A PvE'ers Point of View And Complaint About The State of The Game

As a player who focused primarily on playing the PvE aspect of Guild Wars, I must say that unlike some of my PvE-enthusiast counterparts, I don't think ArenaNet did a very good job with the portion of the game that some people staunchly defend as being the best part about Guild Wars.

I'll be blunt: PvE is boring. There is very little to do beyond trudging through the ultra-linear missions with its uninteresting storyline and repetitive gameplay. The wilderness areas hold even less value to me as a PvE player due to the respawns, the lack of 'loot', which is one of the primary reasons why games like World of Warcraft and Diablo 2 are so popular, and the fact that they are nothing more than static areas with predictable placements of relatively opponents that offer nothing in terms of loot as previously mentioned, or even experience points for that matter, as they're just there to serve as a gameplay hurdle/timesink between you and the next location (e.g. Temple of the Ages).

Another thing: the map design is really bad. I'm not just talking about how players get stuck on blades of grass. I'm talking about the map designs as a whole: they're all maze-like. There are no open areas, except in Pre-Searing. It's really, really unenjoyable to walk around and have to fight a group of monsters every 5 seconds, especially those monsters that are hidden in the ground and pop up as soon as you approach. Is that supposed to be a challenge?

I don't like how the cooperative missions cater solely to classes like the Elementalist, Warrior and Monk primaries, either. The Holy Trinity, as they're called in other MMORPGs. Guild Wars is capable of better mission design with all the skills each class can be decked with, so why isn't it? Simply putting a monk, or even a couple of monk enemies within each enemy cluster would do wonders to diversify the class requirements in each party in the linear missions. Utility classes like the ranger, mesmer and yes, the necromancer would see a lot of demand, as the "Holy Trinity" wouldn't be able to counter such enemies on their own. Of course, while doing this would make it easier for utility class characters to find parties, it wouldn't do anything to change the fact that PvE is still boring.

I realize that Guild Wars isn't Diablo 2, but having a random placement of monsters as well as monster types with varying skills, along with loot, rewarding experience and even randomized quests would go a long way to making PvE a much better experience. The game is instanced, after all, so why not? Anarchy Online does it.

Speaking of which, what ever happened to the boast about each player being able to 'affect their instanced version of the game world', something that was mentioned time and time again in interview after interview?

In any case, having more modes of gameplay would be awesome. Just running through the boring linear missions isn't my idea of a good time. Having the party of players face off against a horde of weak, but numerous monsters besieging a fort would be tremendous fun, and it would certainly offer a great diversion to the tedium of the current game. Besides that, there's really all sorts of gameplay modes you could come up with. Having the players face off against waves of random monsters in a melee would be terrific, and I don't mean to have any of these modes set up as one of those linear missions either, but as a special cooperative gameplay mode. I'm sure it's been suggested before. Let's face it, the PVE is repetitive, and that kills replayability.

Concerning PVP: Adding new gameplay modes would give the game the boost of life that it deserves, and getting rid of the annoying maps like the 6-way PVP would help, too. Also, there shouldn't be any reason why all of the PVP battles have to happen in the Tombs. Some players might just enjoy playing the Relic run maps, or maybe they just like to duel another 8-player party without being in a guild, so why not have separate arenas for these gameplay modes?

Before anyone brings up the subject that "PVE is about grind, as are RPGs", I'll just go ahead and say that you if you do say that, you probably don't know what you're talking about. When I played Diablo and Diablo 2, it never felt like a grind. Why? Because it was fun, and because it was constantly rewarding, either through the accumulation of new items, skill points, or quest rewards that didn't involve some part of the game I wasn't interested in. How interesting is it, really, for a PVE-only player to acquire a skill that's only useful in PVP? While I hold interest in both PVE and PVP portions of Guild Wars, I don't deny that there are parts of the game that we would be better off without: namely, the slow accumulation of skill points, the pointlessness of doing so for a PVE player as there are no real challenges that require the use of most skills, and the fact that PVP players have to spend time doing something they don't consider enjoyable.

In real RPGs like Fallout and Baldur's Gate, not once did you ever have to grind. You merely accumulated levels, skills and items as you continued on your quests, or journey throughout the game, and performed tasks and made decisions that changed the game world. Playing Knights of the Old Republic, Baldur's Gate II and Jade Empire never gave me the impression that I was 'trudging' through the game to some end. It was about the journey, not the destination that captivated my interest for as long as it did.

Guild Wars feels like a grind, and I don't like that feeling. The game needs less linearity, and less forced gameplay. Yes, it's true that Guild Wars uses the carrot and stick approach, as do many other RPGs. With Guild Wars, however, the carrot happens to be rotten and the stick is a big baseball bat with bloody splinters all over it.

Please don't squander the game's potential.


Sol Invictus

You can see acouple of instances of quests you've done affecting the world, Siege of Piken Square, Garfazz Bloodfang, complete either of these and the mobs won't be there in future unless someone in your group has yet to do it. The same is true of NPC's being present or not - i.e cyn, devona, mhenlo, aiden, outside LA and AR the first time you exit. It's in there, maye just not as blatantly as you'd like.


I'm a big supporter of the PvE co-op Seige ida, where you have to face off multiple waves of ever increasing enemies. People love facing incredible odds and surviving, the feel is soo much better than facing two or three super hard hitting mobs.

Its a matter of vision. Anet stated it more than once: GW is supposed to be 'differend'. The main problem for PvE is that there is no good reward system after getting to level 20. PvE players like to grow stronger. But Anet has made this very clear: They are aware of the concerns but in no way they will implement 'better' items. Its a little bit sad that, as some kind of compensation, they are willing to offer stuff that makes you look better

I agree with the maps. Its too many mazes. And it would be no problem to create 'open' aereas. I like the idea of some random spots. I myself posted earlier about adding random dungeons in maps.

Monster clusters: I think the problem is botting. We had some differend mobs. But once players learned how to kill them quickly for loot, Anet added all kinds of hidden creatures, mesmers to dispell, lifedrainers, etc. So now almost every map is crowded with them. Its obvious that a differend solution for botters is needed so maps can have all kinds of differend mobs. Players should also be granted the satisfaction of cutting through a huge mob like a knife through hot butter... Now and than

I think skillpoints should have more functions than unlocking skills. After level 20 I gather skillpoint after skillpoint, tried differend builds by switching profession, and yet I have over 50 spare points. Lets simply face it: for PvE after level 20 there's nothing more to do than gather gold for new chr's or friends. For me its the Award system that bothers me most... I dont care for nice looking stuff, its not necessary to drop great items, but it would certainly help if there was a wider variarity of suffixes and prefixes...

Mostpeople miss the point of the dynamic instancing, basically all it is, is that when you go into an area, the area change spawns after you complete a mission. If you are in a group then it basically places all the spawns in the map for every quest available to all the players in the group. As such it can be seen.
It is not as it makes it out to be, i.e. You don't do the mission in pre ascalon to give the guy a devour egg and then he doesn't appear later in the game, in the pike square mission, or later on the becon perch mission a hungry devourer. Admittedly if it did it would make the missions more diverse, and each play through would have a more dynamic effect on the game world. If they did it would also lead to players discovering hidden mission etc. As it stands the missions are fixed and appear reguardless of what you have done or not done in the past.

I would even go as far to say that once you get past post searing, all classes basically get to do all the quest reguardless. There isn't actually that many quests to do, and it is easy to do all the quest available with one RP character. If there was a greater dynamic here it would be better, have each class have its own set of missions through out the game that are unique to the primary choosen, then atleast playing through the game a second or third time would retain its whats next factor.
I would not personally have your secondary class effect the quest as this would create a situation like what you have now, on the other hand it could make it easier and more fun to unlock skills for your secondary. As at the moment if you change secondary you can go back to post as do class related quest for skills, but this option ends once you get to yaks bend.
More primary class related quest would help to life the tedium from the PvE game, adding new areas is good, but I suspect in the long run it will not eleviate any of the current PvE issues as the new areas once released will be old hat within 2 weeks and you will be back to square one.

Great post. You have mentioned most of (imho) obvious flaws in GW PvE design.
It felt shallow, boring, and empty. The world (or better a collection of maps) feels like levels / stages designed for video games. Honestly, blocking terrain has been abused in most games, but GW wins the "no freedom" award. There is no world, there is just a path that manages to make enough turns to fit into a square most of the time.

There are other flaws: Solo Farming is at least 20 times more rewarding then playing with other people, especially doing the missions.


Missions like Thunderhead are not really difficult, just frustrating and timeconsuming (honestly, the king is the worst charging wa/mo aggro-junkie i have ever seen, the best way to do the keep is to have a player talk to the king and go afk till the door, then go afk again till the cutscene.)

There are lots of other areas where GW tried to be different, but failed. Leveling Grind >> Unlocking grind. At least other RPGs pretend to allow you to create and play a character with skills and abilities that increase over time. In GW, you level your account, and you cant even use it during PvE. Honestly, who dont you just unlock cooking recipes or pictures of semihot chicks/guys? Same function for PvE players: you collect something that has no bearing on the game whatsoever, improvement for PvP players who finally can play chess with more then just pawns. Yes, the gankers will be annoyed, but you cant really gank in GW. Or meet anyone else outside the chatrooms / trading posts . Or affect the instanced world in any meaningfull way whatsoever. Great way to remove the fun aspects of persistant worlds (interaction, be it good or bad) and not adding the fun aspects of instances (you can do whatever you want, even if it means blowing up the map or killing the main character...)

However, people seem to like it, so who cares? Profit > quality anyway.

edit: i doubt that intelligent people like blackace will miss the point, but there are still less intelligent people out there:
Pvp has huge problems atm, but that does not change the fact that pve is nothing to write home about. Dont come in here stating that pve is worthless and you need to complain about pvp. Thats what im doing. Yet even ignoring the huge amount of people from the local minority, there are still major flaws with this game!

oki this post is very indeapth and yah oki got a few good points and so on BUT, as with a lot of these whiney posts witch is what this is.

You half to look at this from another view being arena net's view they didnt put a game out there for a pve'er, This games focused on pvp its not ment to be full on rpg look at me i can play for years doing nothing but pve its ment to be a game u can be good at fast and get in to quickly not spend mounths on playing the computer alown in a dark room .

If u want that kinda game go play daoc, or everquest2, or summin else! , and im not having ago becuse i dont like pve becuse to me pve is the best part of a game im not to fussed about pvp but this games got enuff to be going on with if u look for it and to be honest if u can find a spec that can solo the hole game then to me thats when u have a right to complane this games to dull and boring and needs more put to it, till then find more ways to play fine better ways to play OR get a new game! Sorry but thats that.

Don't even get me started on this. IMO the Southern Shiverpeak zones are the LEAST fun to walk around in and explore. Why is this? Because the second you walk out into a new zone, all you see are TONS of red dots all over. I understand the need to make it harder than, say, Old Ascalon or the like, but c'mon now. There are several areas in the Southern Shiverpeaks where you are basically guaranteed to die due to all the damn monsters you have to fight at once. Not fun, dude. Not fun. Can't you make the monsters hit harder and there be less of them or something? This is ridiculous. I absolutely dread going out into the Southern Shiverpeak areas.

The S. Shiverpeaks are where you have to cap many of the elite skills, but it takes FOREVER to get through any of these damn zones because you have to fight about 10 monsters every 10 feet of the way. Let's not even mention that sometimes the boss you may need to cap the skill from doesn't even show up (lame), and then you get to do the whole zone over again. Fun, fun, fun. Not.

I wouldn't mind the sheer amount of monsters because I know how to pull and stuff. However, it seems in the Southern Shiverpeaks mobs are TOO close to one another and it's almost impossible to pull one away from another so they all don't get aggro'ed at once and then you have 15% - 30% - 60% dp before you know it. It's bad enough that the level is capped at 20. It's worse when alot of the time you are playing with way less than level 20 HP and energy, due to the mob placement and abundance moreso than your own level of skill.

The big problem in Guild Wars' linear storyline is the fact that you're relegated to the role of 'passive observer' when it comes to having any effect on the setting. It's hard to call it an RPG when you can't control anything that happens to your character, or to the game world you're in. With the way skill point redemption is, it's difficult to say that you're even capable of developing a unique character, because you're not. Killing monsters doesn't result in any rewards, either, so what's the point?

Once you're level 20... that's it. All that remains is completing the rest of the game for the sake of reading the weak storyline. There is no real incentive. I don't much feel like grinding for the useless Fissure/UW armors, just so my character can look pretty, either.

told u alread dont liek it get a pve based game guildwars IS NOT and nore do i think ever WILL be a pve based game is PVP based and its good at it

A lot of really good points were brought up in this thread, especially the one about the maps all beeing mazes. I don't know if anybody has allready touched the subject, but:

I'm tired of fightinh the same darn monsters throughout the whole games. I'm sick of scorpions, scarabs and spiders. I don't really care what their prefix might be, I'd really appreciate some diversity.

There's just one point that I disagree on with you guys: I liked the storyline. Well for most od the part, at least, it does get a bit lame after you leave the Maguuma Jungle, but I really enjoyed Ascalon, the flight through the Shiverpeaks and the battles against the White Mantle in Kryyta. But I guess that's just a matter of taste.

Oh by the way, I'm enjoying this game more than I did Diablo2 by the way. D2 was even more maze like then GW and the storyline didn't really appeal to me. But as I said, tastes are different...

thats why everyone even mildy interested in pvp is engaged in repetive actions to flame the living hell out of everything ANET because they managed to destroy pvp.

If they main focus of this game was pvp, ANET just managed to completely shoot themself in the head. 90% of the content is pve. The pvp players are leaving (or flaming or both).
If the main focus was pve, they managed to shoot themself, because 90% of the 90% are boring.

And the blend of spirit spam (NR-spam), unlock grind and UW solo farming (yes, you can farm everything solo, including UW) dont make a good game, no?

GW might be "trying" to be different, but they are not doing it well enough.

Given that the monsters have similar classes and skills to players, you would have thought they would be roaming about in rational, balanced groups, able to take on most things. Instead, they're usually like most other rpgs. "This area has lots of spiders. This area has lots of hydras. This area has lots of..."

Given that the game is instanced, it would seem to make sense to have some randomness, so that every persons experience can vary from other peoples, so that repeat play will yield new and different gameplay. Instead, all the stuff is exactly in the same place all the time - just like a normal MMORPG, but missing the unpredictability of other humans that a normal MMORPG has.

Given that the game is about "skill", that the level and item power structure is so flat, it would have worked great to have optional challenges of varying difficulty all over the map, so that you can explore and come across a fortress defended by grawl, a passing caravan of dwarves that need protecting, an abandoned mine now inhabited by a big mother drake and her children... etc. And the team would stop, discuss whether they can win, discuss their strategy, and then charge in, suffer horrific losses, pull back and rebirth their dead, talk about their mistakes, point fingers at n00bs, and generally try again, possibly getting a juicy REWARD for their SKILL and their BRAVERY. And it would also make sense for these bonuses to be once-off, and randomly placed, so that if you were lucky enough to come across it, it would be a really exciting event. (also to stop people farming it.)

Instead, we have rewards and bosses placed a fixed locations on all maps, all maps having an even level of difficulty across all monsters there. You dont explore - you find a good spot to farm and repeat it until it gets nerfed or something. If you're looking for a boss, you repeat the same area over and over until it spawns. ALL of this is exactly like the current run of crappy MMORPGs out there.

Given that this game might be "all about pvp" it would make sense to integrate pvp into every facet of the gameplay, even pve. Make missions that require two teams to play through an instance, on possibly different or conflicting goals, occasionally butting heads or cooperating to pass a difficult area. Make a story that revolves around confrontation between player groups. Make explorable areas occasionally randomly spawn another human group or two in there - if you meet, will you be Allies? Foes? Can you cooperate to take that objective? Fight over the spoils afterwards? Instead, we have HalfLife, or any other pc game from recent years. We have a "single player campaign" and a "deathmatch mode", both completely seperate, despite Anet's efforts to "keep them together".

So >please< ANet, if you are going to release new pve content - fulfill your stated goals and make it DIFFERENT from the crappy gameplay we've all seen before. Now that your technology is developed and proven, it's time to hire some good writers, imaginative designers, listen to your community, and make a wonderful GAME, not just a tech-demo with lip service to gameplay. (*cough* Doom 3 *cough cough* EQ2 *cough gag choke*)

im sorry but just becuse people know how to play pvp very well dosent give people tha DO flame pvp in guildwars the right to .

oki so in hoh atm its proving a big challange to eather take hoh rather then hold it becuse of rangers spamming fetial seson for a START yes this is JUST ONE dont flame me for saying its the only problem with taking hoh and holding it becuse i knwo thers lots of resons its hard to eather HOLD or more to the point take . but is this not the point to make it HARD to do so . yes i think it is. theres no SET group NO set build of charactor to win HoH there for pvp is not destroyed.

*edit* gook luck farming ALL of underworld solo even mo/w still cant do that and that lil build still hasent been nerfed . strip enchnment oops thay die. so dont tell me u can solo everythign u cant if somthing uses strip inchnment your dead fullstop.

As I have just posted else where, there are 1000 guild listed on the rankings some have only PvP'd 10 times. Now say each guild has 20 members, thats 200,000 players out of 400,000+ subscriber base. This to me speaks clearly that the game is 50/50 PvP and PvE, not only in design, but in community.
Don't make me quote A.net as they have even stated this is one of their primary goals, so please please PvP'ers get of your high horses GW is not PvP exclusive by a long shot.

if your teling me get out of my high hourse becuse im a pure pvp read again.

So true. One of the best times I've had in a game was during the World of Warcraft beta, in which I played on the PVP server. We'd roam around in a party and run into players from the opposing faction, and we'd try to kill each other in order to take dominance of a certain location just so we could do quests in peace, by driving them off. It got pretty hectic, but it was fun especially when the back up arrived after sending many /tells.

I'd imagine that World of Warcraft would have been an excruciatingly boring game if it were fully instanced, and didn't have its little nuances, like the unpredictability of other players. I've just described Guild Wars' PVE. It would have been a good game, if it had randomized monsters, unpredictable (e.g. fun!) gameplay and the like, but ... it doesn't.

Agreed.

Sol Invictus: I think making the monster spawns random every time you instance would contribute a great deal to getting rid of the "grind", as well as stop botters who's memorized all the spawn locations and farms them at its discretion. The story does suck. Period. But then, Guild Wars has never been about putting forward narrative arts in video games. While I understand the difficulty of creating a long and involved (And hopefully non-linear) storyline that spans the entire game, it wouldn't hurt if the minor quests got more variation or spice. So far, most of the secondary quests involve following the green arrow to your destination, do something, and go back for the reward. I would like to see a few instances where secondary quests with multiple possible outcomes which lead to other secondary quests, which would hopefully spark off a mini-storyline.

And Kuji: I HONESTLY have serious trouble reading and understanding your posts. Can you please refrain from liberal use of netspeak? (Sifting your posts through an MSWord spellchecker won't hurt either.)

i love that this game's maps are mazes, sure once in a while i get annoyed but usually im like "this is soooo cool! i have no idea where im going!" (not sarcastic).
Quote:
Originally Posted by Shadow_Avenger
As I have just posted else where, there are 1000 guild listed on the rankings some have only PvP'd 10 times. Now say each guild has 20 members, thats 200,000 players out of 400,000+ subscriber base. This to me speaks clearly that the game is 50/50 PvP and PvE, not only in design, but in community.
Don't make me quote A.net as they have even stated this is one of their primary goals, so please please PvP'ers get of your high horses GW is not PvP exclusive by a long shot.

even though this game was supposed to be PvP based there is some good PvE

Couldn't agree more. Scorpions accompany you from Ascalon all the way to Crystal Desert. Trolls and giants are essentially the same everywhere. Tengus are basically advanced Charr. PvE is very similar in all regions of Tyria, making it unreplayable.

That being said, there are mobs that act unconventionally, proving Anet can do it very well if it wants. For example, necrid patrols galloping outside ToA - you have to watch out for them and use the terrain wisely to avoid really massive aggros. This is not present at any other point. White Mantle going berserk with siege weapons are also funner than regular, pentiful but weak mobs.

I also agree with the mazes - my favourite locations in Tyria are open spaces, for example the meadow between LA and Ascalon Settlement, with half of the Caromi clan on it. It is actually diverse. Missions like Thirsty River or Thunderhead Keep (siege) are also way funner than your regular Go-Find-An-NPC-In-The-Middle-Of-Nowhere-And-Proceed-To-Kill-Stuff ones.

If PvE was funner and more replayable, I think that PvP would automatically benefit as well. More people wanting to go through the game again = more unlocked skills = larger PvP community.

Ahhhhh...I see that the Natives are restless!

I must agree and disagree on many points, but rather than go into them all (and there are many) in detail, creating the 'Post of all Posts', I will provide, what I think, may be some general ideas to improve PvE for all.

- take away the TRADE channel - implement an auction house. This would create a true value system and not some fake "c/o is 150k". Items sell for what people are truely willing to pay.

- leave the PvE storyline in place BUT, allow for randomness AND the storyline to co-exist. This takes some explaining:
... I have not done "Quest to Do Something", so I am the INVITER of a PUG - we do the instanced, monster-set storyline version of the quest.
OR
... I have done the quest and if I am the INVITER, the instanced area we dive into is randomized for area monsters, bosses, locations, numbers, rewards, placement, etc...
... the randomized area would need to provide some incentive for us to 'explore it' right? A 'Dungeon of Extreme Southern Shiverpeak Style Difficulty' in every area, location randomized (your party must locate it to enter) and hidden. Why would you go there? to receive 1, yes 1 ATTRIBUTE point for completion. "Players would end up with hundreds of points! That sucks!" Not really, remember - very hard - very very hard - die and out, no revive - randomized monsters (not same always) making it difficult to plan for - very long quest with no set path to follow - and you had to FIND it first, didn't you? - you might even have to carry a seed...to make a bridge...to get to the sword...that is the only weapon that kills the griffon...so you can get into the castle...where the prisoners are...who has a spy amongst them...alerting his minions to your presence...bringing a horde of undead to your location unlike any seen before...where having the high-ground will help, etc, etc, etc...

That's it. "Thats it?" Yes, that's it - Randomize the explorable areas for players that have already been through there and control the inviting, with a very hidden entrance to an uber-difficult dungeon area that has many a randomized monster very difficult to plan skills around while having to possibly complete a randomized quest where the completion is a reward of 1 attribute point.

Why Attribute points? I'm level 20 and I wish I had 5 more for my Elem-Marks-Beast Ranger with Purple, Green and Orange Druid's Armor (looks cooler than you might think).


I do think that randomness (which is a quality of some other online games) combined with the good story, combined with a bit of suprise, intrigue, and difficulty, will win the hearts of many.

A.Net, NC.Soft, whatever you wish to be called...we know it will take a while and would cost us money as an upgrade in the stores, but if you at all understand this suggestion (to the rant above), you would get to work on it because THAT will win you 'Game of the Century' honors AND flood your servers so you have to upgrade and cause many more 'err=7' problems (unless you rename the error) and raise heck with the PvP'ers (because many saw the coolness of the new PvE part of the game and said: I'M IN!).