Is Anet Deterring Players from Playing Many Characters?

Let's change that to ->

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PvP 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. PvP should be about your characters and their interaction with players, hence the classification PvP - Player vs Player.

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

Total laziness is not the answer!
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For some of the PvE titles, there are no different than PvP prestige titles. Not all PvE titles should be account based and definitely, the PvE outpost/skill unlock suggestion should definitely not be account based. If you are arguing to keep PvE titles to be solely character based, are you also arguing that PvP titles be changed to character based too? If you are against account wide titles entirely, that's one thing.

I'd rather see more and more non-linear progress through missions, or else the option to do 1 mission multiple times to progress instead of several different missions. or something else. It's a shame that we play with a lvl 20 cap most of the time, yet my guildmates/allies still have trouble getting groups going with each other because everyone's chars are at different points in the story. There is no enemy/equipment inflation to worry about, so for most places there isn't a good gameplay reason to prevent all lvl 20+ players from gaming with each other. It's mostly there because the story is primarily told through missions.

My suggestion: unlocked outposts are only accessible by "ascended" (weh no su, Hunted!) characters on an account. The one exception is the final "boss" mission of the campaign, which you cannot enter without doing all the foreigner (post-noob-island) missions. But at least now you can do them in any order and with your friends if you like, and anyone whose been through the game before should already know the story flow.

For titles: wisdom/treasure are pretty stupid as character-based because people already send all of their keys/rares from other chars to a single char just for the title. Skill hunter means capping a ton of skills that are completely useless to said character, which is silly. Let me see a player's prowess in mastering skills from all classes on an appropriate primary, not for wasting skill points. Cartographer I also vote as silly because no-one is going to get that more than once, the notion of "re-exploring" is rediculous, and I'm all for an account-wide fog removal even if outposts aren't unlocked in this way. Some have good reasons to stay character based, survivor is obvious, legendary defender of ascalon, the protector titles (since playing these missions is different with different primaries), KoaBD because it already counts account and character-specific titles appropriately.

Just make it possible to fight/run to any outpost but only be able to do the missions/quests if you have completed the prerequisite missions/quests. Nightfall has mostly done that but it could do more.

I would argue that PvP titles not be so much as character based but more slot based.

Meaning that when you reroll your PvP character, you can keep all PvP titles that slot has acquired for PvP.

Yes, I could definitely support the elimination of account linking of all titles and have each title either character or slot based.

I say FREAKIN MINI BEATLES FOR ALL RAWR!

/end rant

IMO, profession based, rather than slot based, would probably be better. Yes, you're a rank 9 warrior. So? If you never played monk in HA, you'll probably suck. Slot based wouldn't really mean anything but profession based would.

Couldn't have said it better myself.

And for me it has nothing to do with farming...farming is boring and tedious too. It would be nice if a friend needed help in GoM, and they needed a (insert profession here) if I could say "Sure be right there as opposed to Sorry have only gotten my ranger that far"

I think it would really open up the gameplay for alot of people...and *gasp* might even bring back a bit of the dying PUG that everyone sooooo complains about. Think new campaign districts full of only NEW professions..

I really hate the repetition of it though especially if you are doing it with more than 2 chars say 4 to 6.I would prefer to skip most of the missions if I just want to cap a few skills and possibly the end game content.Factions and Nightfall is nothing like Prophecies as you can skip missions.

Unless you used to use cheat in some other offline games, this kind of stuff is mandatory. I can't think of any game that will let you create a new character (or start a new game with a new user profile) and then jump right straight to anywhere in the game freely.

Even in some other MMORPGs, you may be able to go anywhere you want, but your level (which would be very low because it's a new character) would still prevent you from doing whatever you want at the place anyway.

All in all, unless you're talking about PvP (in GW), there's no such thing as making a character and do what you want immediately (unless you want to do tutorial).

I still say the Wisdom and Treasure Hunter titles should be account-wide, especially since they affect salvaging and are likely an account-wide effort anyway...

Personally, I think going from start to finish with each character improves the replayability factor.

Well IMHO titles should be account wide. it is about how much the person has played and time spent in the game. not how much you can grind 2, 3, or more chars for the titles. it is about the players accomplishments not the chars. you display a title and know one knows if you did it with that char or not. and it does not matter.

so make them account wide. At the very least the ones the do not effect the game. I earned it not the char.

How is the outpost/city thing even a remotly sane idea? Are there any other games that do this?

Oh I want to make a new character but because my old character did this I shouldn't have to work at it....

That's like saying just because Johnny the Warrior killed the dragon and got to the cool town of Leetsville, his brother Jack the Ranger should get to come there without doing any work.

Johnny can tell Jack all about it, even go back and visit his brother, maybe even show him the way, but just because Johnny's been there doesn't mean that Jack should be able to just go where Johnny's been.

In short, it makes no sense whatsoever for two seperate character in an RP sense to be able to have the same areas unlocked, and PvE does = RP character. The new character is someone who is around at the start of the events of the campaign, in prophecies it is someone from Ascalon who is witnessing the searing for example, they don't have any idea about Abaddon's Mouth in the Ring of Fire.

Jack should get off his arse and do the work Johnny did too.

Johnny already killed the dragon

I drove to a restaurant. My passenger just sat there and enjoyed the radio. (if you get what I'm trying to say)

Little did Johnny realize that both him and Jack were the same person!

[dramatic music]Duh duh duhhhhhh...........[/dramatic music]





Otherwise, there's a lot of 'splainin to do with the shared storage and similar unlocked skills....

ok no........but heres something that might work for the map

A guy named "The Map Maker" and you show the guy your full map and go to the other char and buy the map for 1k,and u cannot get any titles from any maps if u buy them. Works just like festivel hats.

My only beef with having 9 characters: getting 100% primary profession skill unlocks (and having 30+ skillpoints available to roll anything for PvP). Soooo much money has been dumped into my characters...

They very strongly only want you to play a couple characters.

The limit of 4 character slots (out of 6 - compare Diablo 2's 10 slots for 5/7 classes per unlimited accounts. We're getting less content and more flash as time goes on in games.) was a huge "Thou shalt not learn 2 play" barrier. In Prophecies, it isn't even a huge deal to beat the game. Run to the desert, spend the 2 to 4 hours there clearing the missions, and bling bling you can finally collect your elites and make some real builds.

The scale of (4+2*X)*X (where X is the number of campaigns) times beating a game is not cool. That's 30 times you have to beat the game to be able to party with your guild with any class anywhere.

If the game is expanded like it has been, you'd have to beat the game 160 times by the time campaign 8 comes out.

Outposts being unlocked should have been in by the second game.

I'm not going to burn 360-600 hours of my life grinding through outposts. It's not worth it. This isn't supposed to be the game I'm playing. A game with "alts" and a "main" character.

Yet, here we are.

I guess I can see why there are people who like this sort of thing, considering the number of people I've heard use the term "tank" in the game to a non-monk/ritualist character? Tankity tank tank. Treads and a canon and an anti-infantry machine gun. Pew pew pew.

Only the good ones.

In the Advance Wars series, there are missions where you can select from multiple commanding officers.

I could come up with others, but this is really a non-sequitur folks. What fits for some games does not for others.

The leveling system is just an asinine throwback that is completely out of whack with the game - Arena.net has been accused that it's in the game only to make new (trial) customers think maybe it's an EXP fest like WoW or other RPGs. And it's pretty much true.

A item unlock system for PvE would have been nice, back when desirable perfect mods on perfect items were impossible without insane grind. Let's all complain about the /bonus items. Because those people didn't "earn" their items. Yep yep, my Canthan Targe suuuure is overpowered, by golly. Take it away, plz.

It's not feasible to make a team of PvP-ready PvE guys without a massive investment.

The lack of insignia slots on old armor didn't help those of us who bought sets before Factions introduced better modifications. How am I supposed to get +health on my Tormentor's? That's right, PvP slot. Hooray.

Guys, I submit that maybe letting old things go might be better in the long run.

Maybe we should dump the reliance on gasoline, while we're at it. Generating kinetic motion through explosions is kind of silly, as is tying our energy source to one specific material (hydrogen included, worst conversion of energy ever.)

Edited to note:

We've talked about this before. The unlock outposts thing should only be available to a character that has beaten one of the campaigns.

I don't agree that all titles should be account wide but some of them definitly should be. Like someone already said, its annoying having to transfer items to another character just to id them.

Okay everyone seems to be hung up on the NEW chara/Low Level Charas...I am not talking about them personally...I want my 20 month old chara with 3million exp to be able to help at anytime...not to have to grind to be able to get there and help.

So put some requirements on the opening...not just as the first chara opens it up, but asceded and lvl 20...yes there are still ways to rush through that, but hell...make an age requirement then.

And this RP arguement is BS...Less than 3% of the community actually RP's. And no one has said you have to use the unlocked area...you want to grind through, oh excuse me, develop your character through the storyline...then fine....but there should be an option for those of us that can use the story line we have played through already once, twice...fifteen times to not have to.

Isn't the whole point of things like Lvl 20 cap to prevent grinding? the way things are now requires alot of grinding with all of your characters. It is not a requirement to get a certain title or get through the game with several characters, but why do we have to grind if we want to do something at the end of the game? or grind for those damned Sunspear/Faction/LB points just so we can get further or be more efficient in high level areas?

I would love to see at least the ability to skip through the story line, myself and many other casual players simply do not have time to grind 10 characters through all 3 storylines just so we can play in the better areas of the map. I was so amazed when I saw how GW was set up for the first time, FREE online play, and a lvl 20 cap (No grinding!!). When I look at it now, it is still an amazing game but there is too much grinding involved for me to get characters through every chapter.

What is the reason for this? Are they looking for a certain skill to play in a certain team build? I ask only because up until like a week ago, my warrior only had 1 sword skill and 1 axe skill that you basically get for free during training at low levels. I've never been shut out for running hammers, through basically 3 campaigns. I also ask because I'm thinking of bringing my mesmer up the Nightfall ranks next, and don't want to get left out in the cold.

Also, Tempy, you've definitely made me reconsider my feelings about outposts with your age idea. I think it's a neat idea and would not object if it were implemented. The only problem I see is in Nightfalls most missions will not let you join if you didn't follow the storyline.

EDIT: Good points there too Hell Raiser.

The only person who is making it a grind fest is you by creating !0 characters. It has nothing to do with game mechanics, you knew they were going to be half-baked and neglected when you made them. The solution to your dilema is delete some toons and get your account to a managable size.

Yeah.. Sorry I didn't specify but that was an exageration from an earlier post about someone having 10toons with most through all 3 chapters. I'm sorry I don't like playing one character, I love my monk but I would prefer to dish out some Warrior melee or some Necro hexes (my 3 first characters). I love changing proffessions and playing with their skills, but it gets OLD doing the same missions over and over no matter your prof.

Some great comments. As a father of 3 who plays Guild Wars specifically because it's manageable with the other stuff and my job (at EA, which is fabulous), I've been playing a monk almost exclusively. However, now I understand a lot more about the depth of mesmers, and I'm interested by the variety of things rangers can do, not to mention the dual class things I've wanted to try out ingame, I could really do with some aspects of it all being made quicker for alts.

Also, I've had limited exposure to pvp, and would appreciate being able to take a pve toon that I've 'got the hang of' into pvp to play as it would benefit my monking (less watching of skillbar, more active target switching), not to mention I'd just like to be someone contributing in a new way to a group than spamming heals/prots etc.

I don't want the moon on a stick, but ANET has a game here which is the only alternative to the subscription timesinks that predominate, it should strengthen it's hand in this area.

I don't care much for the titles being account wide. They are mostly individual achievements and may stay with their respective toons. Your wisdom example is not so different from other games where I have to get items to the respective crafter...

By the same line of reasoning I don't think skill points should be account wide. If I want a skill with a character, this toon has to play and learn it.

On the outpost issue I'm on your side. I made extremely frustrating experiences with a casual guild where people had their main characters in different campaigns. Very often it proved impossible to help each other because an available and needed character class just didn't have the outpost. Bleh...
In my view the whole "unlocking areas" and runner hate design choice from ANET was a bad idea. Unlock once and be done.

In PvP I must unlock any skill just once. But if I want a special elite in PvE, I must reach the area with each toon separately and cap it. While I don't mind the capping, reaching the area without shared outposts will become tedious very fast if I have to do this with 8 or more characters. It's not as if later Elite skills were stronger or something. I need them for special builds. My time for playing is limited anyway, I can do without this grind.

Once more, in any MMO I will definitely not have a highlevel avatar of every existing class, just to see "how it plays", I will lack the resources to achieve this. In GW I can be competitive much faster, still my avatars will not be "finished" - they will just be serviceable.
But the whole outpost system is just a huge, sorted lobby if you look at it. Like in PvP access should be per account.

It would be nice if the map were account based instead of per character. That way players wouldn't have to go through the same grind every time they created a new character.

As for A-net being anti multiple character, look at the last event. Those who had multiple charters could gain lunar tokens galore. If all of my mules could have accessed the Monastery I would have been able to get well over a thousand tokens. My mules finally got to do something more than act like storage bins.

It all depends what you want out of life. Sure if you want all your characters to be all available anywhere, anytime, then you have a lot of work to do.

I don't feel that need. So long as I have a character (at least one) at every outpost, I can always join in with a group of friends and play. Accordingly I tend to concentrate on particular characters.

My tank is the title queen - 2 more masters mission in Elona will net me KOABD.

Then I like to have my monk everywhere, as everyone is always short of monks - in fact, my guild is all about everyone having a monk, so I get my monk through.

Next is my necro. She has everywhere, but no title. Don't even care about titles for her, I just love minions - again, everyone loves minions, so it's a useful character to have about.

In fact, I think, having a decent tank, a decent monk and a decent necro all over means I've pretty much got all the bases covered for any group I might want to be in.

But I have a stack of other characters. I'll be bringing my Tyrian Ele through Elona, but he's missed out Cantha completely and I don't know if he'll ever be there. I took my Canthan Ranger as far as Tombs, but that's because he's my only ranger and I wanted to be the B/P with the Blue Crab

I love the Tyria campaign best, and my Rit & 'Sin are sort of working through every now and again when I fancy the old game, but it's not so important.

The original poster says "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". This is simply not true. You can if you want, but "has to", no. It's choice.

To be honest, it will become less and less worthwhile to take characters to earlier campaigns, in many ways. No Elite caps for any new classes in Tyria, for example.

So that's my piece about having to shift so many characters through.

On to titles. PvP Title - knock yourselves out. I have no problem with any of those.

PvE though...

Some are just silly. Leaving aside for the moment those that can't even be completed just now, stuff like treasure hunter at 10,000 chests is a big (and expensive) ask, though not stupid like Incorrigible Ale Hound.

Why anyone would want to sit through 6 days (real time!) of the screen being fuzzy is beyond me - and yes I know about the wierd zoning thingy, even so!

2000 plat for Connoisseur of Confectionaries (if you just buy cake). Silly, silly, silly. I suppose people like me, lucky enough to have some disposable income can buy some plat on ebay or whatever and deal with that in short order. I might even do so, would help my tank on the KOABD track. Proves nothing of course. Getting this title otherwise? No. The requirement is excessive for many and silly because others can just buy it..

Sunspear looked achieveable, until they stopped giving me points.

Lightbringer still is, I guess. 300+ points in under 30 minutes by farming Domain of Secrets. It's a serious grinding exercise, but considerably less than (for example) ale hound and at least you get to hit mobs and actually gain something (skill upgrades, damage protection etc).

I guess I take the view that titles should be challenging, but achievable by anyone with a "reasonable" amount of effort and without excessive expense, or repetitive grinding.

Protector and Cartographer as noted above are excellent examples of this. Time, effort and some dedication required, but not repetitive. I guess Skill Hunter fits here as well.

Certainly, you shouldn't be able to simply "buy" a title.

Having said this, what we cannot do is go back. Some people will already wear these titles and we must not take away the achievement. Leave the status quo in place.

It seems almost inevitable that there will be more titles created as more expansions are released (and I don't just mean Protector & Explorer), but please let's have titles which are interesting challenges. No more like Sweet Tooth.

I wonder how people would act if Anet implemented how a lot of MMOs do it.

Each character is an individual "account" and your friends would only know you as one character and not an account....

if you wanted to join a guild, youd have to do it with each character.

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On Topic

i mean seriously. This is just frivolous whining. Anet is not deterring you from ANYTHING.

If you want to develop your character, it takes a certain amount of time. Last I checked, this was kind of an RPG of some sort.

Anet's infamous "no grind" boast is applicable to getting to the max level of 20 (different paces across the chapters, but still faster than every other MMO out there) and gaining max armor and max weapons to be fully equipped. Titles, vanity armor, vanity weapons and such all REQUIRE grinding because they are NOT MANDATORY.

The idea is to get you maxed out so you can PLAY THE GAME. You spend less time leveling up and trying to get good weapons and you actually quest and do missions.

I have....*counts* 18 characters. None of them have beaten all 3 games, i only have 1 grandmaster cartographer, and only 1 protector. Im sooo glad that Anet delayed chapter 4, gives me time to actually play more of the game.

Play the game or dont play the game. Please dont complain that you have to play the game, because you dont have to play the game. If its such a drag, just take a break and come back later.

Hmm lets see. Monks and necro's:
Playability: 120%

Rangers: 100%

Warriors: A 2ft layer of dust. I'm sorry but i cannot play a game that allows it's warrior class to take hits and not block them...Thats unacceptable.

Elementalist: Enjoying the good looks and the high dmg control.

The bottom line is I used to enjoy my warrior a lot because I could attack and defend whilst doing quests and missions now..I use my necro and my Warrior's are Stagnent. They remain Offline more time than my other char's.

Since the new changes I've gotten bored of the game, but i have adapted to using my necro and ele...Just upset when my friends need a Guardian Warrior or a Runner to help them Finish or speed up a quest cause i cant block anymore...So yes Guild War's/A-Net is deterring me from using my other characters.

There's my answer.

Actually on reflection there is something.

The original poster talks about having to take every character through.

Now I know this sort of contradicts what I was saying earlier, but I guess there is an argument for doing something about Elite skills. If I cap (for example) Shield of Judgement in Mineral Springs once, I'm not sure I want to have to get all the way there again with another character. Any other skill I unlock I can buy across the board - just Elites. Unlocked for PvP, of course, but not PvE.

I'd like to see a mechanism where Elite skills unlock in PvE just as in PvP. Presumably for Skill Hunter title, the character would have to properly CAP them, but that's their choice.

Just don't play on all characters, make choices.
That's what we all have to do

One interesting thing that occured to me... When you cap an elite or skill with a character it unlocks for their heros as well. Do your other character's heros get this skill unlocked as well (even tho the other character does not)...

Heroes can use all skills unlocked for your entire account (anything unlocked for PvP).

Nope. It's soccer.

What was cool was one time I was looking at a port setting labeled "Starcraft" after being directed to it from a setup guide. Either it was labeled as such innately by Windows, or someboooody's not letting go of their old project.

The only max equipment that's not difficult to get are the collector wands, shields and offhands. Unlike elite skills, you can have any character grab one and pass it to his buddy.

Even then, there are not desirable offerings for certain things. Durheim Archives gets you a +1 death, +30 offhand. Good luck getting a wand to go with that attribute from a collector.

Martial weapons and staves require you to hunt a boss, if the particular item you want is even offered as a green. Grind grind grind or stumble across some guy selling it if you're extremely lucky.

They're complaining they have to do the same thing over and over. Have to. This isn't some frivolous yippity do da stuff - being dead weight to your friends sucks.

Well, I'd like to help get my guild back up to #1 on the competitive mission ladder. Looks like I have some grinding to do now.

Grindy grindy grindy. Grind. Grind.

Even though I understand where you people are coming from, I think you are being rediculus and unreasonable. To me it's not worth it for my Necro or Monk to do Nightfall, so they wont. They have beaten the other two chapters, might beat chapter 4 with them, but Nightfall doesnt have the replay value to me to do it with all character. But if I do decide to do it, the idea that I can go straight to the end with my Necro because other character on my account have is irrational. Just because I'm good enough to beat Nightfall with my Warrior, doesnt mean I'm good enough with my Necro. That everything has been done for her means I dont have to do anything to improve my Necro, pass Go and collect $100.

So to put it plainy, each character has to do things for themself because it is a roleplaying game. Im playing the role of a character and the character has to go through the story. Since every one is comparing it to other things, lets compare it to something that makes sense. An actor has done a play before, everyone in the audience has seen the play before, so does that mean that the actor just says, "This guy does this, meets him, this happens, THE END?" No because he enjoys performing and the audience enjoys the play, that is why they are seeing it again. If you dont want to see it again, dont watch. Do something else.

Ive made it through Guild Wars with crappy collector weapons and crafted weapons during my first 4-5 runs through it.

You can grind for the ultimate weapon skins, but in this game, its already SOOO easy to get stuff its not even funny.

Weapon mods arent really even neccesary in PvE. All the cool stuff is optional.

Elite skills? In PvE? Elite skills aren't a requirement either. Be realistic. My warrior's elite is [wiki]Charge![/wiki] since its the only elite i consider useful in PvE for her. Its so she can help the party move from killing one mob to the next faster.

Maybe this game is just too easy for me, but imo you dont need to have uber weapons, armor, elite skills to beat this game. Collectors, Crafters and plain vanilla skills kill things fine.

Ya being dead weight to your friends does suck. Im all too aware of this. But perhaps if your friends were willing to help you get to those missions faster, maybe that would speed up your progress.

PvP is about Account Development. Unlocking mods, runes, skills, etc. that can be used in PvP arenas.

PvE is about Character Development. Leveling up, buying armor, generally questing and doing missions.

Both game types have their own types of grind. Guild Wars' game design minimizes pointless grinding (leveling up endlessly) and caps you at 20. So that from that point on, you dont have a to worry if your strong enough to face any future foes because at level 20, you can face anything.

However you still have to realize that each character exists in their own little world, linked by a magic storage account.

I suppose its the double edge of making a game for casual players, its so easy already people except it to be even easier.

There's no crime worse than mediocrity.

lyra_song, I'm all for the extreme gold sinks that weapon skins and fancy armor presents.

The game isn't challenging, you can beat it with an empty skill bar. I often AFK in missions I've done half a dozen times before, letting the henchmen kill a group while I do something else. Kill a group, move, AFK. That's been about 35% of my GW experience to date.

Being able to create a specific build with maximum effectiveness (max equipment) matters for other reasons:

Masters in some factions maps.

The challenge missions. Killing speed in Dragon's Throat is so important it isn't funny.

PvP - you gain EXP in these battles. I've earned well over 40 skill points on PvP characters, who couldn't make use of them. It's kind of annoying, because while the experience points encourage you to PvP with PvE characters, everything else encourages you to use a PvP character.

Optional.

I love Dragon's Throat. its my favorite Challenge mission next to Inlet. But ya optional.

Yes, its very annoying re-rolling a character who made tons of XP and skill points. All that gone to waste.

There was an inherent imbalance in PvP where PvErs had an advantage in terms of equipment and PvPers had advantage in skills.

I was very vocal in this community about correcting these imbalances and making PvP chars just as viable as PvE chars.

Anet did make PvP characters equal in terms of equipment, but PvE characters are still handicapped when it comes to skills in PvP.

Anet needs to allow PvE characters full access to all unlocked skills when inside of a PvP area.

But thats another matter and not really on topic.

I agree with the sentiment in the first point, but have an alternate idea for the proposed solution. In Tyria, there are many town-to-town shortcuts where you can get 'run' to, but there's still 'chokepoints' where you have to defeat the primary quests and missions to progress (e.g. Thunderhead Keep). But in Cantha and Elona gates between many towns are 'locked' so you usually can't get run---you must do all primaries and missions to get far into the game. My proposal is that once one character completes primaries+missions for Factions or Nightfall then most of the gates are 'unlocked' for subsequent characters so that they can get 'run' places to at least speed up getting to the far away towns to meet your friends (and/or have them run you).

However, I think there should still be some chokepoint missions, like the ones that are critical to the story. For example, in Factions, you would have to do Vizunah Square, Sunjiang District, Eternal Grove, Gyala Hatchery, Unwaking Waters, Raisu Palace. But you could at least bypass the 10,000 Faction quests and Shing Jea missions. Just a thought.