Game designers completely LIED

The statements and claims made by game designers before release that claimed this game was friendly to the casual gamer and the gamer that doesn't have unlimited amounts of time to sit in front of a computer WERE COMPLETE LIES!!!!

If you know exactly what you're doing, skip unessential mobs, and keep a very fast pace, you can do thunderhead keep in a little over an hour. But to know exactly what you're doing, skip unessential mobs, and keep a fast pace means you've attempted the mission a few times, which means that you've probably done it at least twice before...that means you've spent minimum of three hours to complete one mission!!!

i'm sure this thread like all the others will become innundated with tons of posts from people saying i'm out of my mind and everything's a breeze, they succeeded all missions the first try without hardly trying. Fine go away. That is not consistent with mine and many other's experiences. Please go start a thread asking the devs to add a "hardcore" mode for all you uber gamers.

Now i'm on ring of fire...

i just wasted ALL my spare time this morning hacking and hacking and hacking through fire imps and spiders...took me at least an hour and a half, and i hadn't even entered the temple/whateverit'scalled, then i got wiped by imps...but the thing that really wiped me was i knew i hadn't even reached the hard part which probably involves a bazillion mursaats, and i knew i had to log soon anyway. The damned mission wore me down mentally, my clock was a'tickin, and i didn't have another hour to finish this damned mission.

Casual gamer my ass..."perfect for the player that doesn't have unlimited time" my ass.

other missions that sucked huge amounts of time:
elona's
thirsty river
the wilds

between these 5 missions i just mentioned i'll bet i've spent at least 20 hours getting through them...probably closer to 30 because i wasted almost 8 on elona's alone, then i dropped the real players, went with henchies, and completed the mission...same thing with thunderhead.

Since this is a suggestion forum, here's my suggestions:

- thin out all the mobs that have nothing to do with the main objectives - this lets us get to the hard part quicker - instead of testing our damned patience you'll be testing our skill
- save our damned spot - if we've gotten all the way to the uber hard boss mob and his billion minions why make us wade through an hour's worth of crap when we attempt the mission again!!?? Is that supposed to be fun?? think thunderhead keep, where the hardest part is about 98% into the mission and takes at least an hour to get to if you know exactly what you're doing - why make us waste an hour hacking through crap that we've already succesfully completed. Is that supposed to be fun??

I am just so sick and tired of what is turning into a grind. Grind by the way means doing the same thing over and over and over and over and over.

easy for you? Please go start a thread asking the devs to add a "hardcore" mode for all you uber gamers and leave this one alone.

I hate having to run ALL the way back to the boss and their underlings after the team is killed

When close to hard parts there should be another res point nearby. With high DP having a res point nearby wouldn't hurt the game too much.

well if you've just spent an hour clearing the way, the jog questing isn't that bad, but it sure sucks to spend an hour clearing the way in a mission, die, spend an hour clearing the way, die, spend an hour clearing the way, die, log out.

I somewhat agree that some of the higher missions take some time. But this game isnt the TIME sink DAoC, WoW or EQ is. Your frustrated by this try lvling in those. A game that takes a week maybe 2 to max lvl isnt nothing to those. Although a Save Location might not be to bad if your soloing.

It's not a COMPLETE lie. Other games have you waiting that entire hour (or in some cases 2...3) just to get a PARTY. Your out there hacking away and actually playing the game for that enitre hour instead of shouting over and over for the next 1 and a half hours "Lv 17 Mez/Ele LFG".

The consistant barrage of attacking mobs DOES tend to wear me down somtimes however, especially when limited to an hour in any given day.

I'm not saying "its super easy and I need an uber mode" I'm just saying its no where near as bad as it could be.

Think about it.

No one said that you had to level thorugh the PvE content. It takes less than five minitues to get into fort koga and if your realy lucky you can triack a few group leaders into letting you go to the HoH

Game doesn't take unlimited time, so thats not a lie. A game for casual gamers doesn't mean its easy.

I am a casual gamer and can generally accomplish a goal a night in an hours worth of play. I have redone some missions, but where is the challege if I get every mission the first time; it would be like using God mode on an FPS.

Imagine waiting 8 hours for a mob to MAYBE spawn?

This game is MILES ahead. It's not about getting you addicted.

Save those hard missions for a Sunday or a day you know you have a few hours to kill. Do something else in the meantime.

Well the good news is, the missions immediately post-ascension are fairly easy in comparisson. Long, some of them, but not overly dangerous.

I enjoyed Glint immensely, simply because after Thirsty River it was almost relaxing.

If you dont like the game quit. I highly doubt anyone would notice. The game is great, just because it adds in a little challenge and stratagy doenst mean you have to flame it. Maybe your not using the right skills, maybe your running in without paying attention. There are a large # of things you can go to try to beat missions diffrently. But again if you dont like it, stop playing. I doubt you will but really just think they could be charging monthly for this game if they really felt like it. Just dont stop trying, go party with people that know how to play, henchies are nice but not always.

If you're dying over and over, maybe your party isnt working right.

Leadership is the main skill. IE: I took role of leader in a party of 6 on our way from yaks bend to lions arch. We went the entire way. That took almost all day, by the last stretch we were totally out classed by the monsters, but good leadership skills, planning and strategies allowed us to sprint and make it to town just barely.

In a situation like this, your failure is your fault, not the game's. If you're doing bad, calm down, get a cool head, and think.

I just don't see the point in defending the grind by comparing to other worse examples (WoW etc.). Why should it only be better? Why not GREAT?! A major move forward? I haven't read one single comment where someone complained about A-Net's decision to not respawn mobs if you die during a quest. I'll bet that if they did respawn and someone suggest they shouldn't there'd be a ton of comments complaining about that it would make the game too easy.

Nonetheless, as a casual gamer I totally agree with the first poster. Either:
- Introduce a respawn area as in the quests
- Introduce save points (e.g., time or cut scene based)

Also, would be great to have an option when completing the first objective to go back and finish the second objective without restarting the mission (now you are just teleported to the next location - annoying since you have to refight the same mobs again)

I would be plenty happy to give PvP characters all their stuff right off the bat. (i.e. Return of the 'unlock all' button from BWE)

But, under no circumstances, is there anything wrong with the amount of effort the PvE portion of the game takes. It's is not too hard. In fact, once you've played it and actually learned what you're doing, it's rather easy all around.

Guild Wars was billed as a game in which you would not be completely hobbled during PvP because of your lack of playtime. But I don't remember hearing anything saying that PvE would be a cake-walk.

If all you want is the option to unlock everything so that you won't need to grind in order to play a good PvP character, then I agree with you 100%! But if you want to change the PvE dynamics to make it easier in any way, then I do not agree at all.

If you're talking about only completing the missions, then I'd have to say that it is not grind. You're mistaking difficulty for grind.

what a salacious post title and claim!

You are further in the game than ANY casual gamer would be at this point. I would like to suggest your evaluate yourself a little bit. Most missions become easier when you actually take time to consider what you need to do. Rushing into catapult fire or into a large group of mobs is probably a recipe for the frustration level you exhibit.

Assuming that you ARE a casual gamer that possibly had a week off or something to get that far (I would rank myself just underneath the hardcore for those interested in a reference point) then I can certainly see your point. See in assuming that you are a casual gamer I will also have to assume that you have NEVER played a RPG much less a MMORPG in order to even remotely take your post as serious.

This game reminds me a bit of Baldurs Gate or something similiar where you could easily invest over 100 hours into the gameplay. I have never liked "stages" but the loot sometimes makes up for the multiple tries. Trying to find reliable team mates can at times be frustrating. Overall you can sit down for 30 minutes and play around with some PVP or go exploring. However, if you have an hour or so you can try to do a mission. Ever played a Console RPG ? They're even worse. Forget about an FF game or Xenosaga for that matter if you have less than 1 hour to play.

So please stick the pacifier back in your mouth. If had enough time to come up with a thoughtful post like this one, you definitely should have enough time to complete a mission.

By the way, the missions you mentioned were easily defeated with the help of ... henchmen. I doubt I have more skill than you in this particular game, but Elona's Reach is probably the only mission I noticed would be difficult with a bad team. The other four (four you mentioned) are cake walks.

ok first off... are you infused? if not, go get fully infused...
also, have you tried the front gate? I remember always wiping on the imps in that mission untill we finally tried the front gate, which was much easier for a fully infused group. But I agree, wiping after all that time REALLY SUCKS and induces keyboard smashing.

Heres my problems with the game
1. im lvl 20, beat all the missions, sick of LFG for HoH, and bored of the random pvp at LA.
2. theres no "cool original" items or armor i can work for
3. I dont feel like lvling up another char so im just plain bored of the game
4. there isnt alot of focus on individual pvp skill, no matter how good you are.. a bad group will always make you lose.
5. not everyone will admit, but its fun to go back to the newb town and sit there with uber original armor and a mount or something (status symbols in general). which isnt possible for a few reasons.
6. bored, bored... and just plain bored (although the missions and storyline were GREAT and actually fun, not chores... I loved all the eyecandy also)

note that you can finish all the missions and then come back and explore to your hearts content

i do a mission or so and come back for any quests or exploring while the monsters still have some challenge to them

Your bored... I doubt you even have every skill. Ontop of that if your sick of random PvP go join a real guild and get into some real PvP. I'm sure there are cool items, just you dont know of them but nor do I. Then again im not level 20 yet.

Well here's my opinion...
Been playing a week or two, not that long, but i've got my own opinions of the game.
First of all you state that you are tired with the long, petty attempts at having to complete tasks/quests, what have you.
First of all, i will admit that you do have a point. Some of these can be tedious once your party dies, and you have to run through again. But here is where I think you are wrong, Romac.
You say that the develpors "lied" about grind, and all that stuff.
Myself, coming from EQ, will tell you that the grind (if you can call it that) is nothing. The quests in this game are simple, and fairly straightforward.
The developers said this game would be low on grind and easy for the casual player. I believe that they are reffering to other mmorpg's (ie wow, EQ, just to name some)
But if you are complaining about these tasks being annoying, try looking at their parrallel from other games. (trying not to relate entirely here...) For one example, i will be brief. EQ epic 1.5 / 2.0 quests. They are hard, complicated, and take a good number of connections to even get started.
Now looking at the quests in GW, they are all fairly simple, and take no more than 1-3 hours to complete, pending on your speed and other players of course.
The developers refer to grinds/quests in other MMORPG's that take weeks, even months to accomplish; when they state that this game is lessened in that sense.
I am not trying to attack you (and if you feel this way, I appologize), but you must realize how they are basing their statements.
And if this post is a little off topic... /shrug

-There are three kinds of people in this world, those who can count, and those who can't.

no i'm just more efficient with my time.
The way i've played my toon after pre-searing was to basically do as many missions as i could back-to-back, then if i ran into a harder one i'd go back and do whichever quests i wanted. I've eventually done nearly all the quests possible anyway...that's one of the things i do when i get stuck on a mission like this and i'm waiting around for the weekend. I also never group with people for pve unless i feel it's absolutely necessary so i'm not spending half my time looking for groups or failing because of crummy pugs when i could have succeeded with henchies. I'm not hardcore, but i do have about 4 hours per day to play if i get up at 5am to queeze in an extra 2 hours. My wife also just took our daughter for a 3-day weekend so i bought a couple of sixpacks, drank beer, and played my ass off for about 3 days...went from 15 to 20 in three days.

So I'm in the fire islands primarily because i'm efficient, not because i'm hardcore.

Since efficiency is important to me you can see how i find killing the same thing over and over and over quite frustrating. If i invest 4 hours in one mission i'd hope to be able to successfully complete it. And i don't mean 4 hours solid...i just don't have large blocks of time like that to play. I play 2 hours in the morning, 1 hour in the afternoon, and another hour in the evening.

So if i get stuck on a mission like this, my main toon has to sit there all week and hope i get enough time during primetime on the weekend to find a decent group, and if i do play on the weekend, most of that playtime is usually early in the morning which makes trying to find a decent pug pretty difficult.

Anyhow...i just wish some of the harder missions didn't take so damned long. Thunderhead was rediculous. that mission takes over an hour if you just do the essential things, only kill the essential mobs, and know exactly what you are doing...which means you've probably already done it twice...which means that one mission takes over 3 hours to do.

I spent about 8 hours on elona's, and i've spent about 4 hours on the one i'm currently one. That's just waaay too much of a time suck IMO.

I agree with the OP.

I have nothing else to say, he is right on. And also about the last sentence.

The game designers have been completely honest, despite how many people have tried to twist was they said into untruths.

In many games, someone who has played 1000 hours will always and easily beat someone who's only played 500 hours, but be always easily beaten by someone who's played 2000 hours (who in turn will be pwned by someone who's played 3000 hours). Whoever played the most wins. End of story.

Guild Wars is not like that. That DOESN'T mean and NEVER DID mean that you are instantly competitive with anyone 30 minutes into the game. What it does mean is that once you do finish building your character, in a relatively short period of time compared to other games (100 hours, probably less for many), you're competitive with anyone. With only that 100 hours under your belt, you have a fair shot at beating Mr Thousands Of Hours, because skill is the deciding factor at that point, those extra thousand hours he's played don't present an insurmountable barrier against you beating him. At best, they mean he's had some more time you find the best equipment, but not more than slightly better than anything you've found, and in fact not at all better than anything you can probably buy in the next 15 minutes if you pop into Lion's Arch with a bit of cash (which you'll have more than you know what to do with by then).

That is what they promised, and that is what they've delivered. If anyone misunderstood, hey, sorry, but they didn't lie, you just assumed they said something other than what they did.

The game's been out less than a month, and people are already whining about how difficult the endgame is and how much grind there is. Come on, people, you wouldn't even have a clue what the endgame is like if this game had much grind...

For Gods sake man find someone that has done the thing before and let them help you. Join a Guild and let them help you. This is not a "do it your self game", it is a team based game. You can do it alone, but you need to be dang good. I am not haveing to much difficulty and this is my first RPG to play but not my first RTS. If you really want something easy make a warrior/monk and go for it. Warriors are easy to play and the monk will give you the ability to heal yourself. Play through the game first if you must this way so you know what has to be done, then come back with a different character. I did that in Gauntlets Ledgend for N64, and yeah it was a grind but i knew what i had to do and how to stay alive.

Very well said! Yet another good point by Dreamsmith.

Correct: In your opinion.

I'm not trying the slam/flame you here, but lets be honest: What, really, are you paying for here? Do you want a 40 hours game for your 50$? Because I tend to think that getting more game for my money is good.

If your opinion differs in this, that's okay. But maybe you'd have more fun ina different game then, yes?

you know, these topics have been done to death.

There will always be someone who thinks this game has problems. I've been very impressed with it so far, and haven't been spending a huge chunk of time playing it.

I'm not anywhere near as far as the original poster, and have had to redo missions and I would rather be doing that then walking through it without any challenge.

Agree to disagree and move on. The one thing I really thought was ridiculous was claiming that the game designers "completely lied"

You're entitled to your own opinion, but making such a general and malicious statement is not likely to get you either much sympathy nor help.

You can always read the reviews prior to buying the game. It's not guaranteed that you will like it.

I think alot of people are missing the points of people who prefer PvP. They want to play for hours and hours just like the PvE people, it just they prefer to to PvP for those hours and hours. I haven't seen many complain about getting to level 20, and really not a whole lot of complaining about runes. Elite skills on the other hand are a grind in the "traditional" sense of the word. I'd like to get my monk Word of Healing which means I have to go through Elonas Reach over and over and over again. I've run through half that mission 8 times now, it takes me about 20 minutes to get to where he "might" be. There is very little skill involved, but I've been very unlucky and only caught him there twice and both times I was unable to capture. It isn't really fun, and I don't want to ask my guildmates to suffer through it with me so I suffer along with henchmen.

That being said for me it's not too bad as I enjoy the PvE, but I can understand why some people are upset...

No no! I'm with you 100% on that point! I think the PvP only folks ought to have everything unlocked if that's all they want.

So far this thread seems to revolve around the fact that he didn't like the PvE set up much. At least, he hasn't said anything about only doing his PvE stuff to unlock PvP options. Even if all people want is to unlock all the PvP stuff, there isn't any reason to make the PvE game any different. Just let people have their PvP stuff, and leave the PvE game alone.

this is a suggestion section.

nowhere did i say this game sucks, nor do i hate it. I am communicating an aspect of this game that i find very, very frustrating. If devs are interested in finding out what frustrates their customers maybe they'll see this thread, agree with me, and put it on their list of tweaks. probably not, but that is what this section is for.

if you have the time, maybe you could open every thread in this section and say "maybe you'd have more fun in a different game then yes?" or maybe you already did.

it's called a sensationalized headline designed specifically to grab the attention of whomever arena net pays to browse these boards.

HELLLO!!! what the hell is this section??? did i post in the wrong section or something??? i thought this was the suggestion section???

mods please move this thread if i managed to post it in the wrong section.

i just have to say this: how the heck did you get so far as a casual gamer? I played 12 hours on the first day and at least 4 or more every day since... and i ONLY just got through ascension.

I've come from UO and the thing is that UO you need to spend hundreds of hours just to be able to hit a darn dragon with your sword. Now that is grind. Yes it gets annoying if you have to redo something but heck, even in singleplayer games if you don't save every 3 seconds, you're always gonna make a stupid mistake at some point and either have to reload and retry, or return to a spawn point somewhere and retry. The missions are no different to any other game really.

If anything comes close to a grind, its gathering materials for the top armour, and if you salvage most stuff right from day 1, you don't ever have to deliberately go out to do that either.

i like pvp but i'm primarily enjoying the pve atm...i plan to do a ton of pvp whenever i can get my toon completed. My whole point isn't that all pve is too hard...i think that 90% is perfect as far as difficulty. there's just those few missions that many people, including myself, seem to bang thier heads against over and over and over, and that i find it very, very frustrating.

thunderhead, elona's, thirsty river, fire islands are the ones that make me have to debate whether i want to play my main and be frustrated, or play and alt, and be wishing i was playing my main.

I don't think the designers want their players to feel like that, and i'm suggesting they tweak these missions slightly to make them less of a time suck...they can still make them very difficult without having them take 4 hours to complete.

What you want is an easy, push-over time in PvE where you get everything you want immediately. And, obviously, this will happen in no game. So, if you do not like spending time playing a game, go do something else.

What I do, on the missions (not the quests; quests are usually shorter), is the day I do the mission if I don't want to spend too much time, I ONLY play the mission. And if after one time you lose and it takes an hour, chances are it will take at least and hour the next time. Just use common sense and quit if you think it might take too long for your taste.

The game is not a "breeze" (that takes EVERY OUNCE OF FUN OUT OF IT), but it is nothing too impossible for the casual gamer. If anything, at least the designers didn't completely lie. Maybe for some of the most casual gamers it is still too much, but it is still better than most...

And if you still don't like it, nobody can help you (at least for this game)

*checks carefully*

Actually, no, I haven't. I wasn't trying to be rude, and I'm very sorry if you thought I was.

I do still agree that people shouldn't be forced into a grind if they don't want to be. I was attempting to point out that I believe PvE to be an entirely voluntary portion of the game. (Or at least should be, if it weren't for the 'unlocking' thing.)

Kind of like Ninja Gaiden or something. I know that game was tough enough that a few folks I know just dropped the controller and said to hell with it. It wouldn't really be correct to say that the game was too difficult though. A huge amount of play testing and feedback goes into these games, and the game ends up being only as difficult (or easy, respectively) as the developer wants it to be.

Once again, this was only my feedback to your suggestion.

I already addressed that on page one:

I have a full time job, wife, toddler and baby. A new house to take care of and new yard to sod, add an irrigation system to, build a fence etc..

I am lucky if I get to play 2 hours in a night (every other night is more likely). I find the pace just fine. I am now at krytan(sp?). I don't have a problem and don't consider that I was lied to. I have 3 characters in their teens. I have never played a BWE or even seen the game until I bought a copy of it.

I have not spent any where near the kinds of times you are suggesting on missions. I have only had to go for a second try of one mission. Not really sure why you are having such serious problems.

As to you saying:
"easy for you? Please go start a thread asking the devs to add a "hardcore" mode for all you uber gamers and leave this one alone."

If you don't want a subject debated go find yourself an empty room and agree with everything you say and pat yourself on the back. You won't achieve anything, but at least everybody will agree with you.

And people like me and some others are here to make usre that the devs clearly understand that you are not a majority; nor an accurate representation of the totality of their customer base. But you don't seem to want anybody that disagrees with you to post in "your" thread.

Perhaps you should write a letter directly to the developers?

Newbie - Definition - Romac.

Compared to MMORPGs this game bears nothing in the amount of time it takes to enjoy or complete objectives or gain. The idea behind "pick up and play" is that you do not have to wait for others to even start playing, which is a massive difficulty in other games, having to wait for 1 to 3 hrs just to find a group and START playing, if you even find someone to party with that day at all. This game eliminates the absolute neccessity of party memebers, and provides henchmen to stub as party members in the case that you do not wish to, or cannot find a group to enjoy the game with.

If the Developers had made a game entirely consisting of 1 hr or > missions and quest then it would be a total failure, many players (and I speak for myself here) enjoy enthraling gameplay and extended adventures, and having only short undeveloped adventures and medial tasks to preform would make the game completely undesirable to play. There are plenty of 10 minute ventures to gain a skill or beat a small "boss", making all the quests, missions expecially, that short would ruin the game and make it too easy to play.

If you want to play a console RPG where you can save your progress after every battle then you have that option, this game is designed with outstanding gameplay and entertainment, if you want to breeze through the game with superlative ease then you oviously have no appreciation for effort nor the ability to enjoy involved gameplay, for which I suggest that you stick to D&D so you can "assign" difficulty as you see fit (which is none at all oviously).

I'm sure you were to lazy to read this whole statement, since you oviously don't merit the time to develope and idea, so I'll impart the abbreviated version. Cram it up your ***.

It seems like everytime you get stuck on a mission, you come here and complain that it's a grind.

A difficult mission is a grind? Ok.

I guess the last boss of Half-Life is a grind.
Oh, or a couple stages on Halo 2.
Or hell, the rides during half life 2.

Or anything hard that you loose at is a grind.

Difficulty is not grind. Difficulty is difficulty.

Grind would be killing 10000000 charr to get 1% of a level, or another $100 to your new weapon that you may be able to afford in three weeks. Not being stuck on a mission because it's hard.

The OP has no clue what grind is.

That being said, the original post makes me feel good knowing I beat all those missions first try!

Btw, word of healing is okie. I might also suggest peace and harmony if your a pure healing monk.

/agreed

This game is quite a time sink. End of story.

Anybody who actually has a job/ a real life, will certainly be able to understand the statement... of course this is not coming from me, ive spent countless hours on this game. cough.

My girlfriends starting to hate this game... it's taking up a "bit" of my time, it's my choice eh?