flash my uber title (), but giving my ranger a 1% better chance of ... being cool? well, that's much better!

Outposts and and xp/skill points account wide sounds ridiculous. Some titles (not lightbringer or sunspear) being made account wide would be alright.

I agree with
-Treasure Hunter --> people only open chest on one character usually
-Wisdom --> people transfer all their golds to one character most of the time anyway

Sunspear --> after you get rank 7 on one character, it shouldn't matter for the other, non-Nightfall natives but it doesn't matter since the quests don't require non-natives to have a rank

Lightbringer is iffy. The real problem at hand is the low amount of point you get per kill. If it were upped to 7 points a kill (like Sunspear points) it wouldn't be as bad.

I agree that some titles should be account-wide, but definitely not experience or outposts. They should just make the campaigns semi-runnable so that really boring parts (a.k.a Vabbi) can be bypassed for those of us on our third or higher run-through.

At least this isn't as bad as the thread a long while back where it was suggested that PvE characters should start the game at level 20 with max armor and weapons.

i have 10 chars.i like the versatility and the different gameplay from each one.i want to have the time to finish the game for each one alone.if everything got unlocked from the beggining i wouldnt have something to do when i was bored from pvp.so..everything is just fine by me :P

I've found that nothing helps you understand a wide variety of skill sets and builds available to each profession than to play the game through with each of those professions. You are learn basic techniques, then add greater and greater flexibility, skills, and experience as you work through the game.

I really enjoy Guild Wars but don't PvP, so completing campaigns with every profession is what I do. I've gotten thousands of hours of entertainment with my 13 characters. I've got all 3 Protector titles on 3 of them, and working on the rest. I hate to admit I'm happy Chapter 4 hasn't release yet as I'm able to get a lot done prior to the next release.

The great thing about this game is it offers a lot of different things to a lot different player types. Just because 1 player does not prefer to play through the game over and over, doesn't mean Anet is discouraging this activity, it just means that aspect of the game isn't for you.

I see that the majority does not share my opinion. Basically what made me decide to stick to one character was when I considered playing a mesmer in Domain of Anguish. I have a Canthan mesmer, and in order to play DoA with her, I'd have to cap the elite skill in the bar from Tyria, and complete Nightfall with her, and all just to play at one outpost with a mesmer. I dunno, but it seems that these demands are quite heavy when all I want to do is enjoy playing one aspect of the game with a mesmer. I'm sure others have had a similar experience as well.

Well its just not how the game works ok? =)

And about lucky/unlucky, thats cuz its an event title

I have 5 characters, each theoretically in charge of skill unlocks for 2 professions. The only ones I really like are my monk, my sin, and sometimes my necro. It would be cool to unlock every single skill with PvE, but I'm starting to think it would not be fun. I'm looking at 9 more playthroughs of campaigns, and more as more professions and chapters come out, and it's not a pretty sight.

I'm not whining so much as coming to the realization that GW is so huge that I won't have the time to do everything every way.

Only my warrior and ranger have finished both chapter 1 and chapter 2, so when I get around to playing Nightfall I guess Ill need to pick one of them. I just cant stomach the idea of making a Paragon or Dervish, then having to go back and play thru chapter 1 & 2 all over again just to unlock the elites and important towns. Seems like a major waste of my time.


Theres also nothing worse than when a friend invites you to join their party, and he says "hey bring your monk", and I might comment "oh damn, I havent opened that up with my monk yet" sorry.

Maybe make it so we can at least control one of your friends heroes or something just so you can still play with them. If my friend has a hero monk, then I dont see any harm in letting me control it if he invites me to do so. It wouldnt affect rank or titles or accessing armors ahead of time, but it would give me the option to play with my friends when they need me, and would provide more flexibility when organizing a group with friends.

PvE titles should all be character based.

The titles are there for those players that want, not need, to have something to do in the game once they've finished all missions and bonuses. PvE should be about your characters and their interaction with the environment, hence the classification PvE - Player vs Environment.

If you just want instant gratification with no investment and sense of accomplishment find another game to play.

Total laziness is not the answer!

I have a character of each class. My XP on them runs form a few thousand (Mesmer in pre) to several million. I have never had any problems playing though the game as I enjoy playing though as a different class (makes it seem a whole different game).

As for the titles, I think they are fine as they stand, but would not mind seeing treasure and wisdom switched to account based.