Will it come down to this?

Ok, i feel i should be realigning the thoughts and purpose of the thread at this moment.

1) Everyone who stated that i dont ''get'' this game after 2 1/2 years of gameplay all seem to be enjoying the PVP side of the game more. But this is exactly the problem: GW is 2 games. A RPG game that's been held back by PVP considerations, and a PVP game that was held back by PVE production deadlines. Lets be realistic for a second; probably 70% of the game content (code, art, design) has been focused on classic RPG gameplay and yet, the PVE portion of the game cannot be let loose because of PVP considerations. I aint saying PVP is a negative thing, but i cannot just shut up and listen at people who think 30% is bigger than 70%.

2) Investment is a suitable word to designate time spent. And time spent while having fun is still time spent. When you like something you want it to be the best it can be so you get the most out of it. And of all the things GW does well, character progression aint one of them. Then again this is a PVE consideration; it has nothing to do with PVP.

This brings another question into play: Can PVE and PVP cohabit at all?

I fell like Anet has some fondamental questions to answer before trying this sort of thing again.

Please discuss and try to remain polite.

Um...so you do something because it is fun, and you want to be the best at it. Are you upset that you cannot spend 15 hours a day getting godly items to kill everyone with? You can become the best in Guild Wars. You can win championships. You can survive through impossible odds in PvE. Becoming the best is =/= having godly items.

As for the character progression, that is pretty much true. You can't make a super godly warrior with 5k health doing 1000 damage a hit. However, you can become good at using your character. You learning how to use your character is the character development. As is getting skills, capping skills, and getting armor, but that is a small part of it.

King Volcano, what you have said has been said by others including some respected professional reviewers. I think I've made similar comments.

But I would like to point out that GW is not alone in having similar problems. Other games do too. I will mention WoW in this context only because I play it also, off and on, Druid and Mage at Level 70.

"Why cant i become powerful?" -- But powerful is relative to the task or mission. There is really no difference between a Level 20 fighting a Level 18 and a Level 70 fighting a Level 68. About the same number of melee attacks or spells in both cases.

So you add elite and rare melee weapons with huge and unique bonuses, bows of doom, staffs of ultimate staffing, armor with big buffs to your attack and defense, then stack on consumables for yet more ... until you're a walking nuclear war ... well, it sounds impressive until you realize that the game is still balanced in both PvE and PvP for the high-end items. Sort of useless to enter the PvP arena as a god, only to find that everyone else is one of them 'thar deities too!

Read the forums for some of the other online games, and you will find similar problems; levels and gear don't make those problems go away.

Possibly GW2 will make a breakthrough and find a new way of rewarding our hard work. We can always hope.

i want newbies to hit as hard as a 2 year veteran. i like "flatter" systems. i think that the whole "i've been playing this game for 2 years, i am teh invulnerables" thing is old-school power creep, and it needs to go. flatter, more lethal systems are the way to go. class-less would also be nice.

eudas

Lethal systems: yes. Class-less: yes. But newbies being as powerfull as veterans: no. Because growing in power is one of the main goals in rpg alike games. Without it there would be no reason to play, not for most of the rpg fans. And that is where part of the GW community fails to understand. Like the guy who told me to have fun rather than gather items. Gathering items that make you more powerfull is the fun part of games like this! At least, for many of us. Therefore its inevetable that new players are less powerfull than veterans.

QFT.

The day I need a game to define me is the day I need to just lay down and die... really. I play for fun and the love of 3D apps, and as far as 3D apps go, GW is especially lovable.

from a different point of view, what the OP is saying doesn't make sense for guild war's business model. To have veteran players be heads and shoulders above new players will discourage new players from buying the game 1-2 years after it is published. why should i pay for a 2-year-old game and lag horribly behind thousands of other players? This barrier of entry will be quite disastrous for ANET's no subscription model. The game has to ensure that newcomers will find it relatively easy to play and catch up with veteran players, or the revenue stream will eventually dry up. As it is, new players are already penalized by the pitiful skill selection of their heroes. GW shouldn't make it even harder for them to have fun playing the game, together with veteran players.

If you find that you're not rewarded for the 2 years you've played, then you should pick up other games. not that you need to abandon GW entirely, but spread out your attention y'know?

In direct contrast to your opinions, there're many of us who think that titles are a step in the wrong direction. luckily they don't seem all that crucial to PVE yet, since most of the title-linked skills are good-to-have and not must-haves.

and this is coming from a pve player.

One reason I will not buy WoW is because I'll be the lowest man on the ladder of millions of people. And I dont want to have to play silly long hours to get to the middle of the pack.

So GW gets my money. Sorry Blizzard...

No way.


the main reason i liked GW is that competitively it's like DoTA or Counterstrike;
newbies have the same "firepower" as as the veterans. the only advantage veterans have is the experience and tactics, but not in equipment or levels.

it's great that for once in a popular mmo; a brilliant player that doesn't necessarily have the time to grind for hours and hours and hours to gain levels and 733t equipment can have a fighting chance against a not-so-bright teen who has just too much time on his hands for grinding.

anet positioned themselves as skill>time spent at the start, and many actually came to GW because of that as a haven for casual players. i really hope they don't go against this philosophy. there are far, far too many games already for grinding-loving and "leet" players which just loves to enlarge their e-ego through boasting their hours spent mindlessly grinding for levels and equipment. GW really fills that characteristic that goes against other mmo's, and if they were to be
"just another grindfest" like WoW, ... then we'll might as just be playing WoW instead.

I suppose Pandora's box (and bunch of other guys as well) fails to understand the other thing: GW is made (more or less) around the formula of "time < skill" and there's quite a number of people that like it that way. The chances are that those who love to grind and loot-hunt are playing other games (say, wow) already. By loosing it's uniqueness GW2 may loose lots of players as well...

PS I'm a pve player too. I pvp a bit too but i spend way more time in pve environment.

LOL, maybe 2 years ago... not anymore. TIME>>>>>>>SKILL. Grind Wars, go go.

Who are you playing games for? Yourself or so that everyone else can see? If you can't be satisfied in your own accomplishments, then how can you expect others to be?

One of the things I like most about GW is that I don't have to fight to get some super awesome weapon to match up to anyone, I can just use my collector staff and still beat them down.

I think Guild Wars 2 will go a bit more into this direction. Which is a good thing imo. I'm another player with tons of xp on my character, tons of skills and many items that don't give anything extra. (stats)

It's up to ArenaNet to make a good balance in here, which is not easy:

• Fairness for new players: The game should still be playable for both new and occasional players. When long time experienced players have too high stats, things can become greatly out of balance.
• Grinding: As complained about a lot - A game that goes too much to a grind-oriented reward system can become boring in the long run. Grinding should be there, but bound to certain reachable limits imo.
• Continued rewards for veteran players: Things like no level cap, high-end equipment that offer (slightly) better stats and much better visuals.

I couldn't disagree more with the OP. GW is or maybe was ( ) so special and unique because it chose to go a different path.

I always LOL to people who want to become uber in a "free" game - and GW is free, you pay once and then you can play 24hrs a day 7 days a week.

I suggest that GW2 will be "free" for those who want to stick at level 20, and will ask 10$ of monthly fee for the uber leet who want to play 24hrs per day and have all the time they want to become teh invincible.

It has nothing to do with time. It has nothing to do with skills. The only thing that counts is pleasure. For me one of the fun parts of games like this is gathering new and better items. I play as long as I can find them without the need to grind, even when my skills are ok.

What I read here from those who like the "time < skill" principle includes assuming that we, the rpg players, the PvE players, are in some kind of competition with each other. We are not! It does not matter to me when someone else has better gear or is more skilled. What matters for me is how long I'll be able to improve myself. Either by finding better skill combinations or better gear. Well, I found the skills needed to complete 2 chapters, but as for gear: I could have played naked as well! And that should not be so! Therefore I would be very glad if, in future, obtaining gear will be more important.

But remember: PvE players are in no way in competition with each other! There is no need to reason: "omg, I just start at the bottom of a ladder and it will take years to compite because I don't have the gear"!

QFT

My favorite outpost is the one with the dude yelling out peoples titles. It's fun to see my name pop up every once in a while and also get to see what other people titles are that they aren't displaying. Let's start a trend on dropping congrats to ppl displaying cool titles like legendary X or IVI. That would be a friendly way to increase the social aspect of the game, while helping people feel more rewarded for their efforts.

Another thing I want to comment on is all the "Noobs should =/= Vets". I totally agree...unless the noob is really smart and more capable than a vet. Seriously, how often can someone pick up this game and be playing it even one-tenth as well as a vet within a month? Very few. We say the learning curve is fast, but I've been playing for two years and I am still constantly improving. Just because a noob has the POTENTIAL to be as potent as a vet, does not mean the noob is. That's what makes this game great. Your capabilities directly reflect your personal experience with the game, not your characters experience. Any of you who are afraid of a noob being just as good as you because of the level cap should consider whether or not your own skills are as great as you think they are. I know that there are very few people that could monk like I do if they haven't been playing a long time, but if a noob can...GOOD FOR HIM! I wish I were so talented that I could have gotten where I am within weeks rather than months or years. I love the fact that your character reflects how good YOU are and not how many numbers you can accumulate to add up to some fictional experience category. Who knows the numerical value for their experience IRL? It doesn't exist. Those who are more intelligent or intuitive can perform better than those with more experience frequently. Not PC to say, but is true. It's nice to have a game that reflects that truth.

people may think that rpg players are *not* in competition with each other but in reality they indirectly are.

.......

titles and skills associated with them are already used as a basis for pugs on which player to invite in their party. the more elitist the game becomes, the lesser the chance that newer players can get invited in a party.

sure one may argue that a good guild and heroes are there to "patch-up" this problem, but it can never fix the inherent problem that a good player no matter how skilled s/he is can never be as poweful as those who has simply too much time to mindlessly grind the same monsters over and over and over.

If there was no level cap, my warrior would be level 253...

But for capped PVP, you could just put a universal stat limit on all players, so if a level 70 PvE char went in, he'd be temporarily nerfed to a level 20 strength wise.

If that makes sense.

Guild Wars does not require grind. At all. You get to 20 quick, you get max armor quick. Titles give you no benefit that makes it REQUIRED to have to beat the game. Grind is all about REQUIRED. Anything optional does not count as grind.


At least before GWEN. I havent played GWEN so im not counting that.

Just a few days ago, i tried to get my warrior into FOW. being a FOW noob, i had no idea that a obsidian tank was de rigeur. the other warrior pinged the correct build. guess what? i got kicked. luckily, i was able to make that build relatively quick because i had the area where obsidian flesh could be capped. we're only talking skill sets here. it'd be much worse if the OP had his way.

the GW structure puts veterans together with new players for certain quests and missions. there's always some tacit competition when forming groups.

newbies being as powerful as veterans? i'm all for it.

but if a newbie is more skilled than the veteran, who's fault is that?

anet's obviously *eyeroll*

the weapon/title/armor/whatever doesn't make a good player. a good player can still kick butt with the basics, and a new player doesn't have to grind for endless hours to get what they need.

either way, if you don't enjoy it, why are you still playing and complaining that you don't get anything out of it?

Completely disagree. I want a game where the strength of my character in game is determined by my ability to play that character not by the length of time I've spent,invested, or grind(ed?ground?) whatever term you want to use.

Really we just want different games. I hope ANet disappoints you because I'm a concerned player too.

Honestly when you are paying 15 dollars or more monthly fee like other rpgs where you can grind and kill your way to uberness then thats the reward. But since were not... take it as what it is, because thats what it is. GW is about skill, not awesome stat armor or 500 dmg weapons so you can walk around and own others of the same level by looking at them. Theres plenty of other games out there for that and they are all cookie cutters of themselves. Guild Wars is unique, and it deserves to stay that way.

I just take this thread as proof: some people want PvE-only skills, more power, and stuff to do/grind, and some people abhor it. Both sides just need to stop b****ing that the other is ruining the community, because it's likely that if one side left, there would barely be a community left.

OP, the reward for playing the game was intended that you were to have fun playing it.
When you stopped having fun you should have stopped playing.
I think if more players didn't feel compelled to continue playing in order to be rewarded, but simply played to have fun the game would be very different than what it is now because the player population would have dropped long ago and changes would have been made to keep the game fresh, rather than adding shinies and time sinks.

How can anyone justify that the introduction of PvE skills and titles mean that ArenaNet have gone back on their motto of skill determining victory? So you can grind a bit more and get +10 energy instead of +7 on the Asura title, whoopdeedoo. So you do that slight bit more damage with summoning a level 10 Mursaat. Those things alone wont win you PvE.

Agreed - rewarding players for accomplishments by acknowlegement is fine, but rewarding them with uber skills is not. That is what all these posters are trying to tell you - the game was built to be flatter, and that is what separated it. Why would you want to make it into something else? Credit goes to the ANet speechwriting staff for this next gem - the best team positioned to make the next WoW is..... the current WoW team? Competing with them is hard because they have their specialty. Likewise, the next Guild Wars would best be made by.... the Guild Wars team? The fact that ANet is moving away from the elements that made GW unique is troubling.

Thanks!
TabascoSauce

I think it is all about perspective.

What attracted me to this game was the fact the levels capped at 20 and were easy to obtain.

I am 31 with a wife and 2 kids on the way. I have about 1 hour a day to play now and once the kids get here it will be almost zero.

I will never be able to compete in a game like WOW where you can go to level 60. It would take me more than a year to achieve that and likely much longer.

With Guild Wars, I can log on, do a couple of quests or a mission and actually achieve something in the game. Further, I will never get left behind by the rest of the players who have more time to play. That is the beauty of GW. A more dedicated player can get all the skills, get masters on every mission and grind every title. I can still play and be happy just beating the game and picking up a few elites.

With the direction GW2 "appears" to be headed, I think I will stick with GW1 along with all the other dads and people too busy to play for 10 hour stretches.

The only way to combat this in GW2 would be to still have heroes/henchmen and to scale the difficulty of each mission based on your level. I know they have mentioned a sidekick system but that still requires someone to agree to sidekick me when I am many, many levels lower than they are and most likely have fewer skills and items. That could be hard.

It will always be a hard balance between what the OP wants and what I want but the skill>time played was the reason I bought the game and continue to enjoy it. Maybe they will make a Guild Wars 2 Lite for guys like me.

the original idea of the game was that you can be as powerful as your personal skills can let you, not the time you spend grinding, unfortunately they changed their minds at some point and started adding grinding elements to the game unlike the OP my definition of leet is not related to how much time i spend grinding, but id really like to know what the developers are thinking

If there was a lot of elitism in this game like becoming truly powerful, I mean truly powerful as to find ancient artifacts defy the gods of tyria, build an army, and all that good tyrannical stuff then GW would have absolutely no balance at all, and then the uber grinders would take over the game, making this a lot like that South Park episode where that mage dude scared everyone out of WOW.

Yeah I agree no one wants newbies to hit as hard or even harder than 2 year veterans with Build WIkis and gimmicks. I think that's worse of an insult than someone higher lvl than you pking you, because you can always do /chicken or call them weak for picking on low lvs, with Guild Wars it's the builds that hold power, not all these lvl 20s. I just hope Guild Wars 2 isn't going to have this imbalance and gimmiick builds, I hate those so much. Only the gimmick build is powerful if everything else has a counter.