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

^lol i didnt see any question there
the pug scene jus isnt as friendly or as big as it used to be

@improvavel
gw was supposed to be a multiplayer game--pvp and pve
pve was not single player...it was multiplayer

which seems to be the base of ur argument
that u think pve is a single-player game, and u can define ur own experience within the confines of ur own set of rules

however, even this i would have to disagree wit
because i do believe that a single-player game should have a global set of rules and strive for balance
unless the game devs r purposely imbalancing the game for the sake of imbalancing it, which can work in certain types of games (but i dun think thats wut anet was intending)

I'm saying that the game can be single-player, multi-player, confined, PvP, PvE or whatnot.

If you want the game to be changed that is one thing.

Claiming you can't have a challenge in PvE because other people use imbalanced skills and consets is BS.

You can have a challenge regardless. You can define what to use and what to not use.

Try to play prophecies again with only the skills you could use then. Its fun.

If you want the only players in this game to be GvG only, yes, titles and crap are bad for your view of the game.

If you want the only players to do Elite missions be top ranked GvG, then yes the game is too dumb.

Not to be picayune, "I don't know if most have given up or I'm looking in the wrong places?", properly punctuated that is a question. The point is we have a new forum member and they get treated the same way as new players do. ignored.

The setting of maximum in game difficulty or skill level required to garner reward has nothing to do with player numbers.

I'm not, I'm discussing why making the game so easy has lowered the skill level required to complete "hard" areas and the effect this has had on the game.

There is nothing to be so defensive about, I really don't give two hoots how you or anyone else plays the game.

Nope, PvE is just vastly more popular in the whole MMO genre.

As a result Anet have concentrated on PvE and neglected PvP.

It's really that simple.

That's where you have lost the plot.

Your personalizing the issue and repeatedly using "choice" as a mantra, regardless in that it really has no relevance.

It was my understanding the thread was discussing the level of player skill across the wider community and the mechanics that effect this, for better or poorer.

Until you can focus on staying relevant to the topic and it's attempt to discuss the wider scheme of the game, not individual choice, it will be another 10 pages of circular argument and heads mashing walls.

there was no question mark! cheater! lol
personally i thought it was a rhetorical question since he technically answered it after the comma (,)
btw, "ignored" sounds kinda harsh
its not on purpose, its simply cuz we're "pre-occupied"

and actually i think that point really does relate to gw in-game
between grinding for titles in both pve and pvp, and tryin to complete 3 campaigns, fill hom, accross multiple characters....how does one find the time?
especially since u dun even need to find time to socialize wutsoever since u can isolate urself and jus do it wit heroes

like echoman said, gw was a lot simpler pre-factions
and i think this resulted in a more closer community and more similar objectives between players

there are some things to take note of when asking more knowledgeable players:

1) don't ask on QQ forums. just read the stickies
2) don't ask on QQ forums. just read the stickies
3) don't ask on QQ forums. just read the stickies

still with me? good. don't ask any questions on QQ forums. if you just ask, then create your own thread, word it well, and don't read any of the other threads. QQ forums are mostly populated with former players who are just looking for some lulz, probably at your expense.

No, because it simply proves the game isn't challenging. If that's all that had to be done to find "challenge" we wouldn't see difficulty settings last all these years.

Let me repeat that: If that's all that had to be done to find "challenge" we wouldn't see difficulty settings last all these years. Devs would only need to implement one very, insanely easy difficulty level.

By removing them from my bar does not mean they do not exist. By simply ignoring their use does not mean that the task I am facing is challenging.

By not using all those things is it proved that the task itself is not challenging. It's a challenge when even using those skills is it still difficult.

You're always going to reach a peak in any gaming career where you are simply no longer challenged. The goal is to make that trek to that peak last as long as possible. PvE skills, title benefits, and consumables *greatly* reduce the journey to reach that peak.

And if you don't want to make that journey? That's fine. That's what the easier settings in all those hundreds of thousands of other games are for.

Not sustain itself? I disagree. But as for wanting Anet to tell us the facts, I think we all would like that, but instead they will string us along and pretend nothing ever happened.

I think my point is legitimate though...the shifting to a PvE game has decreased skill level.

Hmm....well the point doesn't seem to be sinking in here. If the game can be anything, then the game can't be considered a skill game and can't give a challenge to many people. Bryant has been explaining it much more than I have...a game imposed challenge is far better than a self imposed challenge.

With the greatest respect when i say this, do what alot of the other players have done and find another game to play.

Whats this obscession with precieved "skill" i keep hearing? When you make up 1/8th of the party that kinda goes out of the window. Of course they're exceptions to this though.

When you have the game so figured out of course its going to look like it takes no skill now compared to when you was new to playing the game.

These discussions are good to read, kinda pointless in other respects.

You'll all soon forgot all this when the slew of Guildwars 2 info starts coming out and anet turn up the charm.

It doesn't. But the average skill of each individual player is related.


Sorry but that isn't proved. You can't prove that just because it's harder, everyone or even most or just a nice number of the population, will spend time to develop skill and do research required to complete those "hard areas".

Actually, what you see in game is that increasing the skill required to complete a given area, depopulates that area.

Just because a game has loads of difficulty settings, it doesn't mean most of the population playing that game will ever try it. Most of those games are single player ones and they have cheats too. Why do they have cheats?

Allowing access to more areas, giving people titles and skins to acquire, only give them more stuff to do and better value for their money.

Just because someone will finish DoA (in a game without PvE-only skills and consumables) doesn't mean he will jump to PvP.

No, it isn't. While I agree that PvE is more popular in RPG games, 1vs1 games are much easier to jump in than team games.

Especially a team game that requires pre-planning.

Lets look at some of the most popular e-sports.
Starcraft - 1vs1.
CS - Teams, but you can learn the game by jumping in matches where random teams are made.
WC3- same as starcraft.
Other shooters - 1vs1 or same as CS.

Now lets look at GWs. 1vs1 is pathetic in this kind of game (simply because you are limited to your build). RA Yay no monk team. Yay 4 monks team. HA, require pre-plan. GvG requires pre-plan.


1) Are GW players really that bad?

No. They are players looking for fun. Not everyone is here to beat the game or become a huge GvG player.

2) Could it be that they haven't been taught how to play the game correctly? Maybe they missed resources like GW wiki, PvX and Guru (without even going into the "cookie cutter build" mentality)? Or they didn't have the time, given that it's a game and they don't want to invest much time in it?

If a game needs to be taught, it is a bit more complex than some people here, (especially those that know all the mechanics) like to give credit to.

3) Isn't it rather so-called "good players" that are bad at teaching how the game works? (not helped by lack of in-game good tutorials on many aspects of the game)

Players are here for fun. They aren't here to spend their time teaching, although some, will like to do that, but you shouldn't expect everyone to enjoy doing that.

Most likely, if players teach someone, it is because they enjoy playing with the other person and wish to bring that person up-to-date, so both can enjoy the same challenges. I did that with a few persons and learned together with them.

Even if a player is willing to teach, the other person needs to be willing to learn, and both need to reserve time to play together. Probably the best way is starting new characters together.

Concluding, increasing the difficulty only means less and less people will finish a given area and only that. Yes, some that are proud and like challenge will try to overcome the challenge, but those will do so regardless, given their personal nature.

Games like starcraft and warcraft 3 have pathetic campaigns, not related at all with the PvP required level of skill. Regardless, to be a good 1vs1 or team player in those games, you need to be skillful.

No, the point isn't sinking. I see no point in creating a game where the majority of the population will be prevented to do all of the content. That content might as well not exist.

The skill comes from the PvP portion, the same way the CS skill comes from the PvP portion as opposed to Half-life game, or UT skill comes from PvP as opposed to matches vs bots, the same way the skill from SC comes from PvP as opposed to single-player campaign and the same again for WC3.

PvE is a single player campaign that can be played in a cooperative way. If it was once about skill, and I remember a video depicting Eternum(or Eternal?) Pariah, at the time one of the top GvG guilds, getting slaughtered in Sorrow's furnace, it stopped being about it in the PvE portion of the game long ago, with the introduction of the likes of The Deep and Urgoz. It can't be a game about skill when the mobs cheats too.

"Elite" area being underpopulated & unpuggable is not necessarily bad thing.

But players that are not in few elite % need to have something fun to do too. Ideally, full spectrum of areas from novice to expert level. GW managed to do that by introducing dungeons and with older areas still having appeal (as power progression in general made them more playable without voiding challenge. something that level/gear based traditional mmos can not do,)

In fact, if we allow everyone in area with most desirable rewards, every single other area will suffer lack of players who now have less incentive to be there.

Explain.

Your kidding, we are talking about the same game right?

Have you even heard of the UW, Tombs, DoA, etc, etc, etc.

Look at all the team builds for elite areas in this game that involve crap loads of skill, communication and synergy.

Perfect illustration of whats happened to GW.

For fun of course...and......they are single player.

Thing is the majority only use cheats the second run through or when they struggle with a part of the game so much they can't progress.

If your philosophy had any actual merit "godmode" would be a difficulty setting on most single player games.

Good games equal challenging yourself in order to succeed, great games do this well.

Cheats in single player have no relevance to this thread.

Again your going way off-tangent.

GW PvP has failed because Anet have neglected it and decided to concentrate on PvE due to it's popularity.

Neglect a game component and it stagnates, then slowly dies.

Period.

Your random comparisons hold no water in this regard.

1) Has player skill, in general, decreased in the last two years.

Yes.

2) Should the game integrate a slow and steady requirement for increase in skill in order to progress.

Yes.

3) Would players be required to teach others skill based play if that was actually dictated by the in-game difficulty.

No.

The rest is just way to off-tangent for me to reply too.

Take it easy, I'm out.

That depends of the interpretation of what the word "Elite" attached to "Mission" means.

If you want to to interpret "Elite" as to referring to the type of "player" it requires, then, yes it is a good thing. If, on the other hand, "Elite" is there to differentiate the "mission" as opposed to simpler missions, than it isn't a good thing.

In my opinion, "Elite mission" exist as opposed to "Mission", meaning it is a special mission, harder/longer/requiring specific things to succeed, not that it is reserved to "elite players".

Those elite players or hardcore players that want a bigger challenge, in my opinion, should be playing PvP, which is the true "elite area" of the game concerning player skill.

Most areas, even "elite areas" have very few incentive to be played. This game is quite the "scrooge" in terms of rewards by traditional play. Only more than 3 years later did Anet consider give something to a player redoing a mission.


But my main disagreement with you lies in the fact that I consider "Elite Missions" just an upgrade to regular "Missions" while you consider that they should be reserved to "elite players".

In my view, GWs has too much early content, too spread, which will make players wishing to play a multitude of professions, spend too much time doing similar stuff, regardless if it is in tyria, cantha or elona, lose interest.

"Elite missions" is where everyone should be, in my opinion, after completing the campaign. And they should be there with 8 different characters/professions or 10 (if they buy extra slots).

Smaller player base can mean higher average skill in a few different ways:

- first, it might mean that only hardcore players are still in there. These players, are by definition, much more concerned in challenging themselves and triumph over the game;

-second, a smaller community, will most likely than not, interact much more, although, GWs have a very crippling situation due to 3 starter/staging areas, with dozens of outposts and missions and hundreds of lower level/secondaries quests with very few relevance.

As you say, in GWs the skill of the overall population decreased over the years while the population increased, regardless of what people say about a dying game. And consumables and PvE-only skills didn't affect GvG and the skill in there decreased too.

Or at least it is perceived that way for both formats.

I don't recall many people finishing DoA back then.


Most of those builds were/are based in exploitation of the AI shortcomings. I don't see how is barrage/pet for tombs superior in skill to a balanced team in there, imbagon or not present.

I don't see how, a tank-and-spank team will develop individual skill and knowledge of the game in individual players, other then knowing the mobs pop-ups and patrols by memory.

I don't see how those builds, that appeared by fine understanding of the game mechanics and AI, will then make people using them by mimic better at the game or having a better understanding of it.

I guess that kind of play is what let you see Healing Hands/defy pain warriors in arenas and ab.

People don't start with PvE-only skills nor consumables. Most people if struggle in a part of the game will beg for help, then will pay for help and if can't find neither of those will quit.

Do DoA in HM with a random party, no pve-only skills, no consumables and no tank skills like shadow form and obsidian flesh.

Heck do it in NM.

I view Pve-only skills and consumables as a rushed fix to the fact this game requires teams to do stuff. They are something between a cheat (much more consumables), a way to avoid hours upon hours of team forming and set up, and to make up for the shortcomings of hero AI (in case you use them).

Of course, this is because I consider "Elite missions" are and should be open to everyone. If you are of the opinion that only those that can get a full player team, set up a voice connection, set up a team build and so on, are eligible to do those areas, I can't say much that will change your view.

While that is true, imagine you are a person just coming into the game and want to do GvG. Not only want that, but you want to be the BEST at it.

Will it be that easy?

I think, that even though it will be hard, it will be much easier to try to be the BEST in 1vs1 game, where you can eliminate the factor of requiring 7 other people.

Has your skill decreased? Mine certainly increased.

The game got a huge flux of new players over time while some veterans got bored and left.

I reckon the skill was probably a lot more homogeneous back then.
It should, but by design it doesn't. Stand alone campaigns killed that aspect of the game.

Additionally, you need to be careful. Demanding more and more skill to progress, will shrink the number of players advancing. That will mean more and more players will get frustrated and leave. People don't play and PAY for games to be frustrated. That is bad for business.

More, just because it is an online game, that doesn't mean everyone wants to play with 7 other people. This game could easily have a solo single player game mode. It doesn't to avoid piracy.

Having a very small number of players doing the End Side of PvE is bad for business. Should be harder and it is Harder than the earlier areas, but if you filter too many you don't get people buying your game. No money, death game, no new games.

PvP, especially GvG provides what you ask for. Again, and in my opinion, the requirements to play it (7 other people wanting the same as you) is just too high.

Reserved to? No. Targeted at? Yes. Nothing should prevent any player going there and trying their best. Should they succeed, awesome!

Yes, people should be able to do something more interesting after campaign, like upgraded missions. And they do have access to them. Titan quests. Golem Quests. Sorrows Furnance. Dungeons. FoW ... Eventually getting there is they manage to learn thing or two.

See, DOA is 0.5% of game designed probably for same percentage of people. Isn't it pretty dumb to ignore rest of game for it? Are words 'Elite' really that much shiny? But this is not really about just being able to go to elite are and to have fun or to complete it, is it. It is about ability to farm it.

The questions are:

-How many people are farming those?

-Does farming have any impact in the balance of the game?

-Do I require 7 other people to do those or can I do those areas with other person and 6 heroes or alone with 6 heroes, using 2 accounts?

-Are NM "Elite missions" supposed to be completed by everyone since we have HM "Elite missions"?

I mostly play with another person.

I can do every PvE area in the game alone with that person (for Deep and Urgoz I use a 3rd account for getting 3 extra heroes) at least in NM. Never did DoA or Urgoz/Deep in HM while alone with that person, however.

A DoA full run in NM, without consumables, 2players+6heroes take me around 4-5 hours. One of us is either an imbagon or an Extend Conditions mesmer (see cathode doa heroway for a basis). Mallyx takes an extra 40-50 minutes (never tried without an imbagon, never used any door glitches). Faillure is quite possible if over aggro, in cave and against the Fury group.

Am I doing something wrong? If is it so mindless and rewarding why don't I see everyone in there doing it?

Do you want to stop DoA farm, I don't know why it is a problem to you but never mind, nerf the tank skills. Prevent consumable stacking.

I'm not interested in playing with 7 other people. I'm not interested in PvP.

There is no need to sever the leg when cutting the toe nail is enough.

Just saw a little snippet that dropped my jaw:

Whoooooa this isn't what we've been saying at all!

We're saying that there's 0 point in having the harder variant of an area (i.e. the Hard Mode) being as easy as the easiest variant (i.e. Normal Mode). In such an instance you'd be right: there *is* no point in having a harder variant of it's just as easy the the standard one. You might as well just increase the rewards in the latter.

That's what PvE skills, consumables, etc. have done. I have *0* qualms with having everyone see the area, the monsters, the story, the etc. Not all people will get better at a game and I'm sympathetic of that - but I have many a qualm with everyone, regardless of skill, seeing the area in the most difficult setting. That's what all of this OP crap in PvE has done: voided the difficult variants of the areas.

And again, I like how you've been ignoring my comments.

I'm not ignoring or not your comments.

My opinion is that:

-removing PvE-only skills or consumables wont increase skill of the population, will only prevent people from doing some areas;

-people getting rewards without deserving them or not is a moot point since those things have no actual influence on the balance of the game play;

-the game is badly structured because it was quite a new and different project. If all those stand alone campaigns had been expansions instead, things could have been different;

-also, there is a limit to how strong you can make the enemy without giving more powerful tools to the players to fight them. You have a point when you say that things like "save yourselves" that are somewhat ok to use vs Mallyx are too powerful for normal mode desert missions, for example. Again, that is due to bad structure of the came that is hard to change;

-since I give very small importance to the rewards (I like to play and see a few "carrots" but that isn't why I play, and collecting stuff is a big lure to people, myself included), I don't mind if each person can make a choice to how hard or how easy their game can be;

-for me HM equals to a setting where mobs are buffed. They are still as stupid as usual and I avoid playing "Elite missions" in HM cause I just find those things ridiculous. Unfortunately the designers had the "brilliant" idea of making pure objectives that are little more than a checklist of stuff to keep you entertained linked to HM play;

-I guess they did that because otherwise no one in their perfect mind would play in such a stupid setting, where mobs break all the rules and the playstyle drops to "Maximize defense, then worry about killing".

The bigger the difference between the players values (health, energy regeneration, damage, attack speed, armor, etc) and the mob values, the less the game is about skill and the more it becomes about exploitation.

The designers knew that from the beginning. That was why PvP was supposed to be the end-game - the mobs can't learn so to get more challenge either you make them break the rules even more and/or impose artificial penalty on players (environmental effects, force splits like in the deep, etc).

All of these will keep separating PvP and PvE further and further.

Why did Anet decided to focus on PvE so much that GW 2 became the future?

I don't know for sure. I can speculate. Some other people in this thread and other already speculated some and they are probably right.

Hard mode was bad to the game, not because of the consumables or because of the PvE-only skills, but because it increased the already widening gap between PvE and PvP style of play.

Do I have the solution for this?
Nope.

I just know that removing the PvE-only skills wont accomplish anything, it wont increase people skill.

It might increase the average population skill, or whatever remains of the population, afterward.

For myself, while I wish the game was perfect and I hope GW2 fix, at least some, the structural problems of GW, I'm perfectly happy that the game can be played by 2 players and don't require 7 to do the high-end PvE content.

I like to say to other people that I do such and such with 2p+6 heroes and no consumables.

I'm sorry you can't find the same enjoyment by not playing with the stuff you consider overpowered, proving yourself your skill and be able to think or say "you wimps need PvE-only skills and consumables while I can do the same without those".

I don't because the setting is stupid. In the end people will just exploit how AI reacts and/or bugs. Which is acceptable when performing one attack or a skill cost and additional 2 energy or when a monster can deal upwards of 300 damage (and aoe if need be) or when you can't use enchantments, conditions or hexes and stuff like those or when your normal 100 damage gets reduced to 50 or less, etc.

And I was thinking people were complaining about all defense, no pressure and only spike.

more boring and retarded metas? yesh
less skilled players? no


indirectly

olafstead also depopulated
was it because ursan-nerf made the area too hard to clear?
wait? why r ppl even clearing it in the first place? its not even a mission or quest of any kind
oh rite....to farm

the direct relation is incentive and accessibility...not difficulty level

wut bout sorrows furnace
that place used to be packed wit ppl
and then it died
it must have been because it became too difficult to beat

and dam im glad they gave us the faction update
because challenge missions and fa/jq jus took too much skill to do before

I'd like to make a comment on the increase or decrease of the communities 'skill'.

I think over time the difference between very experienced and players with less experience got larger.
Let's assume I get a random group together to GvG and the first guilds we meet are rawr and KDM (or any other top 50 guild). Well, that would be fun for about 5 seconds and then it's over.
Now if the people in those guilds would state that players suck more and more every day based on that experience they are wrong, because it was the first GvG I and my team ever did (GvG for me in ages, first time with that group).
However, if they would look at the number of guilds playing on their level I think they could say that there was an overall decrease in skill.

On the PvE side I've withnessed the same thing. There are only a few high-end guilds and alliances remaining, several disbanded and others went to small closed groups.
The past two years a serious amount of skilled players quit the game or become almost inactive. And it's hard to replace 3 to almost 4 years of experience.

Now there is one thing that complicates this (PvE side).
A lot of the players who started out 3 to 4 years ago were very flexible.
I played with a lot of people who had 3 or 4 different different professions and were able to play all of those well. Factions added two more professions and people tried those.

Next, for some reason A-net decided to make titles.
This caused a fair amount of players to stick to one character, but they still had an amount of experience playing the other professions.
However, new players who started to notice titles would more likely not progress other professions a lot but abandon all professions except one.
A lot of players I've met were developing 'second professions' for the sole purpose of gaining access to certain farming teams. Not to become good players on that profession.

To further complicate this, specially since NF, new players who were learning to play those professions would mainly be thought certain builds. I've had several guildies who were only able to play SF or SH nuker when playing Ele. Water or air? Does that even work? Oh, they knew earth, perfect for terra tanking ofc.

Now what we see is that a lot of flexible and knowledgeable players left the game and that gap is filled by people who never learned to play flexible builds and playstyles.
That's not their fault, it's how GW evolved.
And from that perspective the communities 'skill' decreased indeed.

However, from my point of view it's not so much decrease of skill, it's more lack of experience. That experience that's hard to gain in a somewhat fixed game.
Where the 'best builds' are known and it's all about speed at 'high end' content.

How many players care for balanced gameplay in 'elite areas' nowadays.
Not many I'd say. Most of them either want to play them fast or figure they can't get into a team within a small amount of time and leave.
Because there are tons of things to do in the game....


The main reason being incentive.
When there is profit, people will be there. When there is no profit, teams will not form.
Well, they will but it takes way too long now. People are not willing to wait anymore.

I'll start out by saying that I see next to nothing in most of the rewards you earn in Guild Wars, same reason I don't give a shit about gold sellers. But that's where you and I end.

The only problems I saw was that ANet - still to this day - hasn't done jack about the tank-n-spank build up and the fact that some facets didn't scale too well to the ever-growing mobs (mesmers, prot spirit).

Aside from that I didn't see much of a problem with it. It's an understandable way of creating difficulty that's been going on for years. Doom? Hordes of demons and fireballs. God of War? Mythical beasts line up to get you one after the other, and always at the same time. Call of Duty? You against an overwhelming array of enemy forces. StarCraft (the campaigns, specifically)? The bad guys already have their bases up before you've even started! In WoW? The guys can insta-kill clothies in one hit!!

But there's one thing that people never take heed to: the intelligence of all those bad guys. The enemies are "cheap" because they're stupid as hell and then some. Anet would have to spend an ungodly amount of working in maintaining an actual "smart" AI, so I don't blame the route they took with HM.

Now to go further onto why all the OP PvE crap is "not gud" (and how it actually relates to this thread!!!!!):

Let's say there's two game modes in a different game, each sharing the same variety of weapons. But in one of the game modes there is a weapon that's going to surpass all the other weapons in the game.

What's the inexperienced player likely to do?
Use the best weapon in the game.

What does he miss out on?
The synergy and use of all the other weapons.

That's what you have with PvE skills, a few overpowering skills in a sea of thousands. No longer are you encouraged to come up with varying degrees of builds, you now become pigeonholed into using a select few. You now become disadvantaged for trying to think of something new.

The situation with consumables is different but no less damaging. They can buff your character to absurd lengths, overshadowing any gaps or shortcomings you may have in your build.

When you lose that, when you have no clue in what you can do to better your character, you don't improve as a player.

There's nothing wrong at all in staying bad. I just don't see why ANet, or anyone for that matter, would want to encourage it.

Then stay out of it.

As every other single skill. You can only have 8 so you will use the best 8 you can fit together.

It is not like people were using most of the skills out there.

Consumables are a lot more damaging, really.

For a new player they still cost something, so they won't be using them to do everything. For people that want to farm they will speed up stuff



Guess I could return that to you, but it is a pointless and stupid argument...

And I play HM without consumables and only with 6 (max) Pve-only skills.

Why?
NM is too boring and the titles require HM.

And you know something? HM is just there to double the content

That would be a bit more understandable if PvE skills *were* like "every other single skill". They're not. They're PvE for a reason. They're overpowered. They need to be balanced in line with the other skills. Players need to be encouraged to think outside the box, not discouraged - that's exactly what happens if you don't use PvE skills.

You are *not* rewarded for experimentation because there's nothing better out there. There's zero - zilch, nothing, notta - reason to have so much variety and potential to just crap on all of it by making a few select skills far better. Soloers are not an exception.

The two - PvE skills and consumables - go hand in hand, and both need to be nerfed.


Then here's an idea:

Play with "bad builds" in normal mode, and boo yah you've got a totally different and harder game apparently. You don't have to worry about the titles because, like you said earlier, all rewards in this game are insignificant.

Right?

Yes.

This question seems to make the assumption that people should be taught how to play. Its the jackasses who are trying to enforce a specific way of playing that are the problem. The whole "You must run this build or your a moron", only accepting one profession, and other eliteist bullcrap screws up the game.


Again, this question seems to be based on the assumption that so called good players should be teachers. And while I can appreciate the difference between a truly good teacher and some jackass barking orders and insults, I could go without the former if it eliminated the latter.

Would you wear basketball shoes to play in an ice hockey tournament? Thought not. It might be fun once in a while but it's not a good idea when you're competing against others.

So why gimp yourself by running crappy skills? Sure if you don't know better then that is understandable, but if somebody is trying to help you become better why would you ignore them?

It's fine to get bored of the same cookie cutter bars and want to run something different but you go do that with friends that know it's just for laughs.

That is why people get upset, they're working hard and trying their best to succeed and other people run stupid builds or mess around because they can't be bothered.

It's fine for RA and AB because those arena's are meant to be less competitive and more relaxing but when people show up to GvG or for long vanqs/elite missions with subpar builds thats when they cross the line.

pure win

sowrie i jus had to quote this so u read it again ^__^ lol



its more reinforcing rather than enforcing
the (unbalanced) gameplay mechanics in themselves "enforce" the playstyles so to say
the only kind of player enforcement to a degree u'll see in gw will be in pvp because of player-made metas

but regardless, i see wutchu mean
the reason this happens is because its a team game
if it was a solo game, they would jus lol and move on wit their lives
but since their success also relies on ur ability to perform well, of course they wouldnt want u to be a liability wit ur bad build
so they'll try to reinforce specific play styles

however playing or messing around for fun is a completely different matter, and generally accepted

You do realize that many posters here (including me) have ALREADY found another game to play? I simply post here to reminisce about a once great game. While the game has done many things right, I come here to tell people what went wrong with it and how those problems could have been avoided or fixed.

Skill goes out the window when you are 1/8th of the party? I can only laugh of course...because we are talking about both team and individual skill here. I don't care how skilled you are, you shouldn't be able to get through elite areas without a competent team.

The game is less about "being figured out" and more about Anet giving us the tools so we no longer have to figure out.

Nobody said kill PvE or stop adding PvE content...I said keep the game going in its original direction. The direction change is what killed the game and my respect for Anet as a company. I could go into more detail, but this would go way off topic and I have already ranted about it in other threads.

Proof? I could easily argue otherwise. Besides, I would argue that the game is in serious decline NOW in the PvE focused world.

LoL...you can't be serious. You do know how many games with elite content disagree with you right? You do know how many games with varying difficulty levels (something Guild Wars at the moment basically doesn't have) disagree with you right? Also please read the next quote...

Thank you for saying this so I don't have to. The elite areas are .5% of the game. The idea that everybody should be able to do an area DESIGNED for .5% of the population or else they are getting screwed is a joke. Should everybody be able to go to Harvard even if they don't have the requirements? Either get better so you become that .5% or shut up PLEASE.

Again...thank you. I agree with everything you are saying, but I have to point out the part that the rewards should be increased for the latter. Imagine if these elite areas gave out 10000 ectos for a win, the place would be jammed with people and they would be TRYING to get better. The whole reason why the community sucks and the point so many people have been trying to get across...THEY HAVE NO REASON TO GET BETTER SO THEY CONTINUE TO SUCK.

So you are saying that the widening gap between PvE and PvP play is a bad thing? Boy do I agree with you (for once).

But hard mode was bad for the game because it REPLACED normal mode. It didn't do what it was designed to do and create a varying difficulty level. Theoretically only 50% of the population should be able to do hard mode! Instead with the addition of overpowered stuff like PvE skills and consumables, the difficulty of the game has been thrown out of whack and that is the problem a lot of people are trying to get across here. Selfishly proclaiming that you should be able to do whatever you want gets us nowhere, because we are talking about how the game plays not how you play. This is particularly important because this is a MULTIPLAYER GAME...you can't sit here and proclaim how the game should be in respect to a SINGLEPLAYER game because that is not what Guild Wars is or ever will be.

No you can't return that to us. We are suggesting ways the game and population could be better and you are basically saying "go play another game" just like many people with bad arguments have been doing around here. You are typing long walls of text but you are essentially adding nothing to the thread.

The above is the prime example of what is wrong with GW and most other online MMO's/MMORPG's. This competitive must win at all costs forget about being entertained or fun element. Too many people attempt to bring "dictatorships" into these games. Others follow suit because many people are monkey see monkey doo's and don't have any creative thoughts of their own and fall to "Peer Pressure". One thing I've never done nor will ever do is be victum to that kind of play or player.

I've been playing tabletop DnD roleplaying games since 1974 and you rolled up your character and you played with what you got, you didn't roll over n over an over again or tweak your characters stats (attributes/skills etc) to the ultimate or optimum advantage. The point was always the ADVENTURE, not about STATUS as the majority of online MMO's are now. Even the online Neverwinter Nights and Neverwinter Nights 2 the adolescense powermonger junkies invaded and tried to change the game to powerplay instead of ADVENTURING. But, fortunately Bioware in their great insight gave us the ability to kick these types of idiots from the servers. And that is what is missing and wrong with all these hack n slash online games today. There's no longer the fun of just the adventure and playing with what you rolled. It's got to be optimum stats and perfect players. lol So ridiculous. The really only place this belongs IS in GVG and that alone where competition is a known. PVE shouldn't have any of these types of players, but, unfortunately they flock to these types of games and ruin it for real true ADVENTURERS and FUN loving players.

You never heard things like "you suk or you're an idiot or fool or your build suks" in DnD tabletop dungeons and dragons. Getting to the next level wasn't important either. Running through content wasn't even possible (one of the major big mistakes of most online MMO's today). Most players don't PLAY games anymore, they just want to rush to the end and then whine about there's no content or I'm bored or everyone suks but me and MY build or someone else's build they found online. I have never used a Wiki or online build (that I knew of) and I never will. Every build I have used and every build on my heroes I have experimented and created MYSELF. I've made builds others laughed at, like a Fire Warrior, until they tried it and then it was ewwws and ahhhhhhs and statements like "I never would have thought of that or that that would work as well as it does" which proves my point, most players don't think. If it's not on Wiki or online is suks mentality hahahah.

It was the Game Genie that ruined most players today. Many of the people playing today grew up with Game Genie and game cheats and god mode. They stopped playing games and just rushed through the content. Great for the vendors, horrible for the player attitudes. I watched my son and nephew and all their friends they had over grow up through the Game Genie age. They could burn through a game (any game) in a day and then wanted another one. lol Not a one did they ever BEAT from start to finish. Not one single game. And today I still find them using any means to reach the end as fast as possible. <sigh> This is what's wrong with todays gamer mentality.

Fraid you are wrong here. GW WAS a multiplayer game at one point, but, with the advent of Heroes and powerful pve skills and consumables it turned into a SINGLE PLAYER game. Of course it still has multiplayer elements just like all OFFLINE roleplaying games. But, the turn has been implemented and most people went that route of single player and pugs suk mentality. If you're only counting PVP you'd be correct as PVP is multiplayer, but, of course the majority of the population are PVE players and the hordes of solo players has grown to phenominal levels.

This has more to do with D&D being a face to face game (that you often play with people you already know), compared with MMOs being safely anonymous. I bet you that people of any age who play D&D or table top games today are still extremely polite, because these are played in person. D&D is also primarily a roleplaying game, not a stats game, and everyone knows that up front. You enjoy being a gimpy half-orc with all your imperfections.

I think it is the game type that brings out competitive min-maxing behavior, not that "kids suck more these days" (even the ancient Greeks used to complain about how the current generation of youths was awful, and society was doomed, so this is not a new thing).

And obvious statement the year award...

Yes, they are overpowered for PvP, where everyone is level 20.

Of course in PvE a lvl 20 elementalist casting liquid flame at 14 fire magic against a lvl 28 caster deals 74 damage, while a lvl 28 casting the same liquid flame at 14 fire magic deals 160 damage in return (and of course that level 28 will have more than only 14 fire magic).

The problem of the PvE-only skills is that they don't require attributes. Most of them don't even require a profession.

The problem of consumables is that they are a source of buff that isn't related to your traditional resources.

It isn't because you have skills that are more powerful.

If you feel inferior to the PvP crew because using more powerful skills, remember your liquid flame is worse than the pvp liquid flame. And you fight stronger liquid flame

Red Sonya,

It's not only about the powermonger junkies, perfect players, adcenturers and fun loving players.

When you set down your DnD you don't know what will happen (I never played it, but my brother did). Today's game will never be the same as anything you ever played before. And anything you will do in the future. There is no fixed end, no goal to achieve.
Now compare this to GW. There are some areas where I would be able to give a complete tourguide: "and on the right you see Rurik rush himself to death against some devourers which will pop up in 5 seconds from now".
You know the endings of each story once you played them. And things will not change.
There is still room to adventure, even on my main I have sidequests that are still open. So I didn't adventure the entire game yet, so to speak. But once I did, there is no reason to do it again, things will not change.
It's not that I can refuse to free Palawa Joko and by that preventing GW2 to happen.

Next, years ago there were only a few places where builds did matter.
The places that were farmed. And builds only mattered in farming teams.
Nowadays in most Normal Mode content this still holds. Though there are some missions that are hard to complete without certain skill-abilities.

But something else changed, making people wanting to complete stuff as efficient as possible.
With the additional chapters we got more content, more room to adventure. But at a certain point we got something else. Say hello to titles, bound to individual characters. There are tons of them, so we better make sure we do everything just once, as efficient as possible.
Before that it didn't matter that it took half an hour to form a team. Nowadays it does because it's half an hour not spend on maxing a title (except drunk and only if you have plenty of cash).

Farming is more common now, for some reason it's very important to gain a massive amount of wealth.
Not because it's required to play the game, but because it's important to show e-peen for some reason.
And farming needs to be as efficient as possible.

Efficiency is also the reason many players play in small teams, H&H or 2/3 humans + heroes.

However, what I describe is only a small part of the community.
I think the vast majority of the players are far more the common players who just play for fun, do some stuff, fail once in a while and learn from it.
You will never hear or see them, they play alone or PUG along, something the more established titlehunting players stopped to do (PUG=fail and not efficient). They don't visit fan sites, don't use wiki, they adventure through the game. Wonder what's behind the next corner. If another foe will pop-up when they make the next step.
But we don't see them, they are playing everywhere except where we play. Because there is no way of telling there are randoms who might be willing to play D'Alessio Seaboard with us but at the moment one of them is adventuring NF, someone else is beating up Shiro and the third player is selling something in LA.
So I end up with an empty outpost thinking everyone left the game and there is no-one willing to adventure with me.

I think those two things: titles and no way of letting others know you want to play XXX without being there or in a major outpost contribute far more to the lack of 'adventuring' than a specific kind of player drawn to this game.

Your are making our point for us. PvE skills and consumables (and other overpowered skills in the game) are essentially equivalent to game genie. They should not be in the game due to all of the reasons you specify.

Wrong. Guild Wars is and always will be multiplayer REGARDLESS of how you or anybody else plays. That is the the logical error that some people are going with in this thread. Just because you play by yourself and refuse to acknowledge other people doesn't mean the game all of the sudden is a single player game. That is the selfish attitude that doesn't look at the game as a whole but only ones own individual playing style.

Farming is not a problem. People want shiny chit, they can have it.

It is symptom of difficulty. If area is fully farmable it means:

* There is build that can clear it with minimal danger.
* That build is easy enough to run to allow credential-less pugging or pugging where criteria of joining is high enough title x.

Which in turn means that area has turned to joke challenge-wise. That is why farming elites is whined about.

* 8 humans required? No. Ballanced for? Yes. 6 Heroes + Human or two have different kind of strength anyway and can be considered equal.

* NM? They should be completed by anyone competent. Everyone should be able to become competent enough with some effort. You average player should not expent to finish FoW by joining random pug. But he should very much except to finish it when playing with few friends who he is used to and with which he can cooperate.

There are 3 major differences between GW HM and increased diffictulties in those games except WoW:
1.The genre
Different genre, different way of implementing harder difficulties;

2.The reason why they are implemented:
In those games , the increased difficulties don't give increased rewards, the only reward is the enjoyment of defeating the opponent/completing the task,GW HM has more/better drops and titles. GW HM is there to keep players busy grinding stuff for HoM until GW 2;

3.They way they are implemented:
In most games enemies in the harder difficulties are given advantages that can be earned by the player too (except numbers maybe) and don't go against the game design. In starcraft you can build a base like the enemies can, get the enemies weapons in Call of Duty (at least in CoD2), in GW the enemies have advantages that break the game design. How would you feel if the enemies in CoD had weapons that could shoot through walls, homing rockets that pass through any terrain, or units in starcraft that are 2 or 3 times more powerful that any unit you can build?

GW HM (or any part of PvE for that matter) isn't a place to get very good at the game, you can only learn a limited amount in pve , it's a place to grind titles, money, or just enjoy it with 1-7 more people.

Going to call shenanigans on this statement. The games that have avoided outright cheats for the AI on harder difficulties is almost certainly but a single digit percentage of games offering more than lowest common denominator difficulty settings (and I would add that the number of these games that done so to the satisfaction of the hardcore gamers is a considerably smaller percentage). Even in games where the devs have made their intention to not violate the game design paramount (the Galactic Civ series comes to mind), inevitably, as a certain amount of the player base demands even harder challenges, rule breaking "AI cheats" become the only solution. The difficulty and challenge of implementing better enemy AI exceeds the ability to deliver challenge to this relatively small amount of your player base and devs have little choice to either offer nothing or offer "AI cheats".

My experience is that devs never win in this arms race. When they offer increased difficulty via inherent advantages (aka cheats) for the AI, you wind up with two camps of detractors. One camp screams about how the AI is cheating, which either is unfair because it's too hard or they are simply outraged on principle. The other camp screams about how the AI is still braindead and still too easy. When they pour in the resources to tweak the bejesus out of enemy AI, you wind up with two camps of detractors. One camp screams about how the game is too hard (even though nothing stops them from playing on a lower difficulty). The other camp screams about how the enemy AI is still brain dead and still too easy.

The devs cannot win at this and, furthermore, I have seen little evidence that playing against AI in any game does more than give you a mid level skill set for playing against (or with) human beings. Regardless of how good or bad the enemy AI is at a game, it does very little for preparing one for the variability of humans.

i did pug my way through the later half of nightfall recently, and it does give a richer experience, both pleasure and pain...

i think hardmode has fundimentaly some bad mechanics to it, and titles, heros have removed the insentive to pug, because you can just roll out the perfect hero half the time

That is my point.
That's why I don't see the point in nerfing stuff in pve because it won't increase skill. Skills should be balanced to give more viable options when playing. Of course some skills need to be nerfed (SY! and SF), and some looked in (spiking with CoP).
About cons, I think they should reduce the duration and give something like the summoning sickness.

Whoops, hit the reply button way too soon:

And they're overpowered in PvE because:

-AI is retarded (and if you think you need a boost against it you're just as equally bad)
-Vastly superior to numerous other skills

And you already pointed out why consets are bad, so yeup let's nerf both, soldia!

1. Guild Wars is not an exception, as seen below.

2. Eh? There was very little content to "grind" at its release, and I think balancing PvE skills and consets would make people "grind" longer, ja?

3. You may get the enemies weapons in CoD4, but you can't get the same amount of health and/or damage dealing ability and you are *always* against the odds. If it were to be "balanced" in the same sense as GW, each fight would be a one on one.

In Guild Wars, the enemies have largely overpowered stuff because that's the only way they could provide difficulty without an inhuman amount of man hours and ability. They're not "cheap" (as I stated above) because they're not in the hands of a human, they're in the hands of idiots.

I would not feel disadvantaged if the units in SC started building insane units because I'm human: I adapt. Just like how I don't feel disadvantaged towards an insane number of enemies, or the bad guys in GW.

You missed the point #1 I made, different genre, different way of increasing difficulty while still keeping the game enjoyable.

So this justifies giving extremely stupid buffs to mobs? Just giving the mob groups decent builds that work together without the current buffs and monster skills would be several times more difficult to beat that HM now, the charr and stone summit are a nice example.

Neither do I, but I'm not enjoying myself when I beat them, and don't learn anything either.

Just to make myself clearer: ANet did a bad job with HM because they made it keep people playing for titles and more loot and not so much for other reasons. Other games have difficulty settings so that the user can enjoy the game more based on his preference, and the rewards are always the same (in some games you are rewarded with even less than in NM or EM).
If people want to learn how to play GW really good they must do pvp, pve can only teach you a limited amount, and in HM you forget some stuff.