The majority of the community sucks (or does it?)

As you get more experienced, any game becomes easy, even on higher difficulties.

I just completed my eotn hm books using only heroes and henchies and no consumables... Pve skills and consumables are not what's breaking the game.

Hm is the same as nm, as far as AI is concerned, the only thing that changes is that a mistake will more easily wipe the party. A failed aggro or a bad target choice with heroes and henchies and you're back to the closest beacon of droknar.

It takes time to develop skill and learn to play the game. Time long-time players had and new players don't have.
Somehow A-net decided that titles would be a good thing to have in the game. And they made those titles bridge GW1 and GW2. I doubt they give much benefit in GW2, since that would cause inbalance there, but they exist.
So when someone entered the game when GWEN was introduced he/she should have about the same ability to max PvE titles as a 3yr player.
And PvE skills and Cons do speed up that process. So from title perspective this ain't a huge problem. And tbh PvE titles are more grind than skill so speeding that up isn't bad.

But let's look at learning and developing good skills.
What options do players really have?
I think many will say that the game itself doesn't provide enough insight.
And past a certain point they are right.
So past the very basics the only ways to improve are either being very self-teaching and constantly improving yourself or being tought by others.
And I think teaching by others would be the best I'd say.

But then comes the problem: how to get access to a skillfull teacher (or group) who is also willing to teach?
Those players don't have blue exclamation marks over their heads. And if they did I think they would put themselfs on DND very fast.

So perhaps cons and pve skills are 'needed' because the community doesn't provide enough learning posibilities nowadays?

Damn straight.

It makes a good game.

A huge part of RPG's being respected is the setting of maximum difficulty.

Anet screwed that up as they set titles, the main form of reward in the game, and then tied them directly to HM and HoM.

Players who are crap complain as they want their cake and eat it too.

Introduce PvE skills, consumables, cookie cutter hero builds and the fact GW dictates that you are more efficient at earning success and reward by not playing with other people.

In an MMO.

As a result GW skill base died.

It saddens me as I love this game.It's given me more than my monies worth and has been a great ride.

Still...mention GW in any other MMO...observe the lolz.

100% agree.

Agreed.

That's the whole point.

The introduction of certain mechanics means that your given scenario is completely irrelevant in GW.

Time in game is only a concern till you get the heroes, titles, consumables and PvE skills you need to steamroll HM.

It's not about developing and encouraging skill in order to progress in the game.It's about playing 10-20% of the game in order to access the c-space to beat the other 80-90%.

Edit:

Nice post dude.

Good game design encourages both community communication in order to excel and, more importantly imo, embraces intuition and creative thought.

GW embraces and rewards the path of least resistance.

"Screw your creative build, run this and we finish faster."

Personally the blame for that mentality is mainly on the Dev's shoulders and yet I play other MMO's where there is an easier option but players wish to challenge themselves consistently hence the community often frown on builds that involve little skill, regardless of efficiency it's the ride that takes import and priority.....not the goal.


The community in GW are often the creators of that which they are so easy to criticize.

It adds repetition value to the game and only that.

I think it is people that try to value the titles, wanting them to meaning something and then finding out they don't mean anything.

Titles aren't the main reward in game - they are just ways to keep you playing. Till HoM and their promises of stuff for GW2 no one gave a toss.

Also it is an instance MMO. Man I love these. It's my game. No need to play with people I don't want. Do whatever I want when I want. The Freedom.


And still other than WoW, I doubt any other MMO is more successful. I guess they lol cause in GWS you actually do other stuff than kill "X monster" and "obtain Y of Z".

I'm pretty sure Ursan, Raven and Wolfen are all leftovers from a "Druid" class that got scrapped when they decided stand-alone expansions weren't that good.

Wrong.

Titles have been out since Factions and people did care.

Please tell me the other forms of reward in the game for 2+ year veterans.

Yay for you.

I'm not discussing the perks of your chosen play style, I'm discussing why making GW "Dungeon Siege" online has added to the drop in player skill.

I agree the ability to play without other "humans" is awesome.To make it superior to play with bots than people to attain game reward = fail.

Period.

Get on topic or get off the train.

GW is non-subscription.

When you are able to compute the relevance of that in "success" I'd be willing to debate.

At present your assuming sales of the main non-subscription MMO currently available actually has relevance in the fact other MMO communities laugh based purely on the mechanics of the game.

In short your ignoring the issue and topic at hand.

I guess people care even more now!

The fun factor. That is why I play games - the fun of beating the presented challenges and then challenge myself even more.

Maybe they should introduce some new rewards in the next patch - maybe some anet employee can go to you place patting on your back and give you a hug and tell you how awesome you are.

I bet if HM had no rewards all those people crying for skill wouldn't give a damn, but since it gives better rewards they do care.

Nope.

You (or some people on the thread) are trying to say the community sucks based on the fact that ANET introduced PvE-only skills and consumables. And if they don't want those things removed is a proof they suck.

Bots are inferior to players that know the game (PvE skills or not). Bots are superior to bad players because you can customize their builds.

Additionally GWs is a game where you can really use "boring" support skills that bots will fulfill pretty good while players will be there trying to not fall asleep.

Unless you are one of the owners of the site I guess that isn't for you to decide.
So only subscription games are successful ones.
And I must say if GWs had a subscription and WoW didn't I would still play GWs.

I know of a few people that played WoW and they consider GWs a lot more complex.

But I guess grinding to higher levels and acquiring more powerful items to kill "higher numbers" mobs is all the rage in game mechanics.

I laugh at WoW...

See......if you want to debate the topic it's all good.

That quote equates to little more than you going off-topic and assuming my wants.

As rebuttal you fail as you offer little more than opinion on my play style.

Complete fail.

So glad your so willing to show how little you know about the thread topic and game we are discussing while at the same time assuming motivation.

Laughable.

Seriously...your not even reading or discussing.

I have no issue with opposing views and opinions but your 100% trolling.

Good luck with that.

As usual, when people can't discredit the values of arguments, they try to discredit the people making them.

My arguments are simple:

- A player can increase and decrease the difficulty of their own game;

- The rewards each player get does not interfere in any way with other people rewards - each player get its own private copy of the game;

- The economic aspect of the game is a pure extra - It is Anet policy to consider illegal any attempts to make real world money with in-game money or items;

- Ranking PvE players is clearly not supported by Anet, except in those cases of challenge missions;

- Ranking of players by skill is done by GvG, where you have ladders and sponsored by Anet competitions;

- The skill or lack of it is each player concern, unless they do PvP, where if you have less skill you lose;

- You can choose which players to play with or not, based on whatever reasons you have.

If you read the following link, http://www.guildwars.com/events/trad...7/gcspeech.php , you can see that is clearly the intention of creating a game where which individual player has the freedom and control over their own game.

Players wishing to prove and compare their skill, can do so in PvP, where everyone follows exactly the same rules.

Apparently, I'm in the right game - a game of freedom of choice.

About my assumptions for yours and others people motivations, they spawn from the fact that while they claim for more challenge, they are only interested in having it if everyone is forced on the same level of challenge (that exists already in PvP).

Then, it seems a logical conclusion that what they want is add value to their titles and/or skins by making them harder to get and hence rarer.

My difference of opinion is about the E in PvE.

For example, people can attain legendary survivor by either boxing, playing the game in a careful way, exploiting some farm, whatever.

I chose the one that is the much enjoyable for me. You are able to do the same and so is everyone else.

Getting the title by the path I chose to follow is my reward. That is enough.

Apparently isn't enough for some people, that want everyone to follow the same path and then want to be able to separate players by having or not that title in question.

No we are not saying that. We are saying that the community CHOOSES to suck because Anet has over the course of time given no reason NOT to suck. The consequences for sucking are nonexistant and the rewards for being good are nonexistant. Pve skills and consumables are just ONE of the many things that have contributed to this and also the dumbing down of the game as a whole.

You aren't understanding what people are trying to say. The game needs BUILT IN difficultly balance. We shouldn't have to compensate our play for bad game design.

Wrong...this is a public game not a private game. You bought the game where you must play in a world with other players. What you do affects others and what others do affects you. If ONE player ended up with 10 million ectos and 10 million armbraces in their account all of the sudden, it would affect the entire game.

I would argue that titles (and some PvE skills) in and of themselves are ways to rank PvE players that is supported by Anet.

No, it is Anet's concern. If they advertise a game where your skill is supposed to matter, skill is supposed to matter. Since when is this relegated to PvP only?

Apparently you are in the wrong game - a game where Anet says skill is supposed to matter. Just because Anet screwed up their game in this regard (they will just refuse to admit it to us) doesn't mean that the game as it stands now is how it is supposed to be.

In what are you basing your comments? The people that ask for PuGs?

How many people have you played with?

And why should you be rewarded or punished for being good or bad in a PvE game?

What does happens to you in a single player game if you lose? RELOAD!

What happens to you if you fail in GWs - START AGAIN!

I can't understand how someone gives so much importance to virtual items and titles. WAKE UP CALL : THOSE THINGS HAVE NO VALUE! YOU AREN'T WORKING FOR THEM! YOU OBTAIN THEM WHILE HAVING FUN PLAYING A GAME!

Games that give no other rewards than finishing the game can be and are quite good!

Collecting stuff is just a way to keep doing the same stuff again and it can be quite fun!

It has BUILT IN balance, just in reverse - It starts somewhat hard without PvE skills and consumables and then you can make it easier.


No it wouldn't - just make ectos and armbraces 1g each (and ectos, armbraces and other stuff are hardly about skill). And who cares about the perceived value of virtual items that have no significance in life? And if everyone had the option to summon 10 millions ectos and 10 millions armbraces, who would care? And if those things have been acquired in a illegal they (Anet) will take action. And they can change materials price and whatnot (and even make runes and materials have a fixed price).

Please stop giving value to things in GWs as if they have the same value as real life things.

Unless you are a gold/ecto farmer for a company that sell those for money, you are playing the game for fun! It isn't work!

They reduced the grind level required already - Its quite easy to attain rank 7 or so in most titles now by just playing the game regularly. The titles are just "What I'm going to do today? Lets play towards that title!" kind of stuff.


It was supposed to be PvP mostly. But compare this game to other RPGs where it is all about Items.

Anyway, if you feel cheated SUE THEM!


The game evolved and they admit they screw some stuff already or why do you think they want to start fresh again with GWs 2?

Yes, a large part of this community sucks, aka those who hate gw, think anet sucks, troll gw2 is vaporware, and still play and use these forums.

@improvavel
im sowrie but ur view is heavily subjective

we r trying to deal with objectivities here

i.e. we r saying the game is broken and needs to be fixed/balanced
u r saying the game is broken and ppl can choose to abuse the brokenness or not

if gw aims for that objective balance
ppl will not be able to choose to subjectively abuse any kind of brokeness, simply because it does not exist

sure freedom of choice is good
but there r somethings in this world that r jus not very good to have

i mean how would u like it if gw said:
"here have an infinite amount of attribute points...
u can put in 16fire magic, or u can put it 160000 fire magic
we'll let u decide how to play"

not very smart now is it?

of course, thats only theoretically, and perfect balance is practically impossible
but good balance is still achievable
unfortunately for anet, they have not achieved that wit gw1


edit:
i think most skill balances r highly subjective ones
i.e. fix the current meta

while it may seem like a decent solution for short-term goals
it is the -bare- minimum, requires very little effort, and has very little impact on the total balance of gw in the long-term

sowrie goin off-topic again i kno
but this thread really hasnt gone much anywhere cuz improvavel is very stubborn -___-'

but i think objective vs subjective has a big part in this

u act like titles (among other things) r purely subjective
but no, they objectively serve a purpose
and that objective purpose is not terribly healthy for the state of gw, whether or not a person will subjectively think otherwise

I'm saying this is a game!

So it doesn't need to be balanced! Especially not in PvE.

And in PvP it only needs to give every player the same playing field.

So you are just telling me you want a challenging game but then if given an option between a balanced one or an imbalanced you would opt for the imbalanced one because you aren't sure what other people would choose?!?!?!?!

If everyone has the option between 16 and 160000 fire magic, why do you care about the value other people choose, unless its PvP?

I'm going to tell you what your problem is or appears to be - You value too much the in game items and titles, so you can't stand the fact that regardless the skill of player, everyone can achieve the same titles and items.

What you want is to get the "tormented shield" in a balanced way and can't stand that the other guy get his "torment shield" in a noobie way!

You know you are a better player than him, but that isn't enough for you, cause he has the same stuff you have and other people can't tell the difference by looking at the shields you own!

This isn't real life! In real life if you are better you get better rewards (unless there is an injustice or just lack of luck). In a game agains't AI that is, imo, bad.

It's not about titles, personal rank, whatever.

It's about giving the game depth. When depth is no longer required, it might as well not exist. Having to create your own just proves the problem.

If that's all you had to do - create your own depth, your own difficulty - games wouldn't have to include any of it. We'd only see one difficulty. We wouldn't see as much possibilities.

If it was as easy as "doing it yourself", then we wouldn't see developers bother.

But they do.

Player vs AI can never be balanced.

Pvp is always balanced if both sides have access to the same tools/abilities (the scales are even).

GW pve can never be balanced, skill balancers should only adjust skills so that there are more viable build choices when playing.
On the other hand pvp is balanced and the job of skill balancers is to make the game interesting and have plenty viable options for play.


Depth is not infinite. A game loses depth the more you play. When I started paying GW I was amazed at the depth of the game and right now I know almost everything about the it.

Some of the most used lines to sell games are something like "Freedom of path", "non linear world", "create you own story", "endless options".

You have a game where you can adapt the game to your needs - and the developers knew precisely what they were doing when they added PvE-only skills and consumables to the game alongside HM- and people complain that "doing what you want is bad".

For those interested in a set of rules equal to everyone, where everyone plays in a even field you have PvP.

You have a portion of the game where you can adjust your own game, make it harder make it easier - PvE - and one where you can't - PvP.

PvE isn't a competition between players - is a personal competition.

And the better player using PvE only skills and consumables is still better and faster then the bad one using PvE only skills and consumables.

The only one difference between a game where PvE only skills and consumables are present to one where they aren't, is that in one some players will be prevented to do certain areas and obtain certain titles/rewards, whereas in the other they will be able to obtain the same rewards, although the better PLAYER WILL ALWAYS BE FASTER/OBTAIN MORE.

So what some people call balance is actually a "Restriction". They want to restrict the areas/rewards/titles players can play/achieve.

So lets stop the hypocrisy and call the things by its name, instead of hiding behind the words "balance" and "skill".

Right, hence why attempts at shortening it is bad.

Doing what you want is good. Being able to set your own difficulty level is good. Making the hardest settings as easy as the easiest settings is bad.

That's why games that let you "carve your own way through the world however way you choose" limit you when you attempt to make it easier. Oblivion? The lower the setting the slower you level. Same thing as Fallout 3 (same dev too so there you go). Mass Effect? Lose out on the achievement for the hardest settings if you change the settings even once. God of War? Best secrets are only unlocked in God mode.

Funniest things about all those games? All solid, all highly renowned. They could've given you a simple "invincibility all the time" button in the options, but they didn't. Same thing for an "insta-kill option", but they didn't.

When you cut down on the amount of effort you need to put into the hardest modes, you cut down the content. You cut down the depth, and that's something ANet didn't acknowledge.

Give me one good solid reason why Ultra-violence should be just as easy as I'm Too Young To Die besides cutting down the game. The only people that are truly benefiting from PvE skills and other imbalanced facets are those who cared only about the rewards.

All of those things you mentioned - "freedom of path", "non linear world", "create you own story", "endless options" - are not the same thing as "mindless gameplay".

@below, because I hate single-sentence posts: Hey everyone, let's take 100% of what I say literally and miss any point I may attempt to make across the board.

That, or are you saying things like Pain Inverter, TNTF!, and SY! don't replace skill to vast amounts?

Neither did ANet, maybe with SF and SY!, just maybe.

They are quite powerful, yes , but not the insta-win button and except SY! don't replace skill a lot.

Sue Anet for the game not requiring skill ? What the &@#(* are you smoking ? Not even MLG-Pro gamers can all agree on what skill exactly means to a game. What makes you think a bunch of dumbass hics in a jury box can ?

Ok I give up...normally I would get into a quote wars with you but this is ridiculous. I think Ensign's sig was right all along.

At least I got you to admit that they screwed up in GW1 and are moving on to GW2...a small victory.

The majority of the community sucks /lockthread.

lol at this thread.. I look at it like this (it makes more sense).. I am better than 90% of all people on this earth at everything- so obviously it will spill over into this game XD they aren't mental midgets- I am just a genius!! end of story

No, the majority of Guild Wars' community doesn't suck. A lot of players are lazy, but that's not a crime against humanity.

The way I see it, there are four types of people who play this game:

Newbies. These people are very late to the game, but they're also just experiencing its magic. They've got no "good old days" to look back on and long for; they're enjoying the game as it is today. These are probably some of the most fun people to play with, as they do tend to ask for help and one can vicariously experience the best part of the game IMO (ie, building a character from scratch, with a whole world open to her in terms of what she can be). I've recently brought several friends into the game, and I enjoy running with them. I also, in times of supreme boredom, run a help desk at Shing Jea Monastery to help and advise new players.

Noobs. We've all had experiences with them. The PUG gone horribly wrong, the begging for items, the rank requirement, the cliche build. These are NOT the same as Newbies, although some new players become Noobs very quickly. They don't listen to advice, they overaggro, they run cookiecutters off pvx. Their main flaw is a complete lack of imagination; they can't make a build for the life of them. They are the whiners when skills are nerfed. If they enjoy plowing through pve with overpowered skills, so be it. I won't let them ruin my day. Heck, if they then overfarm with their SF and their invincimonks, that just makes things less expensive for me. The best way to deal with these in a PUG is to get the monk on your side (or, ideally, BE the monk) and control them through withheld healing. Alternatively, just leave.

Guild Wars Fan. This is a majority of the populace. They may be pve or pvp, though they probably have difficulty with Hard Mode and high-end pvp. They don't comment on Guru, though they'll contribute to and read wiki, and they generally know how things work. They screw up sometimes, but for the most part, they get it. They struggle to make their own builds and may sometimes give in to pressure from the pvx types, and they'll appreciate a consumable (but generally don't rely on them). They're in a guild, which they may or may not like, and often do things with other members. They will pug and will chat with other puggers. They tend to distrust henchmen but frequently resort to using them, and they tend to run bad builds on heroes of professions they don't have characters for. They appreciate ANet but are disappointed if their build is inadvertently nerfed when ANet plays with the meta. They're generally fun to play with and have a decent attitude.

Gurus (this is where I'm going to get flak): High-end players who are good at what they do. They know the game well, and usually know how to make a build. Not all Guru people are Gurus (a large chunk are Noobs and artistically inclined Fans) but they do tend to congregate here, especially in this particular forum. The problem is that they expect everyone else to be as dedicated and skilled as they are. They tend to object to pve skills and consumables and loathe cookiecutters. They also have a stronger love/hate relationship with ANet. Gurus tend to be middle- to upper-class ingame but don't discriminate against poorer players like Noobs do. They tend to be cynical and several of them don't even play anymore. It's good to have one Guru in your party (a tough thing unless you've got one in your guild, because they avoid PUGs like the plague) to keep things in line.

So there. I guess I'm pretty optimistic about the populace, but quite frankly I haven't had The Bad PUG (I've had bad ones, but not horror-story quality), and I pug a lot, so I see a variety of players. One thing to keep in mind is that wiki's people are a bit more negative than your average Joe, and Guru is, I've found, highly negative compared to the random people you run into in outposts. So people's reactions here are a bit skewed, probably because mostly Noobs and Gurus participate in GW websites. Fans will read but tend to steer clear, and Newbies have to be introduced.

I'll admit I've used consumables and pve skills, but I also swore never to use true Ursan, don't own a full sin, and have only ever used one pvx build (an abject failure). I'm terrible at pvp higher than TA (and I genuinely like RA and AB). THAT I do blame on ANet - as has been said, unless you have a great pvp guild or friend, your introduction to pvp is going to be pathetic, kind of like when you first left Pre and found out that [forcefed mix of skills due to lack of trainers] was really a bad idea. The BotM metagame is so firmly ingrained that it's tough to get into at this point if you want to stay unique.

I've found that the best way to play (for me, at least) is to avoid competing with those high-end, metabuild, runs-DoA-daily types. I play for encounters interesting people, for stress relief, and for that rush of joy when I find I've finally got enough cash for the elite armor I've been eying. The game (and its inhabitants) are a lot more pleasant if you just avoid the cutthroat minority that has the loudest presence and find yourself a nice group of average players struggling to get to the end of the game, to get that cool armor, to beat a self-imposed goal. Quiet as they are, they're everywhere - you just have to ask for them.

You know something fun about them too? I've never played any of them.

I've played a very decent number of games, most of them RTS and the ultimate setting is PvP and I don't get any other reward that the challenge of overcoming someone else.

The thing is you only cut down the amount in the hardest mode if you want too.

Why do you use PvE-only skills and consumables? If they gave more rewards for not using those you wouldn't but since they don't you wont?

Ultra-violence in GWs is GvG. Somewhat lower than ultra-violence is HM PvE (like DoA) without consumables and PvE-only skills.

I'm not at fault that if given the choice between "mindless gameplay" and "solid gameplay" you chose the first because you want a "shinny virtual sword".

I guess what set us apart is that you seem to need a "carrot" to keep playing, while I play by the sake of playing the game itself.

I know some people that prefer spend their time power trading to get more armbraces or doing some mindless farming (I did some of this some time ago) and barely play the game.

Sincerely I don't know why they aren't playing a virtual economy game instead.

Legendary Forum Guardian for you.

Although I stated that a few pages ago, most likely in my first post in this thread.

I'm going to elaborate on why I think they screwed the game - too much starting content. You have 3 massive (tyria early parts are huge) continents and basically the high-end of PvE is just a few elite areas and some dungeons.

More the skills are all scattered around. An old profession, like an ele, needs to move all around the world just to get all the options for the various element builds. Ok if you made it some time ago, not so funny if the ele is your 5th ot 10th profession.

More, they failed to split PvE and PvP stats of skills from the beginning, when they started to pump mobs stats, and that by itself was a mistake. Mobs like charr and summits in eotn are much more challenging that other higher level mobs due to better builds.

That was a nice observation.
There are a lot of reasons for this (remember, many people on fan sites care a lot more about a game than 'random people').
But you are right, I've experienced myself that reading guru does make me somewhat cynical on occassions. More that I should be based on ingame experience.


Agree on skills. Don't agree on starting content.
Let me explain what I think is wrong with the 'starting content'.
It's part of the 'scattered skills' problem you describe. When I make a new character I need to play the entire story again before I get to the point I want to be. Why would I roll a monk, collect all skills I want to test in DoA and get to DoA only to find out that I don't need a monk there but a Ritualist and need to do the entire stuff all over again.
Less people will experiment with build because of this and the number of experimental players is already low.
And 5th or 10th profession? Many players stick to one because of titles.

Hopefully with the April update this will change.

One of the best things in this game is/was that you can savor different play styles.

If someone stick to a reduced number of professions, chances are, they will never understand all the profession pros and cons, their little tricks and their concerns (mostly resource generation).

And I still think there is too much lower tier stuff to do. People can be playing for years and never even approach the elite missions, considering the huge number of missions and quests around.

Then we face the problem of - "ok we have 3 warriors 3 eles and 2 rangers. We need monks or rits and necros would be nice too. But I need this statues on this guy. I've a monk but barely any skills. I don't know how to play a necro." So on so forth.

We've already gone over the "self-inflicted challenge" =/= "challenging". When you have to come to gimping yourself to make it difficult, that means that you've already mastered all the game has to throw at you - as shown here:

The instance itself is not challenging, but in how I limit it. When you gimp yourself, it's rarely satisfying because you're always knowing what you could bring to make the areas easier: what you threw out to gimp yourself.

Challenge should not be about leaving some of your tools at home. You may say otherwise, but the fact that harder and harder difficulty settings have been in games for years upon years goes directly against that.

Incorrect.

I'm saying all those games provide incentive to get better. In Doom, the better you get the harder difficulties you can go into - the better you get at the game. In Guild Wars you now reach that peak very, very easily with PvE skills and the rest just becomes shits and giggles.

ANet no longer wants you to learn all that their game has to offer, the depth of the classes, the synergy of the skills. Instead, they now just want you to rely on a small set of highly powerful skills and money (for consets).

And I don't know about you, but I preferred it much more when ANet wanted you to rely on smart play, good performance, and smart build, skill, and team selection.

U need to get better at the game to do PvP.

I'm pretty sure a game like Starcraft isn't so highly regarded because of its campaigns.

But whatever...

That doesn't really answer any reason why ANet is able to totally bork up their PvE. Not to mention these skills hurt PvP even more by having players be accustomed to skills that are only usuable in the PvE portion.

To go a bit more off-topic: notice how Blizzard is putting so much more effort on such an arcing and long single-player campaign for SC2?

They just splitting the game in 3 parts to have 3 times the income.

About ANet destroying PvE it was because the game wasn't planned to be PvE. Just happened. And then mistakes were made.

Eh? So you agree ANet put a huge dent into PvE?

Just to respond to this...the single player game in SC2 will obviously be important, but everybody knows that the multiplayer will define the legacy of the game. Many people believe that GW was meant to be that way as well, hence they don't care about the dents in PvE (and there are many).

If you read all my posts carefully, you will see I agree the PvE part of the game has something that "is being designed on the fly" instead of being carefully though.

The big problem for Anet was that the stand-alone campaigns aren't exactly worth from the player point of view if they all had to have a starter area.

You will also notice, that in the beginning a PvE player would have very little objectives to keep playing unless he jumped to PvP.

What I disagree with you and other people, is the reason the PvE isn't good and the solutions suggested to solve the problem.

To put it simple, PvE lacks high-end content and had too much lower end content (which will make spent hours after hours to get your new characters ready and everywhere).

Also, PvE lacks more mobs that are challenging because of their tactics/skills and has too many places where the difficulty comes from environmental effects and monster-only skills - those aren't preparing players to play in PvP either.

It is my opinion, that simply removing PvE-only skills and consumables at this time, would be even more pernicious for the game.

For the removal of those, more changes would have to be made. Since Anet won't do them, its better if they don't remove PvE-only skills and consumables.

too bad gw doesnt have a single-player campaign?
it has a multiplayer campaign (at least it used to)


thats wut most of us have been saying the whole time
pve skills were jus a "lazy" solution to a problem in gw--and by that i mean it only created more problems

so they r indeed a problem...and we never mentioned that it was the -only- thing that must be remedied to better gw
of course such a small effort wont completely fix gw; its a long and involving process--that should already be assumed when discussing such a topic
there was no reason to deny that they were a problem, jus state wut things which u think r more important at hand

but generally i find its a good idea to tackle the outer-most layers before goin deep into the core problems

That is what I've been saying all this time.

I disagree that removing the fix, however rushed that was, to the problems will do any good. I think it might be even worse.

Maybe start by changing SF and preventing consumables form stacking.

Speaking of PvE difficulty, a few of you may have been interested enough to follow what's happened to the WoW raid scene (even if you don't play the game). Prior to their expansion, only some tiny fraction of people ever saw their end game raid content. In fact, even in vanilla, almost nobody saw Naxx, which is why they recycled that raid.

With WoTLK they went in completely the entire opposite direction, where everything is now so ridiculously easy that every single raid in the game is PUG'd via the trade channel, and the only accomplishments are getting titles while doing it (e.g. do it with fewer people, or nobody in the raid dies the entire night, etc.). Many people complain about this, but perhaps the vast silent majority of their customers love playing on easymode?

Blizzard knows how to casualize their game to grab a lot of customers, so are ArenaNet going to come to the same conclusions, and make PvE trivially easy in GW2? It's a little disturbing to think about.

I'm guessing they'll do the same thing they've done with GW1. Start off with a decent and balanced learning curve, then give us more challenges as we become more skilled and then dumb everything down. In order for everyone to have a chance to max everything before GW3.

That problem was largely solved through Hard Mode: Campaigns in their entirety now could become high-level content.

The "problems" with it, we'll discuss below:

One problem that's always going to be in a player vs. computer environment: the AI. Unless you're pretty much the epitome of Jesus in terms of programming, the largest portion of the challenge is going to be pitting you against what would be massive odds. Think about it: in some of the very first games you were put in as a character going through wave after wave of monsters with the ocassional boss. From a pen-and-paper standpoint, there looks like there'd be no @%(#ing way to survive any of it.

But you know what's always going to give us an edge against the AI? Us: our brains and are adaptability, knowing when fire hurts, learning from our mistakes. I've yet go get to a point in a game where I don't say "damn the AI is stuuupid." That's why we're seeing monsters gaining all of this "OP" stuff: they have to be compensated for their stupid, and *even then* are players able to beat them (Prot Spirit lawl).

Another of PvE's problem isn't just that builds are always static, but that skills aren't. This may be a bit more solvable through PvE/P skill split, but considering the number of different builds they'd have to recaliberate (i.e. the groups of monsters) It's still quite a shit ton of work to put together.

A very prominent problem is that not all classes scale accordingly to the "op'ness" of higher level monsters, most notably Mesmers. But that's a different thread and more a class-specific problem rather than a game one.

So, no. I don't believe that adding PvE skills are better than not having them. The AI is always going to have an advantage in terms of brute strength, but you the player are always going to have the advantage of not being brick-wall stupid. Giving players the same power with PvE skills and consumables makes them *just as stupid as the AI*. Games where you simply have to "fight fire with fire" (i.e. running into an enemy that hits harder than you and the only way to win is to hit even harder) are boring, and that wasn't terribly possible to do pre PvE skills and the like. If we want to help players get better, we have to nerf the PvE skills and consets. If we want to make the game much more healthy, we have to have balance. Be it gradual or sudden.

@Giga: Same thing happened with BC, but the later content became a bit less "user-friendly". But you're right in that things are no longer as hard as it was pre-BC days. We'll have to see the progression of the 10-mans as compared to the 25-mans

how do you define high end content?
in terms of designed for max level, then its basicaly dragons lair onwards, gwen, and the 2 mainlands. thats *alot* of the game.

or is it optional stuff like the deep, doa, dungeons ?

No matter how smart you are, if the designer wants he can stack an odd at you that you just can't beat.

The main problem here, is that you are seeing the game mostly from the point of 8 real person party.

I bet the large majority of people don't play or aren't even interested in playing with 7 other people.

Ursan, Cryway are impossible to recreate with a single player or 2 players.

Cutting down the PvE-only skills will remove tools for those players that prefer to play alone (occasionally, sometime, most of the time, or always) or small groups of 2-4 players.

Heroes AI is also dumb as shit, and please don't tell me discordway or sabway will pump more damage or be faster than a physical human team.

How can you cater to groups of 8 players and people that play on their own or play in duos or trios?

You can say that this a multiplayer game, but I can bet any money with you that if the game required 8 people to do every shitty quest (as in no heroes/henchmen), this game would long be dead.

The challenge is to find a way to stop full parties of abusing the excessive power of PvE skills and consumables (I m much less concerned with the removal of consumable, and those are much more overpowered than the skills) without removing the tools of the solo-small party players.

The best way to achieve this would be limiting the same PvE skill to a certain amount of copies in the party (2 or 3 copies).
And yes, consumables are much more overpowered than PvE skills indeed.


Back to topic: this would not solve much.
It would not make players better, it would just stop certain farming builds.
Farming in groups only involves a limited group of players, specially 'high-end' farming. This is not the group when you want to improve 'the community'.
First of all, many of them have some game knowledge. And if they suck they will always suck, not because of their skill but because of their attitude.
Just make sure they only team with each other and the rest of the players won't have any problems with them.

On the AI subject, sure this is hard to avoid.
But what A-net could have done for HM and didn't is randomising spawns.
We now have the same foes with almost the same builds so we know how to counter them. Just add more randomness in it, push more 'untargeted' enchantment removal in the game. Would require some work on the mobs but would also make most tanking and solo-farming a lot harder.
Creating a massive uproar from a lot of players.