Dear Anet, Please dont kill the new intensity of PvE

This is the same post I put on gwonline but I post again here because I know theres differences in player bases. Just posting on these 2 forums to get some kind of equality in responses...

any other suggestions on forums or are these 2 good enough?

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Dear Anet

Prophecies PvE combat was dull, completely lifeless and boring. Some people on the forums seem to think this was somehow more PvE friendly. I don’t understand the reasoning in which less of a challenge is more fun and I'm sure for every one person voicing their complaints on the boards there is at least 3 others playing and having a load of fun.

- The combat is faster and more intense - thank you (essentially what the other points are)

- The areas are smaller and more intense (difficult and a lot more fighting per square inch) - err.. not so much. Big areas were sorta fun in a way, I do agree that there is less to explore (MUCH less)... I seem to remember ages ago the ranger forum getting together and taking awesome screenshots from the more secluded areas in the game where no one went. That stuff was fun... and it was stuff like that, which led to the palaeontology threads - which were cool in their own weird way. But don’t destroy the intensity of combat while making the areas big and explorable again
Small areas bad, action-packed good!

The areas are harder - thank you, I no longer want to sleep while PvEing. A few guildies and me were talking about prophecies PvE long before factions was released, and we all felt the same way.
PvE was a means to and end
The end was PvP...
We felt slightly forced to go through the tedium of dull lifeless PvE in order to unlock skills for PvP (which us extremely casual players - at least during the semesters - do most of. Out of semester play habits are a different story ). PvE no longer feels like a chore!!
Please don’t take this away from those in your player base that crave a challenge and get their sense of accomplishment from a difficult task overcome. (Note: my personal definition for the word difficult does not apply to tasks that are time-consuming – at least ingame XD)

Not everyone thinks a lack of challenge is what makes you feel like a hero in PvE. A lot of people love the struggle because that makes the end reward all the greater.

The Factional conflict thing didn’t take off..
1) Some people don’t like to choose sides – not your fault no but…

Real issues

2) The whole warring factions thing was made horribly unnecessary because of earlier complaints by people... people were worried that you had to choose an allegiance in order to progress… and as point 1 said, people don’t like to choose sides. The end result being that you made picking sides completely pointless except for snappy looking armour.
This wasn’t a great move.
If you're going to have something like choosing sides, you either make it important or you don’t have it at all - one of the reasons why EQ2 was said to suck (never tried it, don’t want to - itemization based progression? eww). In EQ2 I read there being something about being good or evil but your choice ultimately being irrelevant to anything.

3) You introduced grind to a game that boasted no grind...
I'm mixed about this, you did what people asked you to in Prophecies which was give them something to do in PvE at end game... most of these people clearly have never played an MMO before so they didn't realise that end game in MMO is either PvP or PvE grind... and given that we don’t pay per month, its only understandable that you don’t release new quests and content (although it would be nice like you did for prophecies -**HINT HINT BETTER FINISH TO CRAPPY FACTIONS ENDING HINT**.
At the same time, you did stay true to your goal of not having necessary grind (unlike WoW *spits*) in that the only time you actually *need* faction to progress, you can earn all the faction you need from doing quests.
As for people complaining about the grind in the game, it is to my opinion that their complaints are baseless because –
The only reason you need to grind is for town control or armour. Both of which is not necessary (I say grind is not needed for amour because there is always non-factional armour options available. I have a hectic uni schedule this being my final year and all so between my subjects, thesis, and trolling XD I barely get time to play, yet I still manage to gain amber and so no one else has any excuse not to).
So like I said, I'm mixed about this but all in all I'm putting this in the 'good' column for GW: F - although I'm sure some others would disagree.

To these people I pose a question about the faction gain mechanism… if you don’t want to PvP, and you don’t want to quest and you don’t want to do challenge missions (both PvE), then why are they still playing the game?

But then the ‘grind’ is part of the factional conflict but has little bearing on the conflict itself… but this relates to the first point


This could get to big... I'll leave it simple.
Jeff said that each chapter would have its own unique thing, ergo no more factional conflict. Fine, but please have the 'unique thing' of the following chapters play a bigger role in the main plot - regardless of whatever apprehensions ‘some’ people have about choice

Please for the love of god dont make it as dull as it was before!!
Please!!
I'll love you for the rest of time!!
And possibly consider having your babies even though I'm a guy and Junior wasn't that good a movie!!

Bring back exploration
Keep the intensity
Keep the difficulty
Make the unique feature of each chapter worthwhile

Please keep the whole factions thing of rocket-line to 20. Some people complained that the journey to 20 was too short unlike prophecies etc etc... but right from the start the game was never about the journey, it was about what happened afterwards. Please keep it that way
You can slow the progression of people in the game and still have rapid attainment of 20 and exploration, you just need to make the story better


ok I'm done...


...

...

Please kick the voice actress that did Countess (or something) Danika in the teeth and NEVER hire her again...
In an Asian landscape the germanish kurzicks, who love art, music and the divine… have a countess that sounds like an NYC American woman voice acting in a bad hentai >
Rhea was nearly as bad...

Theres only one part with mandatory grind and thats when you need 10k faction.


But i like the grind. .-. Its SOMETHING to grind for. In fact thanks to alliance battles, im constantly at 10k factions and sometimes i dont even notice it cause im having too much fun >.>

I actually find the whole "faction" concept too superficial.

In fact what I think would *really* excite people would be something like this:

Take for instance fort asphenwood. So it is the same fight over and over again, and what progression would that be?

Now suppose your victory and defeat on that one map would change the storyline/plot for YOUR character (ie: if you win on fort asphenwood, you will port to Cavalon and begins a new seige on the Luxons as part of the story's progression) that'd be interesting. Likewise your defeat would also impact your character's experience in the game. Now under such circumstances would *you* AFK and freeload in competitive battles anymore? I wouldn't think so.

Much more interesting. Especially in contrast to now when the only impact my alliance siding have on my experiencing is just that the NPCs in the other town would no longer talk to me. Big ***king deal. Who cares. The whole "fight for territory" fuss on the box is all a whole load of BS.

Now if fight for territory actually involves fighting to gain access of the map, that'd be worth playing and fighting for. That would be REAL PvPvE (a true merger of PvP and PvE where you actually partake in PvP as a genuine progression of the storyline and game world, not some joke of a plot device about some stupid war that started because of some moronic nutjob that went RED ENGINE GORED ENGINE GORED ENGINE GORED ENGINE GOoo over a fortune teller).

That people are AFKing and leeching in Fort are just a deeper reflection of the reality. People HATE this game, they can't bring themselves to play it. They HATE the stupid locked gates, they just want to get to the end game, cap their elites, buy their armor (yes, *outright* buy all the materials probably) and just get it over and done with.

And of course, sadly everything that Gaile yabbered about back in the day was just pure hype, when I originally heard the underlying gameplay behind Factions and the so called PvEvP I was like "Wow!"

When I see their actual implementation during release, the next thought I had was that Anet probably hired the cheapest programmers who just pick the easiest way out on EVERYTHING. Seriously, there couldn't have been a more mediocre implementation that'd "sort of" satisfy the earlier claims made by their PR mouthpiece.

Final verdict? I'd probably look at what Anet actually delivers in the future rather than trusting Gaile's words for that matter on future releases.

The only intense PvE foes are the Jade Brotherhood when they successfully pull off a chain Dragon Stomp while applying serious pressure with Triple Chop. The rest are still yawners.

Urgoz's Warren was neat for a while, but once you've figured out the strategy it's kind of ho hum.

I've gone back to PvP full time.

Thank you for taking the time to write this up, so different from what you normally hear about factions. I'm 80% in agreement with you, which is more then usual :P

Definitely /unsigned.
I hate the new diablo-inspired combat.

Now thats a cool idea. A mission map that shifts constantly...fun.

Heres the problem. Theres already ENOUGH people complaining about how they dont want to PvP. I love that idea, but i know a lot of people would be quite pissed.

This is also a deeper reflection of people in general. Leechers and AFKers exist throughout the game, thats a fact. I doubt they hate the game, but some people are more lazy and quick to take advantage of any situation.

The locked gates can be annoying, but i think they are fine because they stop running throughout the WHOLE game. Theres still partial runs, which i think are fine.

The whole UAX instantly mentality of some players is quite annoying. It could be any game, but they would still want everything at once.


Well hype is hype. Although im satisfied mostly with factions, it could use a lot of improvement to be much greater. It holds A LOT of potential, and i think its being untapped. Programmers ALWAYS take the easiest way out of everything. ALWAYS. Cheating is common in programming.

But this has nothing to do with programming. This has to do with a flawed game design that does need further work

LOL. Really? How do we cheat? Compilers tend to be quite unforgiving. As for taking the easy way out...perhaps sometimes we WISH we could take the easy way out, but there are things like managers and requirements that make that impossible.

Stop spreading complete rubbish.

As for keeping the intensity of PvE, I don't mind a challenge, but when the entire game is just mob after mob after mob, it gets boring.

<.< hey i program. Things like to stop complicating things, break it down into reusable functions, etc.

That's not cheating or taking the easy way out--that's just good practice.

As you said, the problems with Factions have more to do with design than implementation, so programmers and their techniques are irrelevent.

At least i can get people laughing with my impression of her.

i guess there should be mixture of prophecies and factions kind of pve..

Exactly. That's why some people want the level cap raised. Something to grind for that is enjoyable to most real, true gamers.

I really want to make a new character and try out early Cantha, but the quests in both early and late cantha are so terrible. The game is only playable for the most part with a Warrior, so you can run from point A to point B.

I think it's playable with the other professions, but the frustration factor varies depending on what profession you play and whether you're henching it. Factions isn't well-balanced in that regard, IMO, which makes playing through it with different professions not all that appealing.

I suppose FPS players that don't have to grind for anything aren't "real, true gamers" then.

I must be one of those "fake" gamers because I don't enjoy endless grinding for levels. That's a treadmill that I'm happy to exit. I'm quite content with the level 20 cap in Guild Wars. In fact, it's part of the reason I'm still here. (The other is the PvP.)

Maybe Anet should put some line like "No grind for pvp efficiency, however players will have to grind a bit to make themselves look good" in the next interview or something.

I hate Factions PvE, Prophecies was much better.

to all that generik said (will not quote cuz its too big) i couldnt agree more

/signed, and i will sign it over and over again

the only thing i REALY like about factions is the new cool graphics. after playing it for abit i just want the new skins of armors and weapons.

I totally agree with OP

/signed

I don't get how ppl find prophecies better PvE... There is MUCH more in cantha

The way the game is intended on being played and the way people actually play it are two entirely different things. If people actually did the quests/missions in order (like most did with prophecies the first time they played it) they would probably have much different feelings about it. I spend 90% of my online time in PvP, and have only made it marginally through the Factions storyline, but I'm actually playing it the way it was designed to be played (not including the parties, as I hate pugs. I'm doing everything I can with henchies.)

ANET can't stop people from rushing through the game and skipping every cutscene, just to get to the end. People will inevidably do that, and then when they're disappointed by an ending they only partially understand, they say it sucks. I'm not going to actually make any decisions about the storyline until I finish it, but I'm going to know it quite well when I do finish it, just like I did with Prophecies.

For the most part I'm happy with how they made Factions. I'm disappointed that there aren't seperate high-level areas for exploring (like FoW) but the challenge missions are a nice replacement. I'm very unhappy with the new skills, as the 'copy' skills are a total sham. They should have just made those ones "core" skills, and added real new skills. but then the PR guys wouldn't have as much to brag about. meh.

1) You're not picking any side. You can go Luxons first, and then go Kurzicks afterwards, and you can do both content fully, so this is definitly not an issue if you put it in this way. It IS an issue to me though, as I don't like that ArenaNet is saying every "CHOOSE YOUR ALLIAGENCE!!", even though it doesn't mean shit, so I'd prefer them to stop acting like it does.

2) Like I said above, you're not really picking sides, so this is nonsense. I'd love to be able to pick personally though, I love the idea of having sides, but it doesn't mean crap at this moment (and it most likely won't change). In my opinion, it should've been more like the Alliance/Horde thing in World of Warcraft, including attacking enemy towns (excluding being abled to only choose one side on your whole account, as this will really increase hate between sides, and I really hated this in my 2 months of playing World of Warcraft).

3) I agree on this one. I don't like gaining 10,000 unspend Luxon or Kurzick Faction, as this is quite alot. Also, Faction is stored on your acount, so you can just get all your characters to the Cavalon/House Zu Helzer, get 10,000 Kurzick/Luxon Faction (which is easy like this, just do the easiest quests on all your characters), and you can get all those characters through. If you want to make it hard to progress at that points, make the quest "Earn 10,000 Luxon/Kurzick Faction with this character" instead

This isn't a Factions issue, not even a Guild Wars issue, this is a common issue, as it's just an issue of getting bored when doing something for too long.
And if you think we're gaining Faction in the wrong way, what do you advice? Gain Factions through running? Through grinding maybe? No thanks.

And if you don't like the whole idea of Faction, you're not forced to care about Faction (only during the "Befriending the Luxons/Kurzicks" quests), so just don't then. I didn't want to gain Fame in chapter 1, unlike many others, and I simply didn't care about it, it's not like Faction is the only thing there is in Factions..


I agree on this. What does Faction mean in the first place? There's only one difference between Kurzick Faction and Luxon Faction, and that's if you're either getting Amber or Jadeite. But because picking a side doesn't even matter, this is just a small issue.

Well, at first, I found that there was little absolutly new stuff to Factions, but well, what's there to add that doesn't look like anything from Prophecies? Prophecies really had everything. If you could give me an example of what uniques you think you'd add to Factions to make it unique, tell me, but I can't think of anything.

yeah factions is fun.. only thing is newbie island thought was alot lower quality than rest of the game and the cutscene in that one mission before stars.. they kill that lady and guy in the street and the lady I swear was a guy making his voice high.. I mean comeon lol and the voice acting was so bad on master togo too (you might as well hire the guys from bonzai take it really over the top)

The mobs in factions more complex and balanced compared to prophecies, which is a good thing.

As for the pve environment, I still enjoy prophecies' presearing and factions' shingjea island. Tyria has better overall explorable maps/scenery imo. Though the slums to some people seem repetitive, I'm glad they implement it cause it provides a change to the usual greens/desert environments. (Tyria world seems so unpopulated lol)

Actually I have to disagree with wanting Anet to keep the "intensity" of combat in Factions. I don't find the mission intensity fun one bit. Too many missions are timed so they force you to race through it without any chance to even read the text boxes of background material. Others just way to many allies and bad guys in them. Seriously any other monks out there having some frustrations playing a healing monk with both Mehnlo and Togo in these missions? Getting tired of trying to guess who they are going to heal next so I don't waste energy. The combat needs to be scaled back so that only 2 monks are ever needed. I don't find frantically clicking on skills and watching health bars go up and down like yoyos to be even remotely fun. Add to this bosses that can party wipe you in under 10 seconds and you have some really poor game mechanics. Plays way too much like a console game (and I suspect this second team of designers drew too much from console games). This is a PC game. Its meant to be skill based. Skill based doesn't mean I need the reflexes of a lynx to play.

I have replayed many of the missions in Prophecys because they are actually fun to do. Thunderhead, Hell's Precipice, Ring of Fire, etc.... However, I would rather poke myself in the eye than redo any of the Factions missions.

once through factions is enough for me. i havent actually finished it with a character yet, but i got the 15k kurz i was aiming for. i do plan on finishing it to see the story play out, but i really dont want to have to do it with each character.

for those against running, stop reading now.

i really wish i could just get the other characters taxi services so i could play in certain areas with them or build faction with them or even tame specific pets. i truly dread having to play through with each one to be able to do these things. as was said earlier, in tyria the missions and quests worked a bit differently and it wasnt so much of a grind to play through with different classes. but most of the quests so far in factions are just plain tedious to do.

/not signed.


Can definately see NcSofts influence here. Look at the Lineage 2 mechanics..

I definitely agree with the OP. Despite being unable to run--perhaps in fact because of that--I greatly GREATLY prefer Factions' PvE to Prophecies'. Ascalon was drudgery. Kryta was drudgery. Maguuma was INCREDIBLE drudgery.

Whereas only Shing Jea isle is boring to me in Factions--it really kicks off when you hit the mainland. Vizunah Square especially--by far the most fun mission in factions.

Vizunah has to be the poorest design of mission in the whole of chap 1 or 2 - not only is ANET's idea of making something more challanging to just chuck more mobs in and add a time limit (seems to be a common solution in most of factions along with endless back-tracking just to make the game seem longer), you then spend ages getting a party together only to end up teamed with 1 guy and 7 henchies who promptly let the other NPC die so you have to start again through no fault of your own.

For the record - I completed Faction's with my ranger without playing 24/7, without running or skipping quests (did all in order in every area before progressing - Kurzick first to end game, then Luxon side missions/quests) and am at the Luxon stage already with my Warrior grinding out the 1.9k faction I need to enter the hatchery because in a blinding design decision there aren't enough unique Luxon quests to get the required faction - this will be my last time through factions as I just can't face taking my other 3 level 20's through nor starting a Rit or Assassin as it's just so boring. IMO Factions is too short and not challanging enough in the proper way.

I don;t like being RUSHED through a mission.....it's not hard it's just irritating.....


we like to actualy clear out every mob and explore the place....

but then that is just what we like to do, but now it's

RUSHRUSHRUSH GOGOGOGOGO we're out of time GOGO OMG GO!!!!11one!!11

/signed

those of you who were around for GW launch...pve used 2 be awsome, game has never been as good as it was out of the gate. Its pointless now..once the greens showed up it was the beggining of a slow death that accelerated w/ every pve "update" there after. They want it to be a pvp game..just the way it is. Trained chimps can reach lv 20 have perfect weapons(greens) and finish Factions in a week

Didnt read the ne of the posts if ne one already said this i feel ur pain

dunno, all i really know is that faction > prophecies. Although it seemed WAY WAY shorter, i guess because less missions, factions is and was better than prophecies.

About 60% signed.

I play almost entirely henchies - it's fairly decent then. Not so hard that I can't make it, hard enough to be a challenge in places. If you have a good experienced human group *any* PvE will either be really really easy or just huge groups of high level monsters until AI gets *a lot* further. And if you are not wanting to leave people like me behind (and I suspect I'm much more common, even amongst the top end of most players. Not that I'm great, but think Vizunah and 9/10 that you get on the other side - that's where anet makes thier money and why stand alone games have a difficulty slider) then it will always be that way. To note, many MMO's go this route but they have a constant revenue stream with a monthly fee instead of depending on average and below players for thier profits. Main game should be pretty inclusive (and thus easy), post main story should be where good players/groups get thier hard PvE.

In the end, the only real complaint I have is Vizunah Square - it's just too early. For at least one of my characters (an assassin) it locks me out of too much of the content. Somewhat due to bugs (henchies leaving you) and somewhat due to me being an average to slightly above player this makes it as far as she can make it in Factions. If this was later in the game - say near the end - then it would be great. As it is if I had been a factions only account I would have one, and only one, character past it (my MM, who blew through the mission even with my side being only henchies, the other having four drop, and my ignorance of the quest. Though I have not bothered with any of my prophecies characters).

In prophecies Thirsty and Thunderhead are well into the game. If you have a character that far you have most of the game, plus you aren't ruining others game if you fail (a hench only option in Vizunah would solve this one though). Like Vizunah, if you have good groups it's easy, with bad ones really hard. Again, fine for a few points in the game, first real mission isn't a good place to weed the bad/average players out if you want to sell games (though it's good if you don't ever want to be bothered by average or worse players).

Not to mention that I can hench *every* mission past the freaking first one - meaning the giant hill to pass is in the very beginning. If it was common and I had to learn how to do this it would be one thing, but to screw every casual henchie player at the very first section off the newb isle is kinda a bad decision. It ought to be very near the end, even more true with how easy the last mission is.

Really, other than that, I've enjoyed my factions content with my MM. Lots of goodness there. Just that is a BIG negative to me. At least I can map over the Tyria with my assassin and play a game I still really enjoy.

A nice diverse range of comments, thank you all for contributing thus far. Please keep it up

Regarding PvE:

I agree with keeping the level cap at 20. The whole "I get stronger, they get stronger" thing is generally pretty pointless if you want gameplay based heavily on skill.

However, once you hit the level cap in GW, the gameplay structure stops following a traditional RPG and becomes AN ACTION GAME. So ANet really needs to take a look at other good action games and see what makes them fun.

They should think about games like Half Life 2, Dynasty Warriors, Devil May Cry, Onimusha, Resident Evil (sorry, I've been playing too many capcom games recently), etc.

Giant bosses with multiple attack patterns, highly dynamic fights that require a lot of movement and observation, multiplayer attacks that require coordination for special results, enemy attacks with visible animations, so that you can see them coming and react to them by activating a blocking stance etc (and also making such instant-defense type skills decent enough to use, and available to all classes).

Although GW is a team game, I think the amount of personal skill required in the gameplay should be raised a bit. Currently, certain roles in the group are often pretty mindless and repetitive. They should look at the way monsters, skills, and various classes and game mechanics interact so that every class and team member has things they need to look out for, things that force them to react to what's going on, opportunities for them to do something special and cool during a fight, etc.

We need more, "Oh, well spotted during that fight, you really kicked ass that time!" and less "You screwed up the pull! We wiped because of you!".

Currently in GW, "good" gameplay is by the numbers, routine, efficient.
The only time an individual has a noticeable effect on the battle is when he screws up.

They need to reverse that a little, so generally people can hold their own without much skill, but they get an opportunity every now and then to really shine, if they are paying attention and do the right things. That would be much more positive, and fun, whilst still being skillful.

I think what we really need is a new sorrow's/ToPK/God Shrine kind of thing

You screwed up the pull! We wiped because of you!".


it's scary how much i say that to assassins latley.

Bah!!! Hold your own without much skill???? It doesn't really take excessive amounts of skill to beat the missions. It takes paying attention to what is going on around you. Everyone has to do that and contribute equally. That is what it should take.

I'm really sorry for people think Factions is too hard, it isn't. It can be pretty tough to get that third sword on some missions though. Takes doing the mission a few times. I enjoy the missions enough that I don't mind doing them more that once.

I liked taking my monk through the game, and now my ranger. It is prooving to be 2 completely different play experiences. Though I liked prophesies, it really just felt the same between different characters all the way up to THK. It wasn't until then that the game started to feel different based on what profession I had.