Game designers completely LIED

I’ve been playing GW for about three weeks. I’ve got my first character, a ranger/monk to level 11. I’ve also tried playing a few other combinations of classes.

On the PvP side, I don’t get it at all. I’ve tried the pre-made characters as well as customized: I don’t damage anyone, or at least not much.

On the PvE side, I’d be a lot less frustrated if there was a site like Allakhazam that had up-to-date information on trainers and skills.

My ranger is going through gold like a crazy person buying 400 gold expert salvage kits. Not once has she gotten a rare material. I’d be happy to see a list of material traders and their locations. I hold onto common drops for days, finally sell them to make room for new items, only to stumble upon a trader who would have accepted them for the rare item I so dearly hoped for. It would take an edge off the frustration of learning if there was reliable information for locating traders with steel ingots, charcoal, silk and the like.

I would also like some detailed maps.

Fortunately, I have yet to face a quest or mission that goes on for hours. I may take hours, hoping to explore as much as possible, but so far I haven’t had to face what the Romac described.

I was lured to GW because 1. I hate crafting; I used to make fun of myself for paying a monthly subscription on top of the game and expansions wasting time doing something I loathed. 2. Except for DAoC, I’ve hated most character graphics; WoW has to be the worst with cartoonish female characters bobbing up and down like they need a bathroom break and the males scratching their fleas. 3. I figured those who want to sharpen their teeth on PvP have a place to do it; I wouldn’t have to participate unless I wanted to. 4. I assumed that I would be able to solo or pair up with a friend. In post-searing that is not an option. The mobs are so plentiful, the adds so numerous, and your henchmen/hirelings so low that in addition to the recharge time on your skills, you really aren’t doing enough damage to survive even though those mobs are often half your level. The Charr are ridiculously over-powered, and, worse, I’m getting very little experience for killing them. To make reasonable experience, you need to complete quests, but who knows where to go?

I’m not ready to give up yet. I personally play for the fun of what I’m doing and while I’m not totally enjoying myself due to the tremendous holes in my understanding of the game, I’m willing to spend more effort at it. Making a level in x-number of hours or days is irrelevant to me. I don’t mind waiting for mobs to pass before heading out. But when you have 3-5 mobs that you must take down and do it before the patrol of 4-6 return, that’s nuts. I particularly despise the mob healer pairs that heal each other. If you cannot damage them fast enough, the fight goes on and on and on. The only class combination that comes near being able to survive this kind of onslaught is the warrior/monk. I’d like to see transport areas within instanced that you could return to so that you could sell, talk on the phone or grab a snack without finding yourself dead when you return or having to fight the same mobs all over.

For that matter, what’s up with the death penalty that lasts nearly forever? (I do like the morale bonuses).

As for henchmen, if the idea is to allow one or two live players go out questing, then make those henchmen the level of the group leader. And allow us to set a limit to the distance they can go from us. Between Stefan the Fighter charging and grabbing new aggro and that ranger taking pot shots at mobs over cliff sides, they aren’t much of an option—especially when they are half to a third of the level of mobs we encounter.

I hope this post doesn't bring a ton of insults. No, I don't know where to find maps, etc. Yes, I found this site and one other but I am a casual player: I don't spend hours reading through forums. As Paloma Song remarked, the casual player is the one who cannot find the information, gets frustrated and tosses the game aside generally without anyone ever hearing from them. Perhaps none of you were ever this far behind in the learning curve, but I am and would like to learn more. Just hoping to find a site with some basic information like: the difference between a horn bow and a short bow and how to get around without getting killed.

What you want is to dumb down the challenge, that would not be good.

The Ascention missions are meant to weed out the fools that *do* just go running out into twenty five lvl 20s and exepect to win. This is so the players after ascention dont have mess with morons.

but sometimes i just get real bad luck that i team up with bunch of morons constantly and they just constantly mess me up, i guess its just a matter of luck then

You can never make a game easy enough for some people to be able to play it. If you think this game is too hard, give Hello Kitty Online a try.

.. if they didn't have something challenging, what would be the point for the people who want that challenge?

The charm of the advertisement of not having to spend so much time to play is more the: "You don't have to invest half your day, ever day, just to be on an even playing field with everyone else."

the main word here is STRATEGERY

Thunderhead Keep is a lovely filter. I dread Temple of Ages for being so easily accessible.

Except that you do becuase otherwise you don't have the skills/runes/experience required to be competitive with someone that does have that time.

It's an RPG, RPGs take a metric arse load of time to play well, that's half the fun more game for the $. However I am already sick of having to kill the EXACT SAME groups over and over in ever single instance. At least make the ones just out side of town random "havn't I killed you 30 times before?" just get's boring.

And hasn't it become obvious that 'uber' skills/runes have just replaced 'uber' items as the grind part of the game. A skill tree would fix half of this and the PVP whingers about not having skills they need. 'Oh but then you have to grind to level' REALLY!? who would have thought, playing the game to level.

But in the end you can't please everyone, all those that complain have already paid their money so ANET don't really give a rat's. They have their money, you have the game, might as well try and get the most out of it.

im a casual gamer, and dont have a ton of time to dump on this game. i do find it enjoyable. its not impossibly hard, but its instant success either. wow is my only other online rpg venture, and that took forever to go nowhere. took me 3 months to get to 50 there, but only about 4 weeks to cap here. and getting a group for a mission ive found easier here-wait awhile for a party. in wow i had to wait days for a group to form for some of the instances-and didnt do some because i could never get a group. the only reason to pump massive amounts of time into this is either to make money selling lots of loot, or making sure you have every last rune and skill. the problem is people are still on the grind quest, and not here to enjoy the story and have fun. i still have some problems with the game-but i enjoy it for what it is

Just because a person spends 25+ hours a week during the first three weeks of getting a game doesn't necessarily mean that they can continue that level of time commitment indefinitely.

In another thread, I referred to myself as a "casual" player as well, though I've been able to invest a little over 60 hours into it since release day. My goal was to get over the learning curve and build a character or two for PvP, then drop back to a "once a week" type of schedule. But I'm not even close to having a character ready for PvP, though that's another discussion...

All of us are "hardcore" gamers in general, or we wouldn't even be here on these forums, or have bought the game the week it came out. But whether a person is a "casual" or "hardcore" player of a particular game itself refers to the amount of time one commits to the game in the longterm, not their approach to playing or the attention they give to it while playing.

I'd always avoided MMOs because of the time commitment, even though I love crpgs. The GW promo did promise a little more than it could deliver, which isn't really that surprising. I seriously believed that I could put 30 or 40 hours into this on the frontend, and then drop back to a more casual "Sat night" approach with PvP. I'll get there, but it's just going to take longer than I had expected or hoped for.

Wow, ok.. just read a little further, and am going to bow out of this one.

You know Siren, I actually agreed with many of your initial points. But you just went too far over the edge, man. To disagree with his opinion is one thing, but this whole abusive psychoanalysis trip is simply inappropriate. Rarely have I seen such a clear example of the pot calling the kettle black.

Maybe you should take your own advice...

Akshara, fair enough, but what I was getting at was that Romac's "point" (the end-game missions being too difficult) was haphazard and clumsy, because like others have said in this very thread, it's called "Ascension" for a reason. Those final missions are designed that way for a reason: it's the ultimate test...the crucible, if you will, for the player.

So, to label it a grind in the first place is asinine. They're not grinds; they're simply the hardest missions in the game, and with good reason: they're passage to the end-game, if I'm understanding things correctly.

I think Xoduz summed that up nicely:

Akshara, regarding the points about the psychoanalysis, well, yes, a bit of psychoanalysis there, methinks. But I don't think it's completely unwarranted, because what rational gamer acts like if they can't beat a mission within a certain amount of tries, within a certain amount of time, then it's the mission's fault and not their own?

Given that Romac's complaints are far from legitimate (they basically boil down to "Ohmigod i cant beat teh mission eazily and i rule teh game so they must be brokin!1!"), what other reasons are there other than some personal issues? My intent wasn't to turn the thread into a couch session, but I did want to explore that possibility (not maliciously, mind you) that maybe Romac's annoyances aren't due to the game at all.

Regarding the points about a casual player, he has a schedule and would wake up at 5 am to squeeze in an extra 2 hours. Casual gamer? I don't think so. That's a regimented, almost boot-camp type of schedule there. He doesn't even react to the game in a casual manner, lol...hell, he didn't even react to my initial counterpoints in a casual manner (or really, anyone's counterpoints). It's all flaming, insults, degradations, mockeries, personal attacks, vendettas, etc., to him, regardless of what is really being said. Does that sound remotely casual?

agree with OP. Way too many missions are hour+ affairs. Any future missions should be much shorter.

one thing i haven't addressed here is how people may be getting a false impression of the difficulty of missions because they are cruising through missions on the coattails of others.

Unless they did one of these hard missions, first try, easy peasy, with a henchman only team, they are getting a false impression of the mission's difficulty because they are on an experienced team.

I group with humans as a last resort...unless it's the weekend, i just don't have the time, and when i do play it's often early morning and there will be only 4 or 5 people standing around in the higher level towns...as a result i found thirsty river, elona's, thunderhead keep, and ring of fire extremely difficult, but i have succeeded in completing every mission in the game with all henchie teams except for thirsty river, and ring of fire.

In light of that, it's pretty funny when people cruising through missions on the coattails of others claim i have no skilz.

what annoyed me the most..........was when your trying to run away from a group of mob they wont stop chasing you.........eventually you die and start mission ALL OVER again......wasting precious time

time is money

No, he doesn't sound casual at all. Quite the contrary.

Good show on the response, btw.

Romac, I know there's only so much time in the day. But I've found that grouping with others is one of the more enjoyable aspects of GW, and you may be missing out on that part - it does make the "grind" feel much less like work. And my experience has been the opposite of yours, where it's much easier to find good teams during the off hours or early morning hours. Fwiw... good luck.

The missions are the primary story line. They are more difficult than explorable-area side quests.

One hour + to spend on a mission is not grinding. Noone develops a game for 15 minute clips. allocate ample time for a mission based quest, especially later in the game..... period.

Dying at the end of the mission does suck, but deal with it. Get a better party or try a different approach. There is no gold, item or experience penalty for dying in this game, just the death penalty, which miraculously is reset at mission outpost.

All you sacrifice is time, so be more careful.

Reading some of these posts, just giving everyone whos involved so far a heads up here, please keep posts clean and don't attempt to flame someone for their own options. A few of the posts I've read are border line for my likes.

Thanks all.

Akshara, thanks. I try to play nice, but occasionally "teh hatred and anger" (good lord did that rebuttal ever suck...lol) get the better part of me.

Firstly, Romac, drop the elitism, because it's not helping your case and just making you look like a fool who isn't in touch with reality. Not to be harsh (because I'm positive you'll react like you're being totally victimized here, so I want to shoot down that reply immediately), but you're thinking of yourself way, way too highly here for us to take your argument seriously.

Secondly, So you've completed "every mission in the game[...]except for thirsty river, and ring of fire" using only Henchmen. Big deal. You've said it yourself that the early missions in the game (what was the exact quote? "Kryta? lol your barely out of the tutorial") are insanely easy--so I wouldn't exactly consider you skilled because you were blasting through the earlier missions, using Henchmen. Anyone can do that. That doesn't make you uber-skilled. So that's the first fallacy of your argument.

Thirdly, when you start getting to the higher difficulty missions later in the game, don't confuse your success using Henchies as anything indicative of l337 skills on your part. For the early parts of the game, Henchies do just fine, nowhere near the effectiveness of human players, though, but in the later missions, success without using human teams is luck, pure and simple. Again, success there doesn't make you uber-skilled. That's the second fallacy of your argument.

Fourthly, just because someone is on an experienced team (human team--bots do not count) does not mean they're not pulling their weight. While certainly, some players may group with a Level 20 to get to a particular area, most players I've seen do contribute to the team. There are the errant few that should get booted, but for the most part, a mission's ease is directly dependent on the organization of the team participating. To imply that someone finding a mission easy because they've merely grouped with four Level 20s is asinine, and yet another fallacy of your argument.

Shall I go on? Romac, your argument is full of holes, simple as that. Anything you've been throwing at us, we've been throwing it right back in your face, and very easily, I might add. So do yourself a favor (and do us a favor, as well) and just think before you make another post, because I have a feeling that if you were to really think critically about what you're saying, you would see how (swiss) cheesy it really is.

What, I see no one saying they "cruised through missions on the coattails of other"

I think that this is a poor attempt to make yourself feel better after alot of people said that the crap you where comlpaining about was.......well.........easy.

And drop the OMFG I PWN YOU ALL, I DID THE WHOLE GAME WITH HENCHIES attitude it just gave me a good laugh.

here's the rundown...

me: these missions are too hard and take too long
you: OMG!1!1! teh r easy! you have no skillz ur a pathetic fool
me: I think i do have skills and here's why
you: drop the elitism


it's called self defense...not elitism

if you have the skills why are you failing when many others are doing it in far less tries and more quickly.

it looks like you need to analyze what you are doing wrong instead of complaining about it

also i think your definition of casual as a gamer would not come close to anets definition of casual

i addressed that just a few posts ago...

how many have stated that this is what they have done ?

if they have not stated they have done this what is your reasoning that they did in fact do this?

i am honestly curious

well i doubt you'd find many that would even recognize that they are cruising through the game on the coattails of others, and if they did recognize it, i doubt they would ever admit it.

i am not making a sweeping judgement that everyone is doing this, but it sure explains how some people would get an innaccurate idea of the difficulty of certain missions.

if i got to ring of fire, got lucky, got into a solid pug made up of people that have already attempted the mission, and know what they are doing, and i was able to get through the mission on my first attempt with this group, i too might think the mission was easy.

but if i had tried to figure out the mission on my own, just me and henchies, i might find the mission nearly impossible.

that is also a good possible reason why i see so many people say that henchies suck...as soon as they out of the shelter of experienced groups they fail, and blame it on the henchmen.

thank you for the honest answer

FaerieFly, no offense, but a thread like this isn't a good place to find that info. Feel free to pm me if you have questions, or check the boards. Myself, and a lot of other people are very willing to help. But this has just degenerated.

IMO, any thread like this is going to explode into an all out war. Asking to cut down on mission difficulty is asking to change how the game is played, and is going to be a hot topic for, from what I've seen, three groups.

1. The group that thinks the game is too hard
2. The group, myself included, that finds the missions hard but loves the challenge.
3. The group that flies through them somehow and finds the game easy.

We all have our stereotypes about each other, and were going to argue our sides. All it takes is one matchstrike to set it all off, and I think Romac started that with the first post. Claiming that the designeers completly lied and going all out is a matchstrike, then people will bring the flamethrowers. So EVERYONE, myself included, needs to take a step back and calm down. Romac, calm. Siren, calm. Everyone else, calm. Flaming isn't going to find us a middle ground. I need to take a step back as well, I'm not innocent in this either.

So, here's the calmed down part of my argument.

The missions are based on strategy, and timing. I think their meant to emphasize difficulty, and communication, and not a grind. IMO, the only grind involved with these missions is sitting down and finding a group to play with. Difficulty and grind should not be confused.

Now please, everyone else involved in the war aspect of this, let's calm down and re-start the argument without exploding. Then, we may be able to get somewhere, for now, were just chasing our tails.

i agree with you

and take partial responsibility

allthough the title of the thread was not intented to start a flame war...i should have taken into account the ease by which threads are set on fire. The title of the thread was designed to grab the attention of the arena net employees that are paid to browse the official forums.

In summary there's not much to flame...

I love this game
It has the smallest grind of all the games i've ever played
I get very very frustrated banging my head against a handful of missions that i find too hard and require far too much of my time to complete, and am trying to convey that feeling of extreme frustration to the game designers

there's nothing malicious or flameworthy about that.

This may very well be the most productive post that this thread has seen so far. Thank you for that.

The next person to flame Romac after this needs a swift kick to face.


(Wait a sec... am I allowed to say that? )

Romac, I think that's a tragic oversimplification of this, quite frankly, because I haven't been calling you pathetic, or that you have no "skillz." I've called you a fool, yes, but in all fairness, when I see the Clown in Shakespeare, I'm going to call the character a Clown, so really, if you don't want to be characterized as a fool, you shouldn't be saying foolish things. lol

That's the first thing.

Second, in my previous post, I've already explained the fallacies regarding your "I have the skills" statements. I'd re-post them, but they're just a click away, so instead I'll summarize:

We all know the Henchies are mortally stupid (and actually, quite literally). That much is clear from Alesia believing she can be a better tank than Stefan or Little Thom. Let's not forget that they won't continue attacking one enemy if you click on another. Henchie death is probably one of the more common events in the game, because Henchies are so average.

And really, that's why they're in the game: because they're average. They're not good, they're not game-breaking (although, a case could be made for game-breaking); they're just there.

So to base a statement or approach on success with Henchies is tragically simplistic, because the Henchies aren't accurate measuring tools at all. It's more dumb luck that they don't kill themselves mid-mission, and with the ease of the early missions in the game, I don't think mission success using only Henchies is that quite an impressive achievement.

Similarly, in the more difficult missions, since GuildWars is most certainly not a Solo game, although it can be played Solo to an extent (but only to an extent), success with a one PC:seven NPC ratio is not dependent upon player skill, and should not be attributed to player skill. That mission success is pure, plain and simple, dumb luck.

Yet you persist with this insane notion of you're incredibly good at the game--but what you fail to realize is that you're not basing anything on a truly accurate level. You're getting through missions with Henchies. Big whoop. Anyone can in the early portions of the game, and it's certainly possible in the later ones, granted, but the success of the mission being more dependent on the player's skill is laughable at best, because no amount of Solo player skill is going to defend against (even for an early example) a few Dolyak Riders.

If it were self-defense, I would have expected a bit more humble a response, quite honestly. But as it stands, I never saw anything more than "teh missins r 2 hard an i should b able 2 beet them bcause i am so good1!!" Maybe it's just me, but a lot of other people here are seeing the same thing that I am, so I don't think it's a perceptual fault of my own (again, there's that perception thing coming back to bite you ).

And again, regarding your frustration, like others have said, maybe you need to re-evaluate how you play. Henchies will pale in comparison to an organized (note organized, not necessarily experienced) PC team.

What I've done that seems to work for hard missions like this, is I have added and keep good contact with people who I have grouped with before that worked well. When I get to one that either a) I can't complete without henchmen and b) can't find a good group, is I call them. If I call 10 people for help, one or two will come to help. I'm currently guildless, so I can't exactly call them, but sometimes those one or two that have already completed the quest and know what to do can make a difference. If not, it's back to the finding a good group grind.

I do agree that some missions can be very long, and dying at the very end of it can suck. It can suck HARD. Maybe, and I'm sure this will not exactly be a well received suggestion, one rez point, halfway through the mission, but a dp limit. If the team gets to a, say, -30 dp then the mission is considered lost, and back to town. COuld ease things a little bit without making them super easy.

I think this is right on and one of the main reasons people see this issue so differently. In fact, the way I see it, we're basically talking about two different player styles most of the time. To exemplify, let's measure the amount of grind time (=repetitiveness) vs. challenging/new content time in Ruins Of Surmia (SPOILERS!!). The first player style (=me) wants to solve the mission on his/her own=>uses henchmen, doesn't look for hints at the messageboards etc. The second player looks for hints or does it with experienced players. Here's my experience the way I remember it:

Attempt 1: Died on the second prison camp, being too aggressive: perhaps 30 min challenging

Attempt 2: Failed on our way to the last area (after the bridge) when Rurik ran into charr and got himself killed (my fault). Started the bonus mission, but didn't notice the 4 carriers: say 30 min grind, and 30 min challenging

Attempt 3: Realized I shouldn't let Rurik over the bridge until we cleared all the charrs, to avoid getting him killed. Did notice the bonus carriers, but killed them - hence still no clue what's going on here. Cleared the area of charr, let Rurik through. While looking for clues to the bonus, Rurik started his thing and the mission ended (1st objective done). Back to outpost, no option to go back and finish the bonus (which wouldn't have worked in this case anyhow): say 40 min grind and 20 min challenging

Attempt 4: Thinking I was on to something with the bonus I redo the whole thing again including killing the 4 carriers. Now time to find the corridor. Realizing that it's linked to the closed off roads I try to find other ways to get on these, hence I basically exploit every corner on the map, including backtracking almost to the start. Gives up after a while, figuring that there're only two options: either the door where they came from is open only a short while and that's where I need to go, or, I need to follow them to the other area: say 30min grind, 40min challenging

Attempt 5: Gets sloppy and gets myself killed when I try to rush back to the bonus start: say 20 min grind

Attempt 6: Sneaks up and follow the carriers. When I try to wipe out the healers all the henchies are wiped out by the carriers, and then I'm gone: say 30min grind and 5min challenge

Attempt 7: Decide to take out one of the healers before triggering the bonus to make life easier. This time everything goes as planned, bonus accomplished: say 45min grind and 5min challenging

Hence around 3h of repetitive play (boring and unnecessary) and 2h of challenging play (fun).

Now, someone who partners up with an experienced player doesn't have to figure all this out. You would then only have to enter once and have both objectives accomplished. A good description in a guide would do the same. This would then amount to something like an hour of challenging play.

Thus, following this strategy and skipping most of the quests, the second player would likely be passed Kryta when I eventually finished this mission. The second player would claim this is an easy game, doesn't see any major grind etc.

Now someone says: blame yourself this is an online game, you should work in teams. Fine. It's just that I prefer to go through the challenging part of the game as I described above. I prefer to figure it out myself, that's what makes it fun for me. I seriously wouldn't mind if it took 5h to solve the mission, if those 5h consisted of fresh new content. I do, however, get annoyed when 60% of the game time I put in is on repeating the exact same content. It's just not fun. Especially when most of this could have been avoided by having rez zones in missions (as it works in the quests).

I realize that team players might think this makes the game to easy. If that is the common consensus I think ANet should put in an option for solo players, that like to figure it out on their own, to have rez zones.

Since this is a Multiplayer game, I play it as such. I sometimes add henchmen to the group to fill it if no one else is avaliable, but since this is a multiplayer game I try to not play it like if it was a singleplayer game. Like Morrowind with henchmen.

Half the point with a game like this is to cooperate with others. And the story missions are basically called coop missions. I see the use of henchmen in some cases, but I think it's silly to complain that you can't finish coop missions in a massive multiplayer game alone without any other players. In my opinion it shouldn't even be possible. Maybe remove henchmen from mission areas, or enforce at least one other player in the team before you can click Enter mission. I bet half the reason it can be hard to find companions for missions and quests is because people play it like it was a singleplayer game.

if you dont want henchies dont use them

dont try to enforce grouping on those of us who dont want to

the entire game should be available to a solo with henchmen and one of the GW people i am in pm with is doing just this to possibly tweak things to enable just that

in his words *yes it should be possible and i am trying it now*

he and i are at about the same level with about the same number of hours on our characters

No, I don't want hencies, and I don't use them. And I realise alot of people play it like if it was a singleplayer game for reasons unknown to me. But wouldn't people like that prefer singleplayer games instead? Like KOTOR or Morrowind or whatever? Anyway, I guess I shouldn't try to understand.

BUT my point was that all the soloing makes it harder to form parties.

I might as well ask... Why DO you people prefer to play alone instead of playing with other people in Guild Wars?

ok my two main reasons:
- I want to figure out stuff on my own. I think it's more fun than having it told to me.
- I often need to take brakes (perhaps several hours) in the middle of the mission

they didn't completely lie.......but may had mislead people in believing everyone is equal after level 20.........THIS IS NOT POSSIBLE due to many factors including

Skills Obtained
Runes Used
Weapons Obtained
Armour Obtained
Weapons Upgrade

Some more reasons to solo:
Going back for elite skills.
Not in the mood to deal with annoying players.
Just exploring the land for new areas.

I use henchies because most of the time, after completing a quest, I like to explore the entire area, since most of the things are dead, and see where it connects to, and other people don't. This is how I've walked from Piken square to Borlis Pass, and from Yaks Bend to Lions Arch. I enjoy seeing where the road goes, when most players just want to do a quest and leave.

I play with henchies so that if I have to leave in the middle of a mission, I can and come back.

All sorts of reasons to play with henchies. So, why do I like it better than a single player game? Well, I have a friendlist I use to talk to people. I like the verbal company while I explore.

And also the competition. I may not want to play with you, but I want to kill you, or have you kill me.

first of all, making a rant never usaly gets anyone to do anything. secondly you have to remember, that this game is for everyone, it is for that 24/7 gamer also, and that means that some quests will be more challinging ( i totaly screwed that up, the spelling ) and some will be too easy, but even if you go out to old-ascialon and kill a moa-bird, most aschirdly you are going to get some kind of reward, weather it be a "wand of bull-crap 0-1 damage" eather way you got somthing, and you spent two minuts, grabing a healing henchman and setting your skills.

ps: i spell like a sixth grader, but im actualy 18.