Jumping The Shark

I'd say it's confusing for pretty much everybody when a skill works differently in pvp and pve.

And in Ragnarok, most skills don't "work" differently in PvP and PvE; skills that deal less damage to humanoid creatures ALWAYS deal less damage to humanoid creatures (players included). And when a skill would be overpowered in PvP, the dev just won't let you use it in PvP area. And trust me, these skills are a minority.

I don't think I need to start talking about how irrelevance "balanceness of skills" is in Ragnarok Online, a game in which your equipments PLAY THE MOST IMPORTANT ROLES in PvP.

And some skills in Ragnarok got nerfed due to pvp as well. Backstab anyone?

Well at least now we're given a good 2 years to max out our titles. But I guess that's the point of EotN's HoM anyways, keeping us busy until 2010 (or whenever).

Uhmm.. And in thats a good thing to your opinion ???
PFFFFfffffff only people that are already a zombie or braindead could be
glad with..Well at least they give us 2 years...

O well live and let live they say.,..

9Dragons.

Heals reduced by amount and time active, active and smash physical attacks reduced in damage, Chi Kung (i.e. magic) reduced so that you can't one hit another player.

And I just have to lol @ all the people complaining about "grind" in Guild Wars. Obviously they haven't played many MMOs.

It is downhill for some but for others it is still fresh and fun. Stop complaining because you are tired of it and just go away gracefully. There are still actual NEW players in everyday, give them some time to get just as tired as you have.

Guild wars never *jumped the shark* players are just never satisfied


Players ask for titles, Anet introduces titles-> players whine because now guild wars is all about grinding.

My point is it's not Anet who is destroying guild wars, why would they do that? If someone destroys gameplay, it's us, the players who can just whine on guru because of *insert a reason here* is too *insert reason 2 here*


On that, good day everyone.

And, unless you're a complete idiot, don't flame me, i said my opinion.

Guild Wars is not a MMO and was advertised as skill>time.

When it turned into time>skill for PvE, it "jumped the shark" for me.

Only it never did.

People mistake their personal lack of self control and perspective for actual game wide changes.

Other than the handful of title track skills (and, really, we know we're only talking about *one* of these skills) there isn't a single ability in the game that is any harder to get than any of the other single abilities. You don't actually need any of the title track skills to play any of the main game, and with tuned builds, there isn't anywhere in the game you can't go without these skills that actually require minimal time to get decent.

So when did time played (beyond increasing your knowledge of the game, i.e. increasing the fabled skill) have anything to do with your ability to actually play the game?

Heck, even if we assume that Ursan really is so overpowered that it's really the only way to do the 3% of the game made up of the endgame areas, are you really so lacking in judgment that you'll let 3% of game determine that the other 97% is borked? Or decide that the one skill needed for the endgame areas that would take a good, dedicated old time player a weekend to max out should determine that the other *years* of gameplay you got out of the game are borked?

Do you even realize the fact that you don't have to spend much time to grind out a title?

You can get a maxed EoTN title in a couple weeks casually playing or farming points.

Also, you clearly don't know what MMO means.

PvE is a joke and Ursan is the one thing that actually evens it out for several classes, even if it really does need a slight nerf to keep people from even trying new builds. Ursan can be maxed in a few weeks for a casual player, possibly a weekend or two of playing for someone who knows what they're doing and doesn't get distracted while farming rep.

That is not a grind unless you have the attention span of an ADHD kid hyped up on Ritalin.

Yeah, it is possible that Anet was overwhelmed with all the complaints and suggestions from every different kind of player out there. Then maybe in the end they just threw up their arms, gave up, and went with the basic PvE grind. PvE focus was their safest bet since they wouldn't make any profit if they catered to the 'vocal minority'.

You make a good point.


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=EDIT=

Forgot to go back on topic and add when my shark jumped:

When I looked at the long list of titles to grind and said to myself, "hmm, that won't take long at all!" in a sarcastic tone.

Word.

ANet has no reason to cater to a minority when the majority is content with PvE grind, and when the majority of self-proclaimed PvPers are just glorified weeaboos who think they're good at the game because they can Sinspike an ele.

Profit margin = the greater good. ANet has their priorities straight.

I'd be more concerned if they didn't.

The trinity was not the most efficient way of play in the least. It was the one build that "worked," but not well. It was hella slow and incredibly risky. It was just very easy to use, and people preferred that instead of actually researching speedy and effective builds.

Also note that what you're saying applies largely to pugs, since any profession is able to excel in any part of the game with varied builds. Unless, of course, you're stuck in a guild of idiots who don't think outside the Obs. tank.

Yes. Right after pre-searing






Seriously, it was sad to leave that lovely world behind . . . .




Still, I've played many thousands of hours and am well-pleased with all I've gotten out of the game. My time in game decreased quite a bit with the early announcement of GW2 and the accompaning sense that my GW1 achievements were somehow less meaningful, notwithstanding the possible benefits from the Hall of Monuments.

. . .

GW never jumped the shark for me. All those time > skill arguments are completely untrue. Titles aren't required they're just there for elitists and people who get bored with the game. The only places where you actually need skill are pvp and the skill > time does apply to that aspect of the game. PvE is easy anyways do you really need UB to beat the game? No, so don't complain about rep titles.

I have to say the announcement of GW2, mostly for the "ha ha, the world goes to hell within decades" factor of Movement of the World...

I mostly agree with this. Excluding the assassin, I didn't like the PvP effects of the new classes and I hated the Cantha PvE. Also, EOTN is just a major grind fest. And I really don't like that they made you grind for some of the most powerful PvE skills that you can get.

I like PvE AND PvP but I don't like grinding. Why is it that with every release the PvP got worse and the PvE got more grind?

I did however enjoy most of the PvE missions in Nightfall.

So, yeah I'd say that in my opinion the shark was jumped just before Factions was released.

"Jumping the Shark" obviously only applies to players who have played Guild Wars since the beginning. If a viewer only started watching Happy Days on the very episode where he jumped the shark, would they be aware that what they seeing was a drastic change in the show? Of course not.

That being the case, it's clear that the moment that Guild Wars jumped the shark was when titles were introduced. Factions was a failure of a chapter. The story was short and poorly written, the game mechanics introduced were awful, and the new professions should never have been conceived. For the players who were there from the beginning, and actually liked the original concepts behind the game, there was a general feeling that their faith had been misplaced.

So what was introduced, in an attempt to recapture a faltering "audience", that was a drastic and radical change to the games basic principles? Titles. Now we officially had grind. Something for players to shoot for, something to keep them playing, long enough to buy the next chapter. Nightfall repeated this pattern, but EotN took it to a whole new level. An entire expansion dedicated to nothing but grind; enough to last for over 2 years. Not only that, but now these titles gave players who did grind advantages over those who didnt. Skill > time played was officially removed from PvE, and titles were the first step in changing GW to a grind based game whose only goal was to hold the attention of it's players with monotonous and repetitive tasks, long enough for them to make a little more money off of us.

That is when they "jumped the shark".

So... what you say is that all the old school players have to shut up becouse
there are new players. ofcoures "bonehead" .....may I say that..??
There are new players.... there wil be next week, next month,next year.
But to the opinion of a lot of players who play this game for such a long time
GW hasnt be what it used to be.
AND NO..... not only due to the fact that they are playing it that long.
But also due to the changes that Anet is making instead of listening to what the community has to say.

Indeed we are complaining... GW wasnt a grinding game as it started..
so WHY make it one as it is now.

I've been playing since the beginning, but I have not been able to play very much (maybe 15 hours) following the birth of my son six months ago. You've put my feelings into words perfectly. Missing the double rep points weekend killed me.

Research? What research...I watched The Fonz make the jump when it first aired. (yes, I'm older than most GW players)

It is my opinion that this is just not true. Had titles NOT been implemented there would be 2 kinds of players:
- those that kept playing because they enjoy the game
- those that grown tired of the game and moved on to something else

With the introduction of titles you have 3 types of players:
- those that keep playing because they enjoy the game
- those that move on to something else
- those who keep playing only to grind titles (I personally don't know any people like this)

If you are in the 3rd group and you finish all of the possible (and may I state OPTIONAL) grind-based titles, you will then fall into one of the two remaining categories - which are the same categories that would exist in a game without titles. Net effect - no real impact.

Oh yeah, I should also mention the fact that keeping you in the game longer makes no additional money for Anet since there is no subscription. New content is the only way to make more money off of us, regardless of what type of player you are (from above).

"Jumping the Shark" and Climax convey two absolutely different ideas.

If you think so...then you should go find a new game to play I suppose. If something you are doing has lost its appeal...then it is time to move on. I have actually just discovered the game and enjoy it muchly.

Because clearly grind sells. Hell, just look at WoW...

Well, maybe you should open your eyes... and come to realize that this isnt
WoW

WoW isn't grind either. You can max a character in a month if you're a casual player who knows at least a minimal amount about what you're doing.

It's basically farming for those epics or that 240 mount, which really isn't that hard in itself either.

GW is the same. Fast maxing, fast maxing of PvE titles for Norn etc., all the 'grind' is actually just farming for more expensive stuff that you don't actually need to be at the peak of ability in the game.

Honestly anything in any game is grind to the person who says 'omGawdwtf i wantz max evrytin 1n 2 hours!!1!'

The only difference is whether or not you have an attention span that can handle some amount of repetitiveness. In any case, there has to be grind for some things otherwise there would be no reason to play. 99% of players wouldn't stay if all there was to do was PvP.

"Some" What a nice word ,,, Uhm how many titels does GW have atm to grind for.

"repetitiveness" Even better Sure if GW was based on having one char to
begin with. But they started to encourage everybody to use differnt chars.
Now they do the exactly opposite.

Titles are really the only grind in the game, and it's not an all or nothing thing, you can choose which you want to finish.

Heroes you can choose whether or not to use; most people just take support classes that have decent AI already, i.e. Monks and leave it at that.

ANet is actually encouraging use of one main character when they made character specific titles, which IMO is a bad thing.

I guess you can say I'm in the process of jumping the shark but there are several reasons:

~The first and foremost is the guild, I have plenty of guildies that have aspirations to be Elite PvPers, and in the process have totally ditched PvE. This forces me back into pick up groups until (or if) the guild rebuilds. For a long time I've been spoiled by the influence of good guild members, now that so many are brainwashed by ranks and whatnot, I get to see how crappy of a game guildwars is without a solid guild to depend on. Especially if you main character is a mesmer and 90% of groups demand ursan blessing warriors and monks for quick area clears. You get to see how limited and unfun the game is due to bad balance and skills that are broken stupid. Without a guild to offer good variation and offer you leeway in your playing style, you really get stuck with brainless people that just want to clear with ursan over and over. That makes guildwars a very crappy game with little variation. The game is only good when you have a good guild, you lose interest in playing very quickly without it.

~Second foremost, is the simple reason that I've moved on to playing Guilty Gear XX: Accent Core more than Guildwars. At first I was pretty even in my time between the two, but with all these recent crap balances (like this recent one that nerfed everything and didn't even touch stonesouls strike and holy strike for Gothway), I just lost interest and faith in the balance team to salvage the game from the state that is has fallen into. So naturally I find myself more attracted to a game with more balance.

~Third is the fact that Guildwars does many things well, but doesn't do a single thing great. It has good pve, decent but very flawed tournament pvp, and a subpar storyline, but with great character design and level design. Other than being a more than mediocre game with lots of eye candy, when you try to get into what seem to be the deeper aspects of Guildwars (like pvp) you find too many problems and flaws to hold your interest. For example, pvp is plagued by horrid imbalances, bad mechanics like ViO, and a wretched pathing system. However, it does promote strategy, thought, and player skill (maybe ping too in reference to the interrupt meta). I know this makes pvp in Guildwars sound horrible, it really isn't. It has alot of skills and variation going for it, however these skills and options are not being utilized by the designers.

Rather than balancing skills more evenly, each time the metagame is adjusted, it seems like Izzy picks out what skills he wants players to use by grossly overpowering them. In recent examples, just look at pious assault and dervish spike, and now look at Wail of Doom after the update. This really makes it feel like players have little choice in what builds to run, and instead Anet "picks" the best meta build for players. I'm still amazed they haven't touched Gothspike and Ursan despite so many complaints. What the hell is Anet's vision for Guildwars pvp anyway? It seems like players have so little freedom in build choices, despite a slew of 800 skills to choose from. Although I enjoy Guildwars, these recent changes and system updates create a low ceiling for my interests as far as getting really serious about the game.

Anyway thats my 2 cents on Guildwars as a game and why I'm moving on to other things. Games will always have obvious flaws and imbalances (such as Testaments Badlands Loop in GG:AC), however, there needs to be a large margin of freedom for players to decide the fate of there character in order to counteract flaws. I think with recent gimps, Guildwars has started to lose that margin and more and more players are starting to lose just because they have "the wrong build." Although other games have imbalances, those imbalances should never completely demolish a player's ability to pull through impossible circumstances or avoid the impending doom that lies in wait for their character (such as, despite how bad Testament's badland's loop is, there is ALWAYS a way to get past him and pull a win *force break, IK, faultless defense, RC a whiff....*. Unlike Guildwars, to which more teams are losing to buildwars based crap with less counter options).