A few observations from pve

No, that just means you were doing it before heros, now that we have heros everyone does it, because generally its easier to H/H than pug. Heros have made H/H (aka soloing) more mainstream, which has killed the game for the majority of pug players

Yes, yes, there aren't any and PvE can only be fixed if every monster in the game gets its own unique AI and skillbar. In other words, if you create a new game.

I don't quite agree with you. I think you can do well to improve the skill bars and tweaking some mechanics.

That doesn't quite make the game good, though. If every monster has the same AI, the game will still be extremely predictable, regardless of how strong this AI is. Singleplayer games and PvE content are only interesting for as long as there are new things to discover. If every mission and every monster is the same then they will stop being interesting after three, maybe four of them. That's exactly the issue Guild Wars PvE has.

All I can say is this guy has actually just answered the DP removal debate. I can see that some casual gamers might get frustrated without DP removals, but really, I find the whole system of buying consumbales to make you beat areas easier a total load of crap. Personally, I would just scrap the whole DP removal system altogether.

As for the PvE skills, I think they do actually give something more to the game, but I have to admit that some of them are ridiculously overpowered once you've wasted some time grinding the titles.

My solution:
Get rid of DP removal completely.
Slightly nerf (only slightly, not kill) PvE skills and have them restricted to only 1 per skill bar (excluding Sig of Capture).
Make chest rewards/boss rewards far more useful than getting a massive mob and killing them for item/ecto loot.

Of course thats all easier said than done, I imagine it'll never happen in GW1.

I don't understand. You want them to impose actual penalties -- something that would affect your gameplay drastically, something that ANet specifically did NOT want to do -- when it was a design choice to not do something like that?

Lawl.

You do realize that that's just a mechanic of artificial difficulty manufactured by MMO publishers to make people play longer and thus give them more subscription moneys, right?

this is guild wars?

The original idea of DP was meant as a deterrent. It was meant as punishment for dying. It wasn't as harsh as death in other games. In other games, you lost XP, had to run back to your body, and/or ended up having to replace/repair armor at a cost. Some games had a combination of these mechanics.

In that sense, you're right, DP wasn't as much of an actual penalty as these other games, and you're right, ANet wanted to avoid those drastic punishments, but still give death a meaning. They wanted people to value being alive. DP was the perfect system. It didn't cause long term punishment, it simply meant things were harder for that session. If you had played better, or been more careful, you wouldn't have been in that situation. DP does affect your gameplay for that session drastically. But that was the point of DP. It was meant to keep people from just breezing through the game carelessly. It seems to me that you have missed the point of DP. Unfortunately, there seems to be an ocean of you out there.

Lawl.

not sure here but....
Isn't the OP basically just wanting no cons and no PvE only skills?
Not sure on this again but hasn't the majority of the community kind of accepted that PvE title skills were a bad thing?

Fast forward to EotN. Wiping in a mission doesn't get you booted anymore, because there are rez shrines available. NPC's during those missions get revived as soon as your party is clear of monsters, instead of an instant mission fail.

Basically enabling even the worst player to finish the story.

DP removal is just one of the ways Anet dumbed their game down.

Maybe here, but in-game, well, thats a different story. I complain about Pve skills all the time in vent with my guild they try to ignore it :/

The point I'm making is that cons and pve skills have lowered the quality of pve players, so of course, I think cons and pve skills have damaged the game.

Removing them now isn't going to work, people would just be upset. Instead, I play the game without using such items. Like I said in an earlier post, I feel like using these things is cheating.

I just wish ANet didn't essentially negate DP in the game. It makes the game a brain dead exercise in pushing buttons.

I understand your point, and agree with you that the game would be more interesting if it was more challenging (i think that it would be more interesting for a lot of people actually), but i also understand the point of those who have completed all PvE content, maybe many times, and who are left only with title grinding, that they want to do the more brainlessly they can, because it becomes boring really fast, or maybe those who have played for not so long, but never realized that there's something more to do than title grinding (like PvP with friends), maybe because they are in a guild/alliance that plays only PvE/farming, and they grew with the idea that the game was only that.

Now, if someone is tired with the game, you are all right when you say: "play another game, don't ruin this game because you are bored and you don't like to put a bit of effort in this game any more", but unfortunately ANet doesn't want these people to go, so they allow these PvE skills and items to be in the game.

From a PvE point of view, there's no way out: if no new content is released (like new areas, quests etc., that won't happen), old people get tired soon, and they would eventually leave the game if they didn't have something really easy to do, like title grinding. So i don't see any solution here, we can't play and replay the same things over and over again.

From a PvP point of view, imho new people would jump into PvP (or maybe try do to it) if it wasn't so difficult, expecially compared with the simple shiny PvE titles, for the lack of players (to form PvP groups or guilds with) and for the lack of support and systems to give the average player a chance of learning something, which now isn't here, because if you want to learn you have to be really strongly motivated, and to work very hard. There's no organized arena/tournament for inexperienced players, or casual ones, who play worse than the top pvp players, but who could enjoy that low-level pvp too, like in the sports there isn't only the top level series (i don't know how to call them in english, in Italy we call them "serie A, serie B etc."), but there are also lower level series for those who aren't champions, and they are fun too.

It's called ladder play and it's there at least in gvg. Also the FA/JQ, AB and RA are also areas with a pretty low level of skill.

Yes, but, as i said, the ladder is for experienced players, and AB, RA etc haven't got any tournament (or something similar) to keep people interested, they're only for grinding factions. RA, on top of that, isn't organized (but also FA, JQ and AB) and, tbh, can be really frustrating to play. I was talking about ways of making PvP interesting also for unexperienced or casual players.

Dude casual players dont care about 'grinding for factions'. Ra and the other low level pvp modes are fun and highly populated.

I'm not gonna argue against you just for arguments sake, I know what you're trying to say and I agree with you.

However, AB lets you form your own team and it is a good way for pve'ers into pvp. Unlike what some people think a single organised team can make a huge impact on each battle.

Gvg ladder isn't just for experienced players, or at least it shouldn't be. I mean you are still ladder matched even if you fight outside actual ladder range, but I guess there aren't enough people playing anymore for 2 noob guilds to face each other.

One place I would LOVE to see a ladder was in TA, though. Quite a bit easier to form a 4-man team rather than one of 8.

PvP, and GvG in particular, can be hard to get into. Before the skill split, it was already tough, and now with the skill split, it is especially tough. The point I want to make is that PvE should be more engaging, and that the whole brain dead button pushing doesn't really condition people for the jump to pvp (if they so desire). The problem is, pvp is a very active game type compared to pve. Even when pve wasn't piss easy, pvp was more active. The point is, with pve the way it is now, it doesn't expose people to playing actively or well until they decide to pvp. Then they get owned, and that's the end of that, they give up, and go back to button mashing.

I don't know if this is necessarily the case with everyone. Judging the additudes of the PvP crowd on here.....that is by far the no. 1 reason I will not even give GW PvP a chance. The second reason, is that I prefer simulation style games to PvP in and RPG to PvE in, thus making GW more attractive to me for PvE. Those who think PvE is merely button mashing don't know PvE too well. The same can be said for PvP (vent 3 2 1 spike come to mind) although this is not always the case. So in closing, I play PvE to play PvE, not to prepare for PvP. I simply prefer other types of games to PvP in and get my fill of jerks offs there and don't want to taint my GW playing with the like.

This thread is starting to go the way of pve vs pvp, and so it's pointless to continue talking about the state of pve.

My original point was that pve has become a lot less engaging and challenging because of the introduction of things like pve skills (beyond Signet of Capture ), consumables, and dp removal. The game has lost a lot of the obstacles that used to exist to keep elite content just that: elite.

Regardless of how I feel about pvp, the pve in the game, I feel, as declined because ANet has given people the tools to win, even when they clearly should not have.

I pretty much agree with you. As i said, i think that PvE "needs" to be easy from a commercial point of view. It's ANet interest to keep people playing, but if no new content is released frequently, it's natural that people become bored and less willing to play actively, so they need something very easy to do, or they quit. Then, as Essence Snow said, not everybody is like this, there are also those who play actively in PvE, sure. But it seems to me that these people aren't the majority.

You are perfectly right when you say that PvE isn't always button smashing, and PvP isn't populated only by pros, and also when you say that everybody should be free to play how he prefers. I didn't wanted to say that everybody should jump into PvP, i apologize if i couldn't express clearly my thoughts. I was trying to say that, in my opinion, a lot of people who would jump into PvP if it wasn't so difficult or if there was tournaments or something also for less experienced people, simply decide not to do this jump, and this is bad for all the PvP community (and maybe also for those people, who could have enjoyed that experience). Also notice that "jump" isn't always the right word, becouse someone can do both PvE and PvP, so it's not like a sex change, you know

Then, there are those who don't like PvP, and those who don't like PvE, but i'm fine with both. Sorry for having brought the PvP talk into this thread, let's come back to the original topic if you like.

Didn't want to start any fight, i think there's some communication issue on my side