Who is the real problem?

At least half the treads on here are about how Anet screwed this up, or Izzy blew up that. Maybe it isn't Izzy or Regina. Maybe the problem is us. It's an MMO, which means they give us a basic structure, but we are the ones who can sway how good or bad the game will be.

Take pugs(or don't). Most people never play pugs anymore. They will H/H or play with guildies, but they won't pug. What does that leave? Mostly, people who are new to the game, get all their info from wiki or, God forbid, us, and are usually playing something for the first time. That or they are someone with such a massive ego, they never can take good advice on game play, thinking it's an attack on them. If more people with experience played in pugs, you wouldn't have this.

Builds can be beaten. ALL builds can be beaten. No nerfs, just trying. Maybe, instead of complaining about how this build or that skill is broken, we take some time and work on what makes it broken, and find a skill to fix it. You have 8 skills on your bar, and over a thousand to choose from. Are you telling me we are such bad players we can't use one as a counter, especially if we are going into an area, like GvG, where we know we'll encounter that "leet build"?

Finally, If the game is getting old, you are playing way too much. If you play a few hours a day, other than when you get together for events or elite missions/areas, the game will still be lively. If you are a crackhead grinding 5-6+ hours on the game5-7 days a week...you really need to look at what you are missing. Like reading a book. Seeing the sun. Making friends in the real world. Having sex. In the immortal words of the Shatner, "You there. How old are you? 35? Have you ever kissed a girl?"

It's a game. We are the ones who make it fun or not. If you liked it in the beginning, but don't now, the basics of it haven't changed. You have. Either try to find what made it fun in the first place, or leave the game.

Oh, btw, the problem is that the game is old and was by its very design can't last forever.

I don't see the exaggerated problems the Guru pessimists see in-game.

There are enough experienced players PvE PUGing that I can team up with a random player and stomp through missions.

The problem isn't GW and isn't the GW community. It's the loud minority that desperately want a stranglehold on the game.

Well said...however, it's been said before and all you will ever get in response is this kind of muck^^^. Thanks for trying though. People in general feel they are entitled. eEntitled to anything they want and when they want it. I am a middle school teacher and see it every day. Everyone want a second chance, to get away with what others have gotten away with and their rewards right now, not later. The issue is societal, not just the game. The only way to fix it is to be the best person you can be and hope to lead by example. In the game: help others, don't flame, have a sense of humor, laugh good-naturedly at failure as if it were nothing more than the creation of a new opportunity to learn/succeed...most of all, don't EXPECT anything and you won't be dissapointed. Yes, players are the problem...but we could be the solution too...if everyone would just play the game for fun and quit QQ whem things don't go exactly as we want and DON't trash each other just for suggesting we make things better and don't feel like trying.

Have A.Net say that and I'll gladly pick one!

I thought this was a post discussing who the villain that sent the assassin golems after the lords of tyria in the MOX quests might be. So obviously I'm fairly disappointed at this stage.......

On topic, I think the OP raises a fair enough issue.

But the game is over three years old, the content is finite, and title grind just doesn't float a lot of folk's boats. And people who post on Riverside are likely to be somewhat disatisfied, because the satisfied ones are playing the game, or at least posting in the gameplaying parts of Guru.

The problem is people. Anet change stuff and people come here and QQ thinking Anet will listen.Generally they don't but nobody realises that.

People whine here that the game is dead.Did they ever think to actually go play it and maybe it wouldn't be as such

Suck it up and go play the game tbh

Too many people have nothing better too do than moan about things because others may actually enjoy something and get it nerfed... that is the problem.... selfish *** holes who can't get on with the fact others like things and have to try and get it changed.

It's a game, play it.... lol...

People don't pug out of personal choice.

Skill balances prevent gameplay becomming stale.

People are free to play the game as long as they wish without you judging them (apart from children, get your homework done ).

You are bound to find people complaining here, it's a forum, that's kinda the point.

Some people on guru do seem to complain over the smallest of things but you can eith egnore them or laugh at them, no need to get too bothered about it yourself.

A) It burns,
B) It is painful.
C) Do not look directly at the Sun, it is a very stupid thing to do.

A) Ok, I will, because as soon as you walk out the door people just run up to to you and say "Hi, want to be friends, let's go to bed together"
B) It's probably illegal for a large percentage of your readers.

Z) It's just a dumb thing to say.


Other than that you may have some reasonable points.

Occam's razor

Maybe the problem is ANet keeps screwing up, and Izzy!

There is no problem.

This is what happens with EVERY video game from EVERY genre ever.


PS, only teenagers think that "real life" consists of nothing but sex.

This is where you are wrong, and why most of your post is fairly pointless.

The basic, fundamental design concepts of GW have changed considerably since Prophecies was released. Anet has a right to change their game however they please, but a person who bought one game but ended up playing another after 2 years has an equal right to complain about it.

However, people who complain about dumb things (like their favorite build being nerfed, or the ingame "economy") need to find better things to do with their time rather then wasting everyone elses with forum posts.

I'm just disappointed at how powerful the Dervish is compared to the Paragon. I mean, they load the Paragon with once-good skills, and buff the Dervish's always good skills.

There's hardly any Paragons left. Of course, I'm not saying Paragons are completely bad. R/P is one of the most powerful conditioners in the game, and W/P acts as a powerful ranged damage dealer. But for Paragon primaries, Anthem of Flame is their best attack skill.

Other than that, I don't know why people are complaining so much. I mean, look at the August 16-ish buffs. Nobody was cheering about those, but when WotA was nerfed a little afterwards, everyone was crying. Even in PvP, I saw A/nothing complaining about the nerf; just go /W or /R and get another IAS and critical eye!

Basically, it's human nature. People complain about the bad, and take the good for granted.

This is the old make your own fun argument. But it implies a lack of fun in the actual game in the first place. You can say to do that all you want, but I hope Anet learns something by GW2. People will be looking at it super critically... has it fixed things that were never really great about GW1?

I wouldn't blame the community, because they respond to the game itself. I believe that the dynamics of Guild Wars itself have become restrictive. The quests and missions are fun, but lack enjoyment to the point where you want to repeat them over and over again with all your characters. They also get quite repetitive.

Then there's the lack of new content. When chapters were due every 6 months there was something to look foward to and keep people busy. GWEN could only tide people over so much, so even with small add-ons like MOX there just isn't enough. Games need to evolve and grow to stay popular - Guild Wars is reaching the end of its evolutionary cycle in my view. Perhaps that's the limitation of the "free to play" system.

Oh, and it's certainly not the fault of the skill balancers. Anyone who sets so much store in particular builds needs to get a life (and perhaps play computer games less).

People are too RED ENGINE GORED ENGINE GORED ENGINE GORED ENGINE GOing lazy to, and will keep using the same broken build because nine times out of ten it will work and accomplish what the players want it to (which, sadly, is either grind fame/champ points).

They don't play pugs because they end up in a bicker fest, players afk in the middle of the runs, or leave early, etc... H&H have no such problems .

Also in general skills have been hosed so bad in this game that most groups especially in higher areas require you to have exact specific builds/skill sets before they will even consider letting you in. That is not their fault either they just want the highest chance success they can get with the nerf limited skills we have.

It has gotten so bad many prefer to pay large sums of gold too be run through these areas where they can rather than trying to pug it or be forced to use someone else's idea of the proper build in order to participate.

Back when henchmen, pugs or friends/guildies were all people had, a lot of people with experience did pug. Pugs, in general, were still of poor quality because there are people who think they know all, when they don't, or there are people who don't care about improving knowledge or quality that exist with or without experienced people choosing to pug. There are still experienced people who choose to pug. There still experienced people who choose to try and help out confused newbies. And, being the nature of human beings, they are occasionally still met with terrible attitudes, immaturity and a lack of gratitude.

I agree that builds can be beaten. A lot of other people do too, and for a lot of people the argument for nerfs doesn't come from a place of not being able to or not knowing how to beat something. It comes from areas of high end pvp where a certain build or tactic is too powerful not to overuse or abuse it. When 4 of your 5 opponents are running the same exact build, being able to beat it means very little simply because the same match 4 out of 5 times is just boring as hell. Skill balances are needed, if for nothing else, to keep game play from getting too stale.

On the other hand, Izzy is usually very heavy handed with his nerfs and instead of making it/them less desirable, the skill or skills usually just end up in the useless pile of other skills. But I don't entirely blame him for that as some of the skills were just a bad idea in the first place.

But that, there, is the true nature of trying to balance a game such as GW. It will never truly achieve complete balance, simply because nerfs and buffs make it an ever-changing atmosphere and once one skill or set of skills is nearly obsolete, another will take its place. In buying this game, though, you knew (or should have) that skill balances would take place regularly.

You don't have to grind 5-6+ hours for 5-7 days a week, at this point, to have done everything in the game (besides pvp, which takes us back to your other problem) that you wanted to achieve on a single character. After a single character, everything just gets pretty repetitive. It isn't necessarily (though is some cases it is) a problem of playing too much, it's just that there isn't a whole lot of replay value.

I love GW still, I really do. But even lately, I have been a little bored of it.
I just read a book for 3 hours while I sat at the laundromat. Also just finished a book yesterday.
I don't really like the sun much, I have PMLE. Poopy on the sun.
I have friends in the real world and am perfectly satisfied with them.
I have sex regularly.
I even regularly engage in activities you haven't even suggested.
I'm still losing interest in the game and guess what? It's not really anybody's fault. I'm losing interest in it just like I eventually lost interest in my very first love interest, Mario. That's what happens to games.

Heh I actually like pugging, usually. In fact the only time I don't like pugs is when you get that person from guru that seems to think they know it all and tells you how to play. j/k that person as far as I know probably isn't from guru

Oh hai!
We meet again!

People, regardless if it's anyone in the community, the developers, ANet HQ or some random person selling their Runescape accounts, have found a way to make a game into something that has nothing to do with gaming in the first place.

You can blame a lack of new content, you can blame people who expect other people to know every finite detail of a quest, mission or dungeon, hell, you could probably blame yourself because you have no self-confidence...

Concise: There isn't a lot of common sense in Guild Wars from any source... that's the problem.

I had to laugh at this post. Not because it is true...but because you're fitting the stereotype that the person you quoted was referring to.

Your second A point: yeah because everyone expects everything to be handed to them on a silver platter.
B: But a large percentage of people on this board according to the "see who ya play!" thread are over the legal limit. They're just large hairy basement-dwellers or meek pale-faced marching-band members.

Z: I will agree with this. Life isn't about sex. But sex is a big part of life. And it was just a suggestion.

[QUOTE=I'm losing interest in it just like I eventually lost interest in my very first love interest, Mario. That's what happens to games.[/QUOTE]

o.O how can you loose interest in Mario???

ok now on topic...yeah i have been playn the game for almost the full three years it has been released and i do own all the games so i have alot ot access and alot to perform...now i am just about strictly PvE because well i cant keep up with the PvP builds and the people that automatically think you should know how to do this or run that at a moments notice, granted its frustrating so i havnt really touched it....now since im strictly PvE there is alot of things i havnt done yet because when i find myself getting bored i just hit up my friends/alliance and see if anyone wants some help...my way of putting it is that im a henchman for higher...think of me as a Non-Playable Person...i even find that its a fun way to "dust" off one of my older characters that i havnt touched in a while bcuz with what they need or want help with...well that characters can fit the field....now my most reason way to improve my fun in the game is that i bought two extra char slots so that i can have one of every main proffession character (on a side note i think makn a pve mesmer is kinda tough) ive even recently been tryn out some new run and farming builds just to see how it works and how interesting it is...so basically guys...look for something to do...dont make something look for you

Now for the IRL stuff...get a job if you dont have one...or if anything get any of your friends together...go buy a bunch of nerf guns and nerf darts....and just let all hell break loose...granted its a kids toy...but shoot eachother a couple times and see how long it takes to stop(speaking from personal fun experience :P) well my other way of just easing my boredom is just going to a low lvl mission or town and just helpn anyone out with just about anything, granted it seems that im broken for the area but atleast im doing something instead of sitting around doing nothing

really what im mostly saying...if your bored and you know it...then get up and do something about it...take your thumb out, wash it off and go make a difference somewhere in or out of game...and i dont mean like save the world and such...not a bad idea though

Then that is your own personal choice. It wouldn't be much of a choice if everybody did the same now would it?

Well I am glad I can make some people laugh.
If you want to use ridiculous stereotypes that's fine by me.

Unfortunately I've never lived in house with a basement, I imagine it would be nice.

I find it slightly concerning that you seem to have something against people with pale skin.

I said that because I really don't see how suggesting people increase their risks of skin cancer and STD's is going to help them. And (disgusting as starting a sentence with and is), silly statements deserve silly replies.


"Oh no, some people don't like being out in the sun very much. Freaks! Stab them!"

I should have phrased better. Old, old Mario. Mario in any Wii game is still my man.

It's a fine line.

The most useful type of forum member is a person who is constantly on the lookout for ways to make the game better and who maintains a good attitude about it.

Sometimes people cross the line and just become critical without providing suggestions for improvement. Too many of those types can be a real turnoff to players - especially those new to the forum.

On the other hand, some people with a good attitude can become blind to things that would make a better game in their defense of the game and the company.

Focus on what can be made better without becoming bitter is the real trick. If you find yourself just doing mindless criticism thing or the mindless cheerleading thing, the OP has some good suggestions about how you could better spend your days. Wear sunglasses when you're out there.

dude mario on the NES is still fun...im kinda mad that i dont have a NES lying around to play the game bcuz my copy of it is at my gramma's "in case we ever come over and have nothing to do" T_T

[EDIT] oh and i dont know if everything is with me in on this on but i wanna just throw it out there...there should be an in game NPC to open up the Snowball Fights, Dodgeball Games and the Rollerbeetle Races....personally i htink games need another form of PvP fun rather than just killing eachother....lets make the battlefield more bloody with yellow snowballs in the eye, the word dodgeball imprinted on the other chars face(awsome headpeice now that i think of it) and a daily dose of dust with a side of ketchup (or mayonaise depending one where u live)

I wish I could afford to.



I have no problem with PUGs, I'll happily PUG when there are other people around who actually want to do what I want to do (as opposed to people who want to do something else but will tell you they want what you want just to get you to join them, then you either fail completely of they just leave).

I find it slightly annoying when a group goes into a mission unprepared, fails, and then quits straight away, surely it would be better to try again learning from what went wrong, on the rare occasions people stay and try to work things out I often find we succeed.

Which problem?

If "the problem" is the problems with PvP balance (or lack thereof), then Izzy is the source of the problem.

If "the problem" is the gawd-awful mess that gets made of PvE every time there's a PvP-oriented change (even after the PvE/PvP Skill Split, see Order of Undeath), then the problem is that Izzy doesn't play much PvE, and doesn't know much about what's going on in high-end PvE, and does really care to find out what's going on in PvE, and yet someone decided that he should be balancing the whole game anyway. You could say that the source of the problem is whoever decided that it's a good idea to have Izzy making changes to PvE blindly.

On a deeper level, the root of all the problems in GW is lazy monster design. Way back in the day, PvE monsters resembled human PvP opponents. (Remember Thirsty River?) Since then, human PvP opponents have grown in sophistication as they've learned more about the game mechanics and have been given more and more skill combos to use; while PvE monsters have remained stupid with poor skillbars, and given ever-increasing stat-pumping to make up for their stupidity and poor builds. The problem is, this state of affairs places two different, and often conflicting, sets of requirements upon the skillset. This sundered GW into 2 games, neither of which could be properly maintained without ruining the other, long before the PvE/PvP Split made it "official."

Without new content this game is just stagnating.I am all for GW2,but to just give up on on the current content is just stupid.A-Net needs to keep the core players who may actually buy GW2 interested untill the release.
The Devs. (or Dev.) have nothing to concentrate on except for smashing everything in sight with the Nerfstick.

SO to answer the OP's question,I blame Jeff Strain. He lies.

I agree with this, the lack of new campaigns is the problem we have, that was the way things were meant to be and the way that the game stayed interesting and kept people playing, the game doesn't work anywhere near as well without these content additions.

I'd disagree with it being Jeff Strain lying that is the problem, more whoever or whatever made him a liar, which may have been himself I don't know whose decision it was to cease creating new campaigns.

I'm sorry but as a few others have said....this is a load of garbage.

We are not the ones who make it fun or not...the people who make the game are. If they make an amazing fun game I'm going to play it. If they take their amazing fun game and turn it into inbalanced bad mechanic garbage I'm not going to have fun with it anymore. This scenario is EXACTLY what happened to the game.

The basics of Guild Wars have COMPLETELY changed. Like literally a 180 turn. I won't go into the details (because its been layed out heavily in other threads), but basically it isn't me who has changed...it is this game. I can't "try to find it what made it fun in the first place" because what made it fun in the first place no longer exists.

Whos to blame? The entire Anet company? Theres no one single person. All that matters is there is somebody to blame. This isn't a "oh my God hes just a whiner" thing or a "every game dies" thing. Those are both horribly wrong. This game got more crap over time, and people have a right to complain. Plain and simple.

Heh well you said "noone" pugs by choice. I know several players that do, or at least did when they played. And no choice in a game is much of choice at all. Its all rather meaningless in the grand scheme of things.

Lmao!

It certianly isn't the community as we didn't give up on GW the Devs. did.It is when they annouced GW2 the day GW went numb.I would say having chapters every 6 months was bad idea evey year would of been better.

The devs could of added some content in between every year much like Prophecies came out with Surrow Furnace the one chapter they got right.It is more of them than us but we wanted auction houses and haistlyist/make up artists.The Devs proved they could buff up players and split skills up.

It was stuff like VoD which they had problems with talking to the community and what they wanted couldn't not find some common ground as well as HA.

I blame everyone.

But you have to admit, there are times *cough*[smiters boon]*cough* when it is clear that Izzy is the problem.

The problem is not a linear and fixed one: problems keep creating problems in a ping-pong fashion. It either starts with some bad game design or implementation from Anet (noone is perfect) or bad mentality/mouth from the players, and slowly the cycle starts. The more advanced the game got, the more people complained because they expected more. The more people complained, the more Anet had to focus on parts of the game, given their limited/controlled resources. The less ressources, the more complaining, and so on.

One way to break the cycle is to admit/realise that GW is a great casual online game/MMO. Play it, enjoy it, have fun and when bored take a break. You don't pay for each month and Anet is still updating and "giving" week-end/holiday events. Put things into perspective.

And break from the GWG effect, some posts are trully great and brilliant, eye-opening and knowledgeable. A lot are at best uninformed opinions, most are not related to play (fewer and fewer people play...). You can easily get a depressive view of the reality if you read GWG the wrong way (not sure about other fansites).

So, all in all, we can't really point the finger at who's responsible for the "we've got a problem" GWG thread. I can only blame myself, or stay silent/play the game/live my life.

"Don't talk if you can't improve on silence"

You best be trolling. Or not. Have you heard of a thing called IMBAGON?? It's IMBA for a reason you know...

Misquote ftl.

I seid "People don't pug out of personal choice."

That implies that there are people who choose not to pug, not that absolutly every gw player chooses not to pug.

The fact that you know people that DO choose to pug does not mean that everybody chooses to pug.

If you are going to start a counter-arguement make sure you know what it is about first.