Ascension (Thirsty River) and Fun

This is aimed for Guild Wars developers, so hopefully it'll be read.

Okay, well first of all I have to say that when I first got Guild Wars I instantly fell in love with it. I played it a lot, and got all the way to Ascension rather quickly. However, once there, I managed to get through Dunes of Despair on my 2nd try, which wasn't so bad. Then I got to Elona, and I had to get someone to run me through to do it, which was NOT fun at all. Then I got to Thirsty River, and that's when you lost a customer. See, I play games to have fun, and Ascension is NOT fun. In fact, many of my friends bought Guild Wars too, and they also stopped playing at Ascension for the same reason: it's too darn hard to be any fun. After trying 25 times it just becomes extremely frustating, especially when you die on the very last group.

Now I'm going to have to compare Guild Wars to World of Warcraft. WoW is made around the idea of having fun, not just the idea of following the MMORPG "rules". Blizzard wasn't afraid to change the rules to make it more fun for the user, and that is its strength, that's why it's 5 times more popular than Guild Wars DESPITE the monthly fee. If MMORPG developers were to stop trying to follow the outdated and now unecessary rules of paper RPGs (like some are starting to do, with real time fighting) I guarantee that their player base would at least double. You gotta stop ignoring PC tech and instead learn to embrace it.

WoW doesn't just have fighting. You can run around the world and meet people and not fight at all, and fish, gather herbs, make armor, etc etc. Guild Wars however is just basic "Beat these 15 billion bosses and you get this armor! Whooyay fun!". With the no monthly fee plan, you're really onto something. It's gotten many of the anti-MMORPG people (like me) to buy it, but now that that's done, you need to start focusing on getting people to actually like it because it's fun if you want them to buy the expansions.

Anyway, as long as I see that the Guild Wars developers and designers are still emprisonned in the "basic MMORPG" chain of thought, you can rest assured that I won't continue to support them (despite the brilliant idea of no monthly fees) and that I won't be the only one.

Thanks for reading

You're insane if you think that Guild Wars was designed to conform to some set of rules rather than to be fun. The game's incredible popularity is proof enough that plenty of people are having lots of fun with it. Granted, everyone has his own idea of what's fun and what isn't; not everyone is going to enjoy Guild Wars, and if you're one of the people who doesn't, then that's fine. But the comparison between GW and WoW, and the suggestion that the latter is somehow better designed because you personally find it more enjoyable, is ludicrous. They're two completely different games.

Moreover, there is no problem with the game's level of difficulty. Plenty of people successfully complete Thirsty River every day. People have trouble with it because the mission's mechanics are a little more complicated than the usual "kill your way to the end" setup. If you can't finish it, then I would guess that either (1) you don't understand exactly how the mission works, or (2) you've been exceptionally unlucky and have joined 25 teams that can't work together, were poorly balanced, or don't understand the mission. If the former, make sure you're clear on exactly when teams will resurrect and time your attacks accordingly, and perhaps look up mission tips and walkthroughs on Google, or at GuildWiki.org. If the latter, try making your own group instead of joining someone else's, and find people with the professions and skills needed to do the mission most effectively. If you've really made 25 attempts then you should have a very good idea what those are. Or try finding a guild to play with -- a group of players used to working together and communicating with one another will make quick work of many things in the game that would be very difficult with a randomly assembled team. And remember, games are supposed to have challenging parts, or what's the point of playing?

YIKES !!! FX you just opened a large can O worms here. First off let me state I too was so disgusted with Ascension particularly the Thirsty River mission myself(died over 40 attempts before I just didn't bother ascending and left my LVL 20 Ranger alone and started a Monk and a Warrior,both now LVL 20 and looking at Ascension) I finally did get my Ranger thru Ascension with much help from guildmates that had already done it(Seems like every PUG(non guildmates) I had grouped with at least one knucklehead(not me I listened to the "experienced" player) screwed the missions up)., It can be done, it's tough but not impossible(as I had thought for 4 months).

Next; You are likely to catch some heat from some people(not me) about GW not actually being an MMORPG (Anet classifies it as a CORPG Competitive Online Role-Playing Game). You may also catch some flak for comparing it to WoW or any other ORPG. and some PvP people may rudely suggest that if you don't like GW the way it is for you to go play WoW, L2 , EQ etc.(All of these things I have already heard in the past)

I agree that Anet(originally part of the crew that started/built Blizzard) created a great overall game with GW & has/had a great idea with no monthly fee(as they did when they started Blizzard{Diablo 1&2/Warcrafts etc}).
Alas I also agree that there are things Anet can/should do to make the game more fun for all(PvE & PvP) especially to interest buyers to purchase expansions. IE: I know for a fact that Anet has received quite a few complaints about Thirsty River being too difficult, so maybe they should consider easing it up a little( I for one loathe timers/timed missions, just my take) I like a "challenge" but I dislike repeatedly banging my head against the wall, so I stop banging(playing) and do something else. To some/many that something else may be something other than GW(expansions AKA revenue).

Good luck FX

1. You have no idea what you're talking about regarding WoW.

2. Ascension is challenging. It's supposed to be difficult. However, it's very doable. You just have to think and plan. They're the first missions that require a team to have some sort of strategy.

It jsut shoudl not take 25 or more tries to finish Thirsty River...there is no way that can happen...most that it took me..with henchies that is...was 3 tries on my first char. Thirsty is not the hardest mission IMO, you'll see that farther on in the game missions get so hard you can't really use henchies and you barely find monks. As for the WOW and other stuff, i believe thats wrong.

If you look at the numbers, you'll see that WoW has 5 times more players than Guild Wars. That isn't just luck, it's that WoW has an audience that plays games to have fun, not necessarily to have to do quests 45 times to get it right. Of course the people that play Guild Wars (AKA you) will disagree with me, because they still play it. I can tell you, however, that ALL of the people I know that bought Guild Wars (I can count 18) stopped playing it and switched to WoW despite the monthly fee. I know 18 people isn't a lot in business terms, but if it happened here, I'm sure it happened elsewhere too.

Now, I'm pretty certain that most of the people that own Guild Wars only have it because it has no monthly fee (that is the genius of the idea). Ascension is fun for those that make it, don't get me wrong on that. But that still leaves a lot of people in the dust, which is a bad design choice no matter which way you look at it.

Also, why do you guys think I'm wrong about WoW? It's an attempt at getting away from the normal MMORPG gameplay like the one in Guild Wars (basic run-around-and-kill-monsters-and-get-to-a-higher-level gameplay with PvP and nearly turn based fighting and farming) and it pretty much succeeds at it.

Anyway, if missions really do get harder and the game mechanics don't make up for it, I suppose that's the last I will ever see of Guild Wars. Shame considering it was free.

WoW is not an attempt at getting away from the normal MMORPG gameplay. WoW is an attempt at making a good game out of standard MMORPG gameplay. Instances, Farming, Crafting, Auction Houses, Battlegrounds, etc. have all been in previous games. Those are all fairly standard features.

It's stupid to compare GW to WoW. GW is heavily based around strategy and player skill, focusing on combat almost at the exclusion of everything else. It's not massively multiplayer any more than, say, Diablo 2 was massively multiplayer.

WoW is a standard MMORPG with all the features and goals of those. I would think "basic run-around-and-kill-monsters-and-get-to-a-higher-level gameplay with PvP and nearly turn based fighting and farming" would apply more to WoW than GW. GW is not about leveling, WoW is. A far smaller portion of GW's quests are about running around and killing monsters than WoW's. WoW has much more farming than GW. As for turn based fighting, GW is actually about as fast as WoW. Their combat models are very similiar. The only major differences are auto-attacking and collision detection.

If you can't beat Ascension, don't blame the game. Hundreds of thousands have beaten it. People of all classes have done it. People have done it with full parties of henchmen. It must be you.

And I know plenty of people (myself included) who switched from WoW to Guild Wars, and who never thought of the monthly fee as a problem.


What are you talking about? It neither attempts nor succeeds at that. There are only two things in WoW that aren't running around, killing monsters, and getting to a higher level. One is running around, killing monsters, and getting better equipment, and the other is crafting. Crafting, incidentally, is nothing but clicking the "craft" button after you've gathered the ingredients - which means running around, killing monsters, and picking up crafting materials. And fighting in WoW is no further from turn-based than it is in GW.

It's shame thats it's taken you 25+ tries to get through the mission before you asked for some form of help. The most tries I've put into any mission I think have been 5 and that was thunderhead. Hell, I took my mesmer through thirsty with just henchmen, it's really not as difficult as it appears to be. That said, in general if a team can't work together then the harder missions will indeed spank them silly.

Thunderhead is MUCH worse than Thirsty. Thirsty is easy with a semi-decent team. Thunderhead requires that team to LISTEN.

Thunderhead keep can be done with henchies :/

Thristy river is easy with henchies also, just that you need some form of interruption or huge spike.

Sorry.. but im pretty sure, these missions are challenging, but they are not as hard as you put them up to be. Thirsty River may be the most difficult of the 3 missions, however, I dont find it that difficult. If you hug the sides and only aggro one boss group at a time, you shouldnt have a problem. 3 acended characters, thought it was easy every time. Maybe.. just me?

FX if you need help contact me in game: Deameon Aluisus(monk), Battery Warrior(necro), Florina Sharp(ranger)

I always got to the last boss priest and always died at the last boss priest. Even when my team was really good.... I don't get how people can find it easy, maybe I'm just missing something cause I have some of the best gear I could see for a Warrior there, as far as unascended characters go.

By last boss priest, do you mean the Monk boss?

The key to defeating Monk NPCs are hexes and interrupts. Scourge Healing, Soul Leech, Mark of Subversion, around half the Mesmer skillset, most interrupts, and a dozen other skills all work.

Here's a guide:
http://www.guildwiki.org/wiki/Thirst..._%28Mission%29

It's all about teamwork, especially thirsty rives. It's one of the first where you have to think outside the box so many people are trapped in ("OMG we didn't make the mission, we need more monks, warriors and elementalists"). I just did it recently with 2 friends and 2 others we picked up there, I think it was mesmer / necro / ele / 2 warriors and good old alesia.

My best advice is to form your own party, make sure someone in it has done it before and get absolutely no warrior/monks. Tho i don't like to shut em out, it does seem that 90% of the wa/mo's are stuck inside this box ("NO KICK THE MESMER OR I LEAVE", my mate got this pm from one wa/mo when we did this, i was the mesmer, he was outta the party before he could do it himself, we found a nice w/e with knockdown from his ele side and owned the mission, with the priests getting 140 dmg everytime they tried to heal from my backfire).

Okay well I'll try AGAIN then. Thanks, though if after 5 more tries I still haven't done it I'm giving up for good

I'd like to see you try to support this with anything but conjecture and anecdotal evidence.

Biggest mistake in this mission (and many others) is to 'over-monk' it. Often, you die because you're not killing the enemy fast enough, or don't have enough people to bring tactical skills into the conflict. My most efficient run ever was with just 5 people (we had a leaver early on). I played a simple straightforward healer, the others were set up to kill hard and fast. We eliminated a team every 2 minutes, without a single casualty on our side.

With everyone hitting the same target at once, you'll drop an enemy every few seconds. You'll carve yourself a straight line to the priest in no time. Since henchies are ace at following calls, it's easy enough to do with henchies. Easier than with a bad PUG anyway.

Tyrian Explorers' League is for help with missions and quests, among other things; Sardelac Sanitarium is for thought-out suggestions, not just "make it easier". Closed.