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

I don't have to tell them, they have already told us in the exact quote you posted. They basically confirm what I have been saying about Guild Wars all along...

Ok here is the definition of an MMO:

A massively multiplayer online game (also called MMOG or simply MMO) is a video game which is capable of supporting hundreds or thousands of players simultaneously. By necessity, they are played on the Internet, and feature at least one persistent world.

How does GW not fit this again?

I wouldn't. I think it is clear that the part that really jumps out of that quote is this:

Success in Guild Wars is always the result of player skill
Success in Guild Wars is always the result of player skill
Success in Guild Wars is always the result of player skill

You can spin the rest of the quote all you want, but the fact of the matter is this was a BIG selling point when this game was released (see Prophecies box). Saying otherwise is something I bet nobody including Anet will agree with you on.

If you want me to nitpick and fight a semantics war, I don't see hundreds of thousands players in a persistent world. But I guess you call Diablo II a MMO.


If you are telling me someone that is more skillful is worse, when using PvE-only skills and consumables, than someone less skillful, I tell you that you are wrong.

A more skillful player will always be better at GW.
And if you are telling me that a less skillful player will be better because he can use consumables and PvE-skills or has higher rank on those skills, I can also say that a lvl 20 character played by an idiot will have a better chance to survive against a level 26 mob than a lvl 1 played by the best player.

Although I've already explained you that they were talking about normalization of levels and items, I will also like to say that I've a nice chunk of land in the dark side of the moon for sale and everyone that is cool and smart already bought nearby properties. So be fast!

Definitely not me as this just SOCIALIZES the game when everything can be had by everyone and as GW is now so EASILY as well. I would much prefer NO DROP NO TRADE items myself for the elite or semi elite items as this would me only those who really worked for them and put the effort into getting them would get them. This also prevents over farming or really most farming as with NO DROP NO TRADE there's no reason to keep doing redundant things over an over again for the loot, but, could be done for experience titles and rank. A player could still salvage the items resources, but, they would still be no drop no trade and he could only use them on other items he/she has aquired to buff them up.

I don't know why I'm still in this thread. I thought I was supposed to quit a while back. /facepalm

Unless they aren't using PvE skills and consumables.

Uh...what is your point?

Proof?

You posted an official Anet quote saying that GW is Skill>time, competitive, and an MMO. You now say that GW either isn't or shouldn't be any of those. You also ignore about 50% of Bryant's points. I understand your position, but I don't see how you can stick to it given all the evidence to the contrary.

Player skill is compared under the same circumstances.



Player skill is compared under the same circumstances.

Makes no sense to compare a level 1 player to a level 20 player. It makes no sense comparing a player using consumables to other not using consumables.

"Hey that guy walks faster than the other, he is using a sweet the other isn't, he must be better!" Makes perfect sense...


PvP levels and items are normalized. PvE levels and items are normalized. Of course they were talking about something else.

Experience is acquired with time. Natural skill can only carry you so far. Experience can only carry you so far.

If you want to contest the above statment be my guest.


That same quote also states it isn't exactly a MMO, it is cooperative and "Engaging in combat is always the player's choice, however; there is no player-killing in cooperative areas of the world".

combat - Moby Thesaurus II by Grady Ward, 1.0 :

158 Moby Thesaurus words for "combat":
Kilkenny cats, action, aerial combat, affray, all-out war,
altercation, antagonize, appeal to arms, argument, armed combat,
armed conflict, armored combat, attack, battle, battle royal,
beat against, beat up against, belligerence, belligerency,
bickering, bloodshed, box, brawl, breast the wave, broil, brush,
buck, buffet, buffet the waves, bullfight, cat-and-dog life, clash,
clash of arms, close, close with, cockfight, collide,
come to blows,compete with, conflict, confrontation, contend,
contend against, contention, contentiousness, contest,
contestation, controversy, cut and thrust, debate, defy,
difference, disagreement, disputation, dispute, do battle,
dogfight, duel, embroilment, encounter, engagement, enmity,
exchange blows, exchange of blows, fence, feud, fight,
fight a duel, fight against, fighting, fire fight, fray,
give and take, give satisfaction, grapple, grapple with,
ground combat, hand-to-hand combat, hand-to-hand fight,
hostilities, hostility, hot war, house-to-house combat,
join battle with, jostle, joust, la guerre, labor against,
litigation, logomachy, might of arms, military operations,
militate against, mix it up, naval combat, offer resistance,
open hostilities, open war, oppose, opposition, paper war,
passage of arms, pitched battle, polemic, quarrel, quarreling,
quarrelsomeness, rassle, reluct, reluctate, repel, resort to arms,
riot, rival, rumble, run a tilt, running fight, scramble,
scrapping, scrimmage, scuffle, shooting war, shoving match,
skirmish, spar, squabbling, stand-up fight, state of war,
stem the tide, street fight, strife, strive, strive against,
struggle, struggle against, take on, tauromachy, the sword,
thrust and parry, tilt, total war, tourney, traverse, tug-of-war,
tussle, vendetta, vie with, wage war, war, war of words, warfare,
warmaking, warring, wartime, withstand, words, wrangling,
wrestle

I say GW is, in one hand, a PvP competition (in the areas called PvP areas) based on skill and not on time attaining levels (you can create PvP characters that are max level) and/or equipment (you start with max armor and max damage weapons, although you have to unlock upgrades/inscriptions/runes, which new PvP'ers will contest the way require to obtain them), and, in the other hand a game that can be played alone or can be played in a cooperative way (in the areas called PvE areas), where skill is of much less importance and has very small relevance on beating the game content, given the nature of a static AI.

The evidence given is a complaint on why PvE isn't what some people believes it should be.

People can disregard reality and complaint that the reality doesn't fit their view or they can accept reality as it is (I guess you can try to change it, but that doesn't means the reality isn't the way it was supposed to be).

In my opinion, makes much more sense to believe that game reflects the state it was supposed to be, PvE being what RPGs are, a place where you collect stuff, call it items or call it titles, based not on perfect skill system, but on a mixture of some skill and time played; and PvP being a system where both sides have the same resources, and fight among each other, with the fights being decided on both raw skill and accumulated experience.

Bad design choices and/or bad ways to implement those aside, that is what the game looks like.

Or you can say the game is all wrong, Anet are pansies that created GW by mere luck and have no clue what makes a game attractive.

You choose whatever it makes you feel better.

I choose to see the reality.

I'm sorry if I derailed, unintentionally, this thread, but as Gun Pierson stated, it annoys me the way people like to blame PvE/others on the failures of one of the most promising and innovative games out there.

It also pisses me off the fact that people can't accept that other people don't share the same objectives in this game, and wish to force them on the same objectives or to rank people in places that aren't supposed to be competitive.

There is space for everyone in this game, well some people could get lost (its not a mention to anyone on this thread), and in an online community there can be different interests coexisting. Skillful game has a space, called PvP, and more relaxed, less based skillful play has its own space in PvE. Some people (the heresy) even enjoy and have fun on both.

wat. Text under your name is "content"?

Unless you're referring to the boost you get for upping titles in PvE skills...which is a reward for your time invested into the game. There you have it: You're playing for rewards, not for the lulz. Apparently not all rewards are without meaning, no?

Titles don't have any impact on your gameplay besides making it easier (a very, very huge problem) and - just like rare weapons - e-peen. Other than that both hold the same amount of substance.

But you're still ignoring the underlying issue: there are still SOOOOOOO many multitudes of better ways of implementing methods that make it easier to get those rewards via not degrading the intelligence of the playerbase.

Aside from that, I paid just as much as you for this game. You're just as entitled to "seeing your content" as much as I'm entitled to seeing it stay as is.

More and more devs are encouraging you to get better at the game, and that's a good thing!!! Remember how I talked about Mass Effect not giving you the hardest difficulty achievements if you change the difficulty to anything lower even once in your gameplay? How Rock Band 2 locks you from earning achievements if you put on the cheats that make it so you can't lose? How Fallout 3 gives you less experience on a difficult setting, and more if on a harder?

What good developers are doing these days is still providing the game for those who wish to play it. But are still holding on reserve the rewards for those who actually are knowledgeable with the game.

What ANet did wrong was kowtow those who didn't have the experience and who didn't want to be experienced. They provided content that rewarded those who were willing to go through with it and who had extensive play in the game. Then the minority of people who weren't terribly good cried and cried and cried and ANet gave them PvE skills, consumables, and other facets to make it easier.

If you're an average player, you're not really going to care about those long term "rewards", you just want to play the game. That was one mistake ANet realized with Ursan: all of these changes are 1. the wrong way to appeal to the casual player and those with little time (that's what easier difficulties is for: they see the main-juice of the game, not the "goodies"), and 2. they are FAR more beneficial to those who don't want to put in the effort for those harder areas. Your defense for the imbalances in this thread are no less different than those for Ursan. If all those arguments actually held merit, if "don't like don't use" was really a solid point, Anet wouldn't have touched Ursan. Instead they did quite the opposite: they mutilated it.

That's how every solid game has progressed: provide with an easy mode of access and slowly progressing into more difficult gameplay, rewarding those who reach their peak - NOT with loot, not with a title, but by making all of their hard work gratifying. Developers understand the meaning of maintaining a well-defined and challenging progression. Unfortunately, ANet isn't one of those at this point.

That's why WoW has such a madly popular playerbase.

No matter how totally %@%#ed up the endgame gets, no matter how wildly unbalanced arenas are, it's always going to be the people completely, horribly oblivious of the endgame that makes the sales: the casuals. Numbers don't equate anything to quality, just look at the Wii.

All we're saying is that the skill threshold has been needlessly lowered, and how this will have a lasting effect and those who wish to delve further into the game and into other parts of the game.

Or another reality is that the game turned out to be completely different from what it was when it started...


When GW started, it was a gem that everyone fell in love with. It was something completely original which stood on its own ground but which spinned out of control with the continous tweaks, "fixes", add-ons and expansions.

The problem is that although the original idea was fabulous and the idea of new content every 6 months sounded awesome..., the fact is that GW slipped out of Anet's hands...

The more expansions which was supposed to reinvent the game, created more broken mechanics that were abused... and divided the community...in other words, created more problems that they had anticipated...

The supposedly new genre CORPG in fact, turned out to be a wannabe MMO with the addition of grind and titles...

In desperate attempts, ANet tried to fix all the problems, but in the end, all they managed is to provide "band-aids" which do not fix the problem at all...e.g creation of PvE skills and Consumables in a game where skill was supposed to be key leaving us with a game where you can basically c+ space through the game; a badly implemented search system ; GvGs and HA where bots (aka Heroes) exists...

In the end, Anet give up under the colossal work they have to do to actually fix the game, and decide to stop all chapter releases and start working on GW2... since that is the only option they have left to return GW to its glory...

And since, most players already realised this, most left leaving the present GW with title-grinders and some few patches of population and and loads of leechers seeking titles...

So does every other renowned game company, but we don't see them copping out to the lowest denominator (well, save for Nintendo, maybe).

There were multiple paths they could've taken to please both crowds, but they didn't take a single one.

Of course the playerbase wouldn't be "good" in a few months, but it would be vastly improved and have a wider knowledge of what works and what doesn't.

As is, consets and PvE skills don't just make you go through the game easier. They nearly completely fill up the gaps in your template that would normally be a gaping flaw in your build. When you don't see those flaws, when you see success no matter what you do, you don't learn anything. You don't learn which skill is better than what, which skill is bad for each situation, and etc.

As is there's very little consequence if you remove the skill descriptions from PvE: as long as players know what consumables are and where to get the PvE skills (and even a lot of suck, funnily enough) you don't really have to care what your build is at all.

If we balanced PvE skills and made the bonuses gained from consets much more restrictive it would give players much more of an idea of what's running in their build, leading to a much easier transition to PvP.

I must have been absolutely terrible at explaining my point. I think people simply saw the thread title of the discussion, not the OP, and they must have thought "let's go at another discussion on player skills". The OP clearly said it was about the "teaching" (which may have been more appropriately named "guiding", I guess most people have bad memories of school/uni teachers) side of the argument, but a few people decided that it's not what they wanted to discuss, and I felt it was ok for while. I didn't open pandora's box, it was thrown into this thread at one point.

For me, it's just a sad and depressing acknowledgement that the issue of "teaching" does not matter to most. Not to say that some are not trying, but rather with the thought that if all the energy of posters in this thread was focused more on teaching stuff about the game (rather than making an argument on the situation), it'd be amazing. But it is not.

A lot of players are stubborn, but appealing to them is just going to make the game worse further down the road. For many, "learning the hard way" is probably the best method, but that's only because they bring it on themselves.

As is there's very little we can do besides on a personal basis: be helpful towards other players, let them know when they mess up (important: follow up on what they can do to not do it again) - in general, the only thing we can do is be as helpful as they can.

The best thing I could suggest would be to implement a resource in-game that goes to the wiki. Fortunately, that's already been done. It's quite easily one of the best things ANet's done to their game. The only way they could make it better would be if it was in-game.

You're the victim of your own prejudices. It may well be the experience you gained from helping players, but put it on bad luck because there are plenty of people eager to learn (and as a teacher of Maths, I know this lesson quite painfully, believe me).

I know how valuable learning from failing is, and I think it's even healthier in the modern society mindset we have, but the tradeoff between failing and having fun is different in a game (and I guess it's different from even what you consider since you're playing a lot of games).

What about spend your time in Q&A? Or distill your knowledge of the game in any other parts of the forum? Or write a guide, tutorial, or whatever that could help on one part of the game? (I'll post on Guru an early draft of the idea I mentioned before, I hope you'll contribute )

Think about it for a few minutes: all this time you and other have spent here, arguing for the sake of words and "truth" (which is here totally immaterial and quite subjective anyway), couldn't you have spent it to address the problem of player skills, rather than merely point to it with precise argument?

I'm not saying you should, contrarily to what a few said earlier, but I'm genuinely asking the question: isn't a little bit "our" fault if skill is not passed from "older" generation of GW players to "newer" ones? (it's not really about old and new, but I hope you get the point) If we'd want a GW community with the average skill being 10 to 20% higher, can't we do anything about it?

I'm not saying it's the only way. There are just as many out there who do feel bad when they mess up or when they anger the team, and if they want to get better at the game there's nothing that's going to stop me from helping them with that.

But those who aren't good at the game, stubborn, and *don't* want to improve are always going to be in a game, and it's the developer's job to identify those players and ignore them. It may seem nasty since many believe that developer's are supposed to listen to all players, but not all players have the best interests for the game.

I've thought about it. Then I thought about those who may not ever see a forum. It's those people where an online guide would be useless for, and that's why I go the other path of helping those in-game.

It's simply a crossroad: you can either invest your time helping those on a forum, or going out and helping those in the game world. We need people on both sides. I'm just more into doing the latter path.

The example of the "noobs" (and they do exist) is often quoted to point to the fact that very little can be done about them. But that's completely missing the point of guiding: you can only guide people who will accept to be guided. In other words, the whole point of this thread is about these guys, not the ones that will not learn. So these noobs should not be mentioned, they're not part of the equation and I seriously don't care about them (it may be rude but I'm not willing to do in-game education, as probably most people do). If you consider we're talking about people willing to learn, the thread makes sense.

You've been in enough gaming communities to know that improving what you can is the only way, it's not about reaching a maximum number of people. If your guide/ideas are really good, they'll spread like fire, so to say. Ultimately, a guide, such as the wiki or PvX, should be here to support the activities of "guides" who help people in-game, not as substitutes for them (apart from boring information such as where to cap elite skills, title information, etc.). As I mentioned before, in PvX for example, there should be a huge section on "build use", because this is the part more related to "skill".

It's like books, they don't teach you (except those few ones that are dedicated entirely to this task), they're only here to help you understand better what the teacher says, by exploring content in a different way or focusing on an aspect he's only mentioning quickly. (I've had such a case 3 weeks ago, I referred one of my student to a specific part of the coursebook, he came back to thank me for that because he understood everything perfectly).

The "book" (or GW tutorial) is also a tool for self-teaching and ultimately begin to move from being helped by someone in-game to learn by yourself, by starting to understand the game as a mechanics, rather than the fun of playing (which is the important thing here of course!)

EDIT: this is what I'm talking about!

158 Moby Thesaurus words for "combat":
Kilkenny cats, action, aerial combat, affray, all-out war,
altercation, antagonize, appeal to arms, argument, armed combat,
armed conflict, armored combat, attack, battle, battle royal,
beat against, beat up against, belligerence, belligerency,
bickering, bloodshed, box, brawl, breast the wave, broil, brush,
buck, buffet, buffet the waves, bullfight, cat-and-dog life, clash,
clash of arms, close, close with, cockfight, collide,
come to blows,compete with, conflict, confrontation, contend,
contend against, contention, contentiousness, contest,
contestation, controversy, cut and thrust, debate, defy,
difference, disagreement, disputation, dispute, do battle,
dogfight, duel, embroilment, encounter, engagement, enmity,
exchange blows, exchange of blows, fence, feud, fight,
fight a duel, fight against, fighting, fire fight, fray,
give and take, give satisfaction, grapple, grapple with,
ground combat, hand-to-hand combat, hand-to-hand fight,
hostilities, hostility, hot war, house-to-house combat,
join battle with, jostle, joust, la guerre, labor against,
litigation, logomachy, might of arms, military operations,
militate against, mix it up, naval combat, offer resistance,
open hostilities, open war, oppose, opposition, paper war,
passage of arms, pitched battle, polemic, quarrel, quarreling,
quarrelsomeness, rassle, reluct, reluctate, repel, resort to arms,
riot, rival, rumble, run a tilt, running fight, scramble,
scrapping, scrimmage, scuffle, shooting war, shoving match,
skirmish, spar, squabbling, stand-up fight, state of war,
stem the tide, street fight, strife, strive, strive against,
struggle, struggle against, take on, tauromachy, the sword,
thrust and parry, tilt, total war, tourney, traverse, tug-of-war,
tussle, vendetta, vie with, wage war, war, war of words, warfare,
warmaking, warring, wartime, withstand, words, wrangling,
wrestle

I hereby submit to you that GW "combat" means that people were supposed to flame each other at forums.

Devs succeeded.

Sorry, but, I disagree with you here. That is merely your opinion and not the mass majority opinion. The Wii is a fine console and has brought to the gamer(s) exactly what they wanted, real live action play. People that use that phrase "numbers don't equate to quality" are just jealous of the facts. They are jealous WOW and the Wii are what the majority like and prefer. There just isn't any evidence of proof that numbers don't equate to some quality. 10 million people don't eat at McDonalds everyday because the food suks. Just because YOU don't play something or participate in something doesn't mean it's not HIGH QUALITY. WOW is the best mmorpg out there, the NUMBERS say so. Blizzards bank account says so as well.

And I rightfully respect that, but I find it curious that you're claiming all those games for the Wii are "good". I'll have to dig up my recent GI for the site, but it listed that the Wii has the worst good-bad game ratio, *and* it also has a crapload of games; a crapload of, well, crap.

Sure it's great if you want something simple, but if you want a game that, ya know, goes a bit beyond that? You're gonna find very very few on the Wii. The more serious gamer has gotten very shafted with the Wii.

I'm not denying Blizzard's game isn't good - hell I've played it since release - but there are a SHIT ton of problems endgame and there always has been.

But just like Guild Wars, the casual player doesn't know about all this, nor might they even reach it. The casual is just concerned with what he's doing right then, there, and now. That's one of the big advantages in why Guild Wars has been so successful: simple to pick up, easy to get drawn in...but that's not all that makes a good game.

As a side note: in regards to fast food being "high quality", you might want to pick this up. I'm hoping things have changed by then.

Not really, there are tons of games that you can beat on the hardest difficulty and still be challenged by. Examples such as Contra, Quake, I Wanna Be The Guy, Gears of War. Yeah I know that having played through IWBTG means it gets a lot easier, yet you need such manual dexterity and timing that having done it once doesn't mean you can do it again.

I remember Ursan Blessing days. Running at breakneck speed through DoA spamming 1121132114112 like some idiot, clearing the hardest area in the game with barely as much effort as a level 20 would need in pre-searing, to get a shiny shield as reward. Yeah it looks great but to be honest, the gloom shield that I bought from a friend of mine is far more meaningful to me.

Fortunately they nerfed UB, but it's still the same more or less, if something is too hard, just plop some PvE skills onto your bar, grab some meth - sorry, I meant essence of celerity - from your local asuran dealer, crack open a summoning stone for good measure and whatever thing was hard (hard because you insisted on playing it in HM) melts away like a popsicle in death valley.

I don't know many Wii games, but I find this console absolutely amazing, in terms of the new gaming paradigm it provides. I guess many (most?) games do not require any "skill" and thus make them worthless to "hardcore" gamers. And I also know how Nintendo and the gaming industry exploits people's naivity, as Blizzard does to make people dependent on their WoW "addiction" (which does not mean it's not fun!). Nevertheless, they are absolutely brilliant in terms of fun, they are beyond the fun you can get from multiplayer PC experience, such as MMOs. Of course that's also a generalisation, to each its own.

(there's an interesting point about the "serious gamer" aspect, as games are about fun and it's not considered "serious" in terms of productivity, you can't sell these skills to an employer unless he's got a direct relationship to games, although you find very creative minds in "serious gamers" but they also have other problems)

Ok we're definitely completely off-topic now!

The only thing this thread shows me is that certain people only want things their own way and can't accept that is not the ways things are. We have a wall of text the basically belittles and insults a majority of the people who play the game. So what if the game is to easy for some of you, make it harder by trying to play through using only 4 skills instead of 8. Don't use all the new skills and consumables, if you are that good you won't need them. Not all people want to invest all their time in a game, but still would like to be able to progress to harder areas, let them do so as by any means they want. How does this hurt you? People find fun in different ways, some like the challenge to be hard, others just want to be able to progress without that great challenge. The game is what is it is and not likely to change much with GW2 in the works, so you either have to accept it and continue to play or move on to a bigger challenge.
I myself have never purchased a consumable and the ones I possess like cupcakes, etc I may have used once or twice, but if that is what people like to do I say go for it and have fun.

We aren't comparing skill relative to other players (although I could easily argue that is what GW is supposed to be but I won't here). We are comparing skill relative to OTHER GAMES. The mere existence of things that make the game easy goes directly against the entire point of Guild Wars. There are now games that advertise time>skill that have more skill>time than Guild Wars.

And your analogy is flawed...it is more like "Hey everybody is using steroids I might as well use them because it makes everything easier". You aren't considering the integrity of the game being destroyed. Wouldn't it be easier if we had a magic wand to make steroids go away?

So you took Anet's quotes and read "Success in Guild Wars is a direct result of player skill" and you determined that only means "levels and items are normalized"?? Any normal person reading that would deduct that "success in Guild Wars is a direct result of player skill".

Your concept of normalized is also disturbing to me. Are PvE skills and consumables also normalized to you? As long as everybody is on the same footing right? You have gone on record saying you don't care if ANYTHING including a 10 billion damage skill was added to the game because it wouldn't affect you. That is like saying we can drop a nuclear bomb on Africa because it wouldn't affect you. Your position is something a lot of people DO NOT agree with because you don't consider the consequences and you don't consider that other people paid for this game so the EXACT reasons you are arguing for would NOT be in the game.

No..they say it is an MMO but it has differences from MMO (hence the term CORPG that hasn't stuck due to the changing game direction to a more standard MMO). Again...you are saying that since GW is a dalmation it must not be a dog anymore. You are also splitting hairs with their statement...to claim that "your success is determined by your skill" only applies to competitive areas is ridiculous. You won't get anybody to agree with you on that. We are talking about the health of Guild Wars, not the health of PvE or PvP.

Again...splitting hairs. But more to your point...so static AI means that skill should have very small importance? What about Bryant's brilliant posts (that you have been mostly ignoring) about the balance of the game and the difficulty in Guild Wars being broken? Shouldn't the game require an increasing amount of skill as the game progresses and a bigger difference between hard mode and normal mode?

The evidence given is that the game used to be much more skill focused and everything has completely changed since EoTN and perhaps earlier. The evidence given is that GW was built on the foundation of being competitive, skill>time, and an MMO (which you gave me yourself). I could pull out much more evidence if need be. Everybody knows the differences of the game compared to in the past. I see the reality, you see only what makes your personal game better as being good for the game.

The evidence has already piled up. See above.

Again...this thread has long evolved from the OP. People have determined that the community mostly sucks and we are on to the "why". Some have also determined that there is almost no point in teaching if there is very little reason for people to learn (not to mention no reason to teach). Learning in Guild Wars is like a college classroom with no benefits after graduation...people can simply go out in to the world and use things that allow them to succeed without actually learning about what they are doing. It is like people being able to go into places where their knowledge isn't enough and still being able to succeed...why the need teach or learn when you can tell someone to abuse the inbalances? PvE skills, consumables, and other inbalances have led to these factors. The game is broken from the ground up which has been a major contributing factor in this whole player skill debacle, and some people are just pointing that out through this thread.

What you've done with this thread is changed it to the "why isn't teaching working in this environment?" to "why do people suck?". This is not the thread topic. But I guess you're going to ignore this and continue twisting the topic to suit your will, which is ok because you've got the mods support through their silence. I'm aware that by saying that I may leading this thread very close to a closed status, but I prefer this to people thinking they're still on-topic (it's actually no problem because if it was a "valid" discussion, although off-topic, you'll be able to continue in a new thread).

Your point of view on teaching carries with it a few prejudices that need to be addressed. It's not about skill, but about sharing. It's not about being good, but collaborative.

(funny thing: we've actually determined nothing at all in terms of how sucky the community is, examples of PUGs are not proof of that, and for all we know outposts could be empty because everyone is in an instance...)

Some have said. Not only has the point not been discussed, but it's plain wrong. KiSu prefers to call it "mentoring" because they're not taking real newbies, but if they do it, it means there's a good reason.

Wrong again: the benefit is for example to not be wipped clean in 1s in HM or in elite areas, to be able to ease the learning curve towards PvP.

Because it's wrong? And not as fun!

My original posts were about why teaching probably wouldn't work (and why). I am addressing that "why people suck" is because teaching doesn't work. But I'll make a distinction on that more in a bit.

Its impossible to tell how sucky the community is, but it is possible to say that there is a very high probability they suck because they have no reason not to.

I'm still not convinced I'm wrong here. Look at it this way...what are we teaching people? We are most likely teaching them how to use inbalances right? I suppose if you are coming from a "teach them the mechanics and basics of the game" standpoint, then I would agree with you that teaching has some value. But after players learn those then they realize that in Guild Wars inbalance is the way to get ahead in the game and that is where my problem starts. There is no need for more personal improvement.

I agree with you...the problem is we have a lot of "students" who think it is right and it is fun. They don't want to learn anymore...learning isn't fun and abusing things is to them.

For same reason any other teaching fails: people do not see benefits, hence, they don't care. There is not much feedback for getting slightly better either. And "copying test results" (aka, relying on others to pass you through hard spot) works.

Why listen to that elitist prick talking about effectiveness if you just don't need it as anything and everything "just works". If you can beat any nonelite normal mode PvE with party that has bar gotten by pressing F5 eight times on this page: http://gw.gamependium.com/tools/builds/random and just randomly zergs stuff (Try it, it is actually fun!), why bother learning anything.

Well, you're wrong. KiSu shows that for PvP. What Bryant Again is doing (or may have been doing) in-game happens often.

This is a subjective probability you're talking about. It's going to be different, and unless we start a global project to get a clear picture of it, it is a urban legend (like a vapor ).

How to improve their skill level, which is a long and complex matter to discuss.

No, absolutely not. Even me, an average PvErs, knew how ursan was powerful, but I didn't want to do anything with that (even if it meant not earning the "great" rewards of DoA, etc.). Everyone can equip these imbagons, load the consumables, and they don't need any teaching, they're in superman mode.

This is exactly what I've been talking about since the OP.

Maybe, maybe not: during the learning process, your expectations change, the way you view "fun" changes, skill is a moderately addictive process (I see it with Maths teaching). Guide them towards the point where they'll have the tools to start self-teaching and you won the big prize, so to say. With skill, you can face very many situations, including move to the more challenging PvP. It's even possible (not very common?) that people will start to see imba as an abuse, with all the negativity it implies, or simply as a speed up process (skill+consets=faster).


It's not entirely true. Don't take it wrong, but your posts carry with them the common prejudices on teaching/education, it's a psychological negative factor. People play games to get out of RL, they don't want to see this bit annoy them in the game (because teachers suck, school is bad, education is not for me, yadayadayada -> prejudice!). Until they see the effect it can have on them, something that you'll only be able to show to these newbies when you take the time to address them in the "right way". Not an easy task, but here is the direct reward: you're "creating" new (moderately) skilled players who are going to bring new blood to the game, provide new competitors.

I know I'm an idealist and this is not going to be such a nice picture, when you start something that "big", you have to live on personal satisfaction first (like people who help in-game do) and then have patience. A lot of patience. You'll meet resistance from people who will disagree on the method, those that wants to make a point that teaching is not cool, and so on. But I believe it can really help.

Quote:

Originally Posted by zwei2stein http://gw.gamependium.com/tools/builds/random and just randomly zergs stuff (Try it, it is actually fun!)

EDIT: very cool!

Why people should bother learn basic Maths when they have powerful calculator to do it for them? Because you actually don't always have the calculator with you. Because it's going to teach you logical skill on how to approach problems and solve them. Because you're going to find inspiration for your work. Because it globally makes your life easier. Because it shows your future employer you have valuable skills. Because you'll be able to understand what engineers say. Etc.

Who says the majority of all gamers is intellegent in the first place?

It's not my job as a player to provide challenge. It's the job of the game.

And yes, playing with 4 skills instead of 8 can be fun if you want to test if you can do it. But you should be able to try to play as well as you can and the game should still challenge you.

I think after playing any game for 3+ years you will get better in spite of yourself, thus it won't be as challenging (PvE).

Why the deliberate confabulation between a legitimate, real world problem and a meaningless one? I don't get it. My best friend is head of a math department and I have spent years working in research labs with undergrads, so, yes, I understand completely the issue that calculators have had on a generation of potentially permanently mentally crippled students. It's still not relevant, nor even if you assume it is relevant, does it support the arguments of the anti-PVE skills, anti-consumables.

There is a world, nay, multiverse of difference between the existence of calculators, as well as their readily accessible nature, and an educational system that actually went out of its way to not just permit their use, but to actively promote and require their use to the exclusion of basic math skill. I see the same thing in the biological sciences where emphasis is often placed on getting labs in AP programs to have students doing "high level" stuff (DNA extraction, basic plasmid construction, etc.) without first teaching the students the basics and, sure, they get next to nothing out of it but the administrators sure have something shiny to put on their C.V.s.

The problem, though, is not the existence of calculators and plasmid construction by high school juniors, rather an educational system that makes the same mistake as many GW players: confusing easy to achieve results with knowledge. I don't see, however, the necessary connection linking the analogy of the educational system to GW's designers, because the game itself is, if anything, the opposite. Until you reach EoTN, and until you reach what is mostly non-storyline EoTN content, you won't even have the option of the majority of these "broken crutches", and you will never be steered to them via the game itself. The game merely makes the tools available, and it is the "students" themselves that go out of their way (or not) to rely upon them without learning the basics. OTOH, if you play any of the other campaigns, you instead find an emphasis on some decidedly non-optimal skills (particularly in Prophecies) that leave you either handicapped through your ignorance or actually learning as you move outside what the game has spoonfed you, which can, of course, lead us back to the community that will promote X cookie cutter build and Y maximum loot strategy versus exploration and learning.

Not really sure what the point of all that was, but I guess it means, yes, the community does suck and people should stop blaming the game for that

Good post here, what happens when these problem skills get nerfed? whats it really going to change?

Half the problems with this game is player induced and fixing a few broken PvE skills to please a small minority is'nt going to change anything.

It might not appear clear why game design is flawed, but some of the complaints about game design are based on it being a reflection of the population that likes a game a certain way. People are being nice by complaining about design flaws and such, but they might have bigger problems dealing with the actual people who enjoy the design, than they do when taking hero/hench out somewhere. The game has the lifespan of just about any single player game until you come into contact with an actual person. After that point, you need to meet quality people to keep you involved, a number of which probably won't exist in a high enough quantity to offset how disruptive people can be at the low end (the easy design lets the very low end be themselves without improving in any way, and forces the high end to seek out self-improvement elsewhere). With how it's designed, GW makes for a better single player game than a multiplayer one; however, a game where other people encroach on you in any way (where you are ranked) can never resemble a single player game, so it’s not appropriate to discuss it along those terms. But here's a different complaint about game design:

Given the current game mechanics, design supports gratification by a monotonous killing process. A quick kill (the kind that can be brought about by a gun) is far less likely to appear in the consciousness of human being long enough for him to develop the thinking to revert the process. A monotonous activity can fit the same criteria for never reaching consciousness after a certain amount of time doing it. Doing each of these two things enough times sets in motion a human process of trying to automate the activity, especially when there are no points when the task changes to get someone to think differently about it. If the task to kill something is arduous and painstaking, the process will pass through the consciousness of a person long enough for them to have time to think about it, possibly even considering whether the reasons for doing so are effective (like reasoning whether a quest reward is worth killing 30 of something).

For that reason, mechanics (violence included) in games can be beneficial if introduced in a manner where the players have to consider their actions and think about motives for doing so, basically giving a good reason why a game should be centered around quests/missions instead of farming. Slaughter 50 million dinosaurs quickly using a 1-2-3 skill combination is going to encourage automating the gratification process; killing a single giant powerful monster over the course of a long fight while the player hears the story of what this horrible beast has done will not do the same thing to people. Using the examples I listed earlier, the kills involved in farming are both quick and monotonous.

Going from this, an automated human process does not get experienced in the same reference as a non-automated one, it feels much quicker (which is why hours can disappear playing a game). A game itself is typically designed for acting directly on impulse, so it’s never a good trend when designers remove even more thinking from aspects of the game. The possibility of learning to respect a quality opponent gets reduced through upping the pace of PvP; suddenly that quality opponent loses in 15 minutes instead of 20, so maybe he doesn’t even register as a quality opponent. Solo play removes the other people who could potentially advise one of having poor behavior, or taking a poor action on an impulse.

Now, the internet itself removes some of the thinking that typically occurs between impulse to talk and actual speech, because it removes the element of reading a fellow human being’s nonverbal reaction from the room. Combine the monotony and the ease of farming gratification in the game, along with the fact that those types of activities are experienced at a quicker frame of reference, and you have an argument that internet games can be used as a tool to practice acting upon impulses with reduced thinking.

The game itself does not truly introduce the poor responses to impulse into the environment, but it trains people to act with less thinking on an impulse. Now, people who act on impulse most of the time trend towards being sociopaths, only because they never refine themselves emotionally towards learning what other people would consider a good response to an impulse. Game design and balance (this applies to all games, this is why competition frequently turns into violence) creates the world people complain about by introducing the mechanics that encourage impulsiveness, without a dedication towards reshaping the actions people take to resolve impulses. To me, one of the most glaring signs of what impulse-acting based design does on a daily basis is already highly visible: people who do things that are clearly wrong or against the rules, and they come out and instead demand that someone should have placed constraints to prevent them from doing the behavior. They are partially right; people need restraints placed on poor learned responses to impulses to counteract the training done by businesses to make money off them acting directly on impulses. (Don’t just take something, work and earn money to buy something).

TLDR version: Easy/monotonous games are designed to get impulsive animals to act without thinking. Harder games are designed to train animals to do better things than they were previously capable of. Designers should be fighting what's perceived as the worst of human nature, not encouraging it to profit.

As far as hopes for the teaching process go, you can't teach anything specific to anyone who is running on automatic impulse response. They won't even recognize you when you try it, and if anything, when you try it you might just be viewed as an impediment to their acting on impulse and receiving gratification. The most you can do at any time with people in that state is an outright disruption in their automated process of acting on impulse; just doing any new thinking at all would be a progression from that point. For that reason, game design is really counterproductive to dealing with the low end; the mid-high end is manageable.

RPGs are much less skillful than any FPS or RTS by their own nature.

Still skill>time is one untrue statement in any game. You can be a natural shooter, still if you practice shooting every day, you will be a much better shooter.

Similarly, if your aim is naturally bad, practicing it every day will improve it substantially.



Sure a person reading that will be believe it is just buying the game, start to do GvG and beat the best players around that have been playing for years, because hey, skill better than time.


My friend if you can't differentiate why real world and game world is different I think you need professional help.

Comparing the death of millions of human beings to the death of monsters in game is... well I don't know what that is but it doesn't sound good.









That is subjective.

Curiously, there was no Hard mode, the mobs didn't scatter from AoE, Soul reaping gave energy for every kill, there was no minion cap, there was no armor stacking cap... Are you telling me you want those back in game?

I already told you, titles have no relation to skill. You state that yourself.

If it isn't a relation to skill it isn't an award for skill. In my view is a check list of stuff to do.



Again we hit the same wall.

Since you like to talk about other games, lets talk about Diablo II, a very successful game.

What was left to do after you finish the game - kill the same monsters again and again to get more powerful items to make the kill of said monsters easier.

I'm sorry, but that is what PC RPG are - you develop a character and then keep getting more levels, more items, more skills/spells/attributes to make the game easier.

So, in my point of view everyone can see the game content. In your point of view, only some that fill some kind of criteria that isn't disclosed neither is known who is the person or group of persons that will decide that criteria.



So, you are telling me the only way you will accept challenges is if you get a reward for it. Yes?

Where is the criteria to be considered good in the game?

Did they also cried and cried for Hard Mode, for AoE scatter, for Soul reaping and minion cap?

I'm sorry to tell you PvE is the juice of the game. Anet don't give any "goodies" to PvE because its the main-juice of the game.

The harder difficulty is PvP.

I'm sorry to tell you, both you and I suck at the game because we play PvE. The place to show knowledge of the game is PvP.

Yes, Anet understand that too. It is you that don't understand you are stuck in easy mode, suffering from delusions of grandeur that PvE Hard Mode is the shit in relation to skill.



All I'm saying is that the threshold in lowered because you are stuck in dummie Mode, called PvE. You want to play with the big boys and prove your worth play PvP. PvE is easy mode as yourself keep saying. I just don't understand how you can keep saying that PvE is so easy and you can't understand you are stuck in GW easy mode.

So is this though. If memory serves me right, all those changes came before NF or maybe just after. Nightfall did introduce such an abundance of powerful skills, especially in the form of AOE. You can clearly see by Anet's choices over the years which way the game has gone. It went from trying to fix bad mechanics, skills, monster movement, back to not giving a crap and letting whatever slide to make sales. I also don't understand, what are you going to seriously teach anyone in a game mode that requires such a minimal amount of skill in order to succeed? It's trivial.

If you've been reading these forums for the last 2 years you'd know the majority of players get peeved off when a skill balance hit that also effected their PVE game, it removed the comfort zone the players had; and because of their lack of creativity or understanding of how to use/make an effective bar, they screamed and screamed.

actually, i mentioned a while ago that improving the game can indirectly improve player skill (aka help them learn to be better).
its easier to teach the playerbase indirectly through this method, than trying to reach out to the playerbase directly.
(that said, i still do try to help people directly when i can)
besides, understanding common mistakes is an important process of learning/teaching.

the fact is, pve skills can hinder a player's ability to learn because they rely more on the ability of their tools rather then their own skills.
although relying on tools is an important aspect of build wars, broken crap like pve skills defeats the purpose of good tool selection.

the only reason to argue against this is that "balancing" these skills/items removes player's ability to farm more easily/faster.
which is the only "good" thing about pve skills/consets, even if many ppl will call farming itself bad for the game.

take for example improvavel, who likes pve skills because he can farm hardmode casually.
does that not sound wrong? "farm" "hardmode" and "casually" in the same sentance?

i won't go as far as saying that farming is bad for gw, but i can say that pve skills will not help most people learn to become better at the game.

Why are you a teacher?

I guess you like to teach and like to see your pupils learn. Probably you are good at it too. And you get paid for doing it.

Not everyone likes to teach, not everyone is good at it and they aren't get paid.


A big misconception involving multiplayer games is that everyone is playing them for the same reasons. That is especially untrue in MMORPG or CORPG.

In multiplayer games where people battle 1vs1, their objective is to win.

In a game like GW, that isn't so clear. Also just because two people are doing the same thing it doesn't mean they will like each other or want to be friends.

But I digress.

I will only help people in game and share the few I know about the game if I like them as persons. I'm not going to kamadan and pick someone just because I like to teach them.

And then some people don't want teachers - they want to learn by themselves.

More.

I know personally players that have been playing this game since day 1 (I only play this game for 3 years) have prophecies bars like healing hands warriors, renewal meteor showers, healing monk bar with healing breeze and stuff like that.

Imbagons, sabway, discordway, cryway. Those things are so far from them...

And they have been playing since the "golden days" of GW. And they learned shit.

I think some people in these forums are just so above the majority of the GW population in their search for the most efficient way to kill the mobs, they lost contact with the reality of the majority of the population.

If they learned shit since then, what are you supposed to do? Make the game so hard they need to learn now what they didn't learn in 4 years?

People come to a game to have fun. If they get stuck in some place they get frustrated and stop playing.

That is why PvE is a joke (although individuals can make it bigger challenge by challenge themselves). But that doesn't make GW a joke. Because if someone laugh at GW you send them to PvP.

It is also interesting to look at the motivations underneath some of the changes.

Why was AoE changed to cause scatter?
To fight the bots from farming, not to make the game more challenging.
If you look careful, you will see most of those changed were targeted at prophecies, where bots farmed the most, and you will still see in the present day abnormal behavior in NM from some prophecies monsters.

Why was Soul Reaping changed?
To counter GvG Necro/Rit spikes.

many people recommend new players to start in prophecies because it has a soft learning curve.
but i use the same point to recommend people not start in prophecies because the learning curve is so slow that its almost non-existent.

prophecies is one of those campaigns where you'll learn and progress very slowly unless ur very self-motivated or very resourceful.
your friends are examples of those players who are "in the dark". (not saying theres anything wrong with that)
i think factions, nightfall, and the advent of wiki helped bring people out of the dark slightly.


the situation back then was certainly different, but i still think is was better back then than it is now.

before where we had very little direction in pve and could do anything we want, we are now given direction--farming and grinding titles using the easiest and fastest means necessary.
(and yes, we still have those people who are still in the dark too)

edit: actually the direction in prophecies hinted at pvp, however there was not a "huge" emphasis on it (actually very subtle if you ask me).
many people stayed in pve, looking for things to do rather than making the switch.

Therein lies the problem...they don't need any teaching. They don't NEED to learn beyond the basic level because there is no need to.

The only reason I am in this thread is because we have so many people with the "I should be able to do whatever I want" mindset.

Again, I agree that it can really help at a basic level. There is another problem though...many potential teachers also see these inbalances and problems with the game and realize that the patience may not be worth the trouble. It would be much easier to direct new players to the best god mode available rather than teach them specifically how to get better at the game.

The game having these broken parts in and of itself really throws willingness to teach and willingness to learn and the skill levels of the players out of whack IMO.

Well like you said...GW wasn't supposed to be your typical RPG.

Ok...replace skill>time with "success in Guild Wars is determined by your skill". So you shouldn't have success without skill right? But you will just split hairs again.

Meh...you are getting in to the definition of skill rather than facing the real problems of the game.

You completely missed my point. Essentially your position is that anybody should be able to do whatever they want in the game as long as is doesn't affect your game. I am not the selfish one here...frankly it is you and anybody who thinks like you are the real selfish ones in this thread. You don't care about the health of the game, you only care about the health of YOUR game. You don't care if a 10 billion damage or actual god mode is in the game and that right away is a big problem with your position.

That isn't subjective. Anybody who has been playing this game since the beginning should clearly be able to see the difference in philosophy in the beginning compared to the philosophy of today. And no I don't want those back in game...they were just as broken as PvE skills and consumables (among other things) are today.

Lastly, the idea that some people are throwing around "this is how the game is deal with it" doesn't add anything to the thread. First of all many people have dealt with it by leaving (the PvP community is all but dead for example). Second Anet isn't a god that magically does everything right. They have had a lot of success and should be commended for that, but their game has added a load of flaws and anybody honest with themselves should be able to see that and express it.

Non competitive gaming like GW PvE is a nice place to have this mindset - its an escape from reality.

That is why you can have games where you torture people or trample them with cars. Its fake, not real.



The competition portion certainly isn't. The cooperating are is a different animal.



I guess it isn't only determined by my skill when I'm playing in a team is it?

Lets go, you and me, sue Anet for Untruthful Marketing.



The game has 2 areas - PvE and PvP.
In PvP skill is easily verifiable - the more skillful team wins (except in some circumstances where there are bugs or some imbalance created by patch to the game or so). Balance is important there.

In PvE you have a team that is there to "die" and another that is there to "win".




If it isn't affecting my game, I don't see why it should be affecting someone else game.

If it affects someone else game, its Anet job to take measure.

I can use texmod to obtain cartographer title easier, I can use texmod to show spirit radius, I can use texmod to see if someone is under 50% health, I can use texmod to equip all my characters with obsidian armor skin and tormented weapons, or some skins you've never seen

If I use a god mode that also has a weapon that deals 10 billion damage to finish all the PvE content, farm all the skins and titles I want, exactly how will this affect your game or the health of GW as a game?