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

The getting 8 people online I can go with, the unlocking skills thats a myth, only the top guilds with the hardcore PvP players worry about that. Yes there are many dead guilds, which is why using the top 1000 actually put things into perspective as they are clearly active guilds, even if they are some dodgy outings by players making multi guilds to attemped to cheat there way to the top.
I would also go with the Hall of Heros, as HoH is actually more fun than GvG.
It would be really interesting to know though, the actual amout of players that PvP against PvE as a primary focus.
I do honestly beleive the balance will still actually tip in favor of PvE over all.

I'd like them give some reward for the completion of quests -- specifically gold

Rather than people doing Griffin Runs at 1k-2k a run and UW runs

Instead people could form a group and complete the quests in FoW -- 10,000 XP and 1000gp ( fixed ) for every member for completion of the first quest

Something like this could shift over the focus from farming mobs solo -- to teamwork and quest-rewarded gameplay.

They'd have to ensure that no part of the area could be solo'd ( not that it would matter the gold reward is FIXED ) -- surely they can do this though...?? Just add a nice selection of classes in each mob -- rather than 10 mobs of [creature-name]

"Ooh look the now common 105 build" -- great the mobs would poison, burn and bleed rather than exact out straight dmg...


The fixed gold reward would even be incremented as more missions are successful, for example: 1000gp to each member for the first, 2000gp to each for completion of the 2nd mission, etc...

Finally, no longer would you have to make a specific "farming-build" or farm at all...

A good team that completes four or more quests could make a good few thousand excluding all the drops they make -- this reward would be open to every ascended player and every class combination

Could this ensure that, and I quote: "You'll prove your worth with every battle -- as skill not hours played, decides your fate" ..??

Personally i very rarely play PvP. i have a multitude of PvE characters and yes it is more boring the 3rd or 4th time round but not grossly so. the only problems i have with starting again is with the attitudes of other players on their 3rd or 4th char that presume that they know best and that all should listen unto them.
The constant stream of enemies in PvE is i think rewarding. i love Witmans Folly and all the thousands of Grawl, there is something rewarding about clearing them even is i do just get 4 intricate neclaces for my trouble.
One thing i would like to see would be a larger scale form of PvP or PvE in which there are say a plane of battle with the population capacity of Ascalon City where people can go to take part in enormous battles with 50 aside... with npcs. it is doable considering the city zones. or even being able to form groups of say 20 to attempt to hold a doorway indefinatly against hordes of creatures.
I find the nerfing of drops annoying as even with my multitude of chars i still have no spare money to help guildies but it is not ANets fault, botters are the problem.
Linear?...yes i'll grant you but it does not detract from my enjoyment as i find the story long enough to allow me to forget my previous experiences in an area (apart from Elona and Thunderhead....grrrr).

In conclusion i do not think PvE is broken however i accept the points of those who do.

What does PvE stand for? Player verse Elementalist? or Player verse Enemy

do you have any idea what kind of havoc that could wreak on even slightly older systems

Before buying this game, I expected PvE to be boring and linear and PvP to be brilliant.

When I played it I found that PvE was boring and linear, while PvP was brilliant.

Apart from some balancing fixes in PvP (NR and spirits), I think Anet should definitely work on making PvE more compelling. It is so...shabby right now.

player vs environment

wait wait wait

so you got exactly what you expected

good job

Sadly, I have to agree with a lot of the concerns that have been voiced so far in this thread.

The maps are indeed mazes. There are no open areas whatsoever. It's very much a case of walking the beaten path, especially when you take into consideration that all the monsters spawn the exact same place every time, right down to the last little grawl. That, and the fact that A.Net seems intent on recycling every single monster in the game. I don't want to fight the same critters all over again, even if they are a different color this time. I want variety, true variety! Most monsters also seem to use only player skills, there are very few abilities that are actually unique to monsters.

Add to all this the inability to truly affect the environment that surrounds you in any meaningful way, and GW suddenly seems a lot more like a grinding experience than a real RPG. It's fun to play through once or twice. After that, well, there's really nothing more to be done.

I do appreciate the flat power curve of the game though. That's one thing I really hope A.Net sticks with, since it effectively does away with the superinflation of items (as well as the need to grind for said items) that has plagued so many other RPGs.


ManaCraft

Personally, I wish they hadn't tried attaching the PvE half of the game to a linear storyline. It's true you can avoid most of it by simply roaming the killing zones rather than taking to the missions, but some Missions just cannot be avoided if you want to get to other areas. You can't get to the desert without doing the missions in the Druid areas. You can't get to Ring of Fire island without doing the Thunderhead Keep mission in the Shiverpeak Mountains. After beating the game once, I didn't really care to be forced to endure this storyline again and again for all my other characters.

I don't necessarily agree with the complaint about the monsters. I think the fact that the monster groups have different classes makes them unique. Usually in an RPG, only one group will represent one class and as time progresses, you just get a different name. Example: Slime, Red Slime, Blue Slime, Silver Slime. All the same warrior type, but just a different name and level of difficulty. Here, you get all the monsters with a different name and different grade of skill to them. The tribal and sentient monsters get classes similar to the humans, while the lesser creatures only represent one or two classes between them. It is a difference from the standard of what's normally represented in RPGs.

I also like that the enemies will attack each other sometimes when they're of a different species. In Snake Dance, you can sneak by a whole horde of Shiverpeak Dwarves without fearing for your life as long as there's at least one Griffon challenging their position.

Oh, and there are open areas, which some including the original poster has already hinted at. The fields around Kryta, for example, are very open. Lots of rolling hills and abandoned villages to wander in. The desert is also quite open, as should be expected. Although I am quite disappointed that they went so far as to put some invisible walls on several sand dunes that anyone would otherwise be able to simply climb over. But for the most part, this game does consist of areas you can prettymuch follow one path on and be somewhere. Playing with my first character post-searing, I made it to Borlis Pass just by following the dirt path west from Ascalon City. You can still get lost in these mazes, though, which I think is supposed to be part of the fun. If you're not sitting with a printed out map in your lap then in theory you should enjoy discovering all the landscapes and sight-seeing areas on your own.

What annoys me most about the areas that are open, is that despite their openness, there are enemies scattered about in such a way that it's nearly impossible to avoid running into one. If in post-searing there were fewer aggressive mobs, I think that would make the exploration experience more enjoyable. I love getting out there and seeing all I can see; I have almost the entire game mapped out on one of my characters. But it just becomes tedious and un-fun when every five steps I have to take on some group of enemies 5-10 levels lower than me just to see what's over that hill.

I don't care for PvP, but for a while I did enjoy the RPG aspect of the game. It needs to be more open, IMO, and less storyline driven, since a storyline can only be suffered through so many times before a person never wants to hear it again. I wasn't particularly amazed as I went from one Mission to the next in this game. In fact, I felt like whoever created this storyline was accusing our characters of being easily misled. From one end to the other, your character gets under the "command" of someone who's just using them. I'd like to think that after the second time, my character wouldn't want to follow anyone anywhere anymore.

As much as I complain about alot of thing in this game I'm inclined to agree this game is meant more to be a casual game that you can pick up and play.

Too bad many players are on the hardcore MMORPG side or the I wann buy the game and immediately be a uber PvP pawner....sorry getting too old for leet speak.

As a person who is the play hours on end in a dark room MMORPGer' I often get bored of this game and the people who want to rush through. I guess that why my views on this game sometimes go astray.....group hug!!

The only thing right now I am getting tired of is the drop rate is so low and the rate of inflation. It would be nice if the gold in our vaults could earn interest like the real world.This is for amour runes etc.

Actually, GW and D2 has MANY similarities.

Limited # of characters
Limited # of character slots
Linear story broken into chapters and multiple missions within chapters
Professions/Skills are mostly similar
Instanced private parties with limited party sizes
Obvious choke points that are required to pass before continuing

You're correct in one regard - the refund system is extremely handy - but it's just fixing an obvious flaw in D2.

The obvious comparisons to D2 are there, not only in what the game is like, but also what's different. It's obvious ANet (staffed by a lot of former Blizzard/Diablo programmers and designers) took the D2 model (not a bad thing in itself as it's still being played 5+ years after it was released) and used the good aprts, and fixed the broken ones, while updating the graphics, etc. The fact that they addressed the issues like refund points means they were aware of the problem to begin with.

This has probably already been said, but seriously, find a new game. There are so many games with 20 times the PvE gaming experience. This is a Pvp game 90%. I have a rather extensive gaming experiences as far as PC goes, and if you're into PvE this game is not for you.

That's really all it comes down to.

Sadly an element of truth, but only alittle bit, as A.net have state that the PvE is ust as important, hmm, niw if all the PvE players left, not sure how bad that would be, 50%+ loss of server poplation, definately not a good thing, would the PvE players buy an expansion, well that depends on what the market has to offer.

The game is ment to have a more casual focus, and is definately not a game you really want to play constantly, it has the same duration gameplaywise as a good FPS, 50-60 hours first run, then maybe another 100+ hours per month if you like the PvP, more than that and the game loses its shine just like any other game.

The thing about the no monthly is actually no biggy, not whne you look at the content and life span of the game, it is the same as every other single player game with online content, the only difference is that you don't host a server with upto 120 peeps, they do. If fact less players also encourages a tighter community especially in RP games. NWN was a prime example of this.

The skill rewards in PVE are far from meaningful to PVE players. Only a scarce number of them have any real use within the PVE game due to the sheer lack of difficulty. Therefore, the majority of these skills have little, to no use in the game, especially those skills that you can only acquire extremely late in the game. As a prime example, I have not seen a single use of the "Verata's" Necromancers skills in PVE, due to the absolute lack of Necromancer enemies that summon undead minions that late in the game, and on top of that, their use in PVP is almost as limited. These are just a few of the rewards you refer to, and barely any of them hold any value to the PVE player.

Separating PvE characters from PvP would not be such a bad thing. It allows the PvP characters to have an even playing field, and it allows for ArenaNet to pursue more ambitious designs within the PvE world separated from PvP, like the discovery of items of far superior quality compared to anything available at the moment, and many other gameplay designs pertinent only to the extention of the PvE environment. Therefore, I absolutely fail to see how separating PvE from PvP could be construed as a bad thing. It is never a good attituded to employ a closed mindset when it comes to game design. Innovation extends from creativity.

Alternatively, why not combine the two, and I don't refer to the hackeneyed fashion in which the game is currently like. I refer to the absolute disposal of the tedious missions and the mundane quests. Allow guilds to own land, and fight over the land. Build dungeons, castles, cities, or whatever fits their motif. Instead of deathmatches, you have sieges and invasions. Meanwhile, the dungeons or cities churn out critters and other things that go towards the areas around them. So, each guild can have a job board to deal with situations like that. Allow the guild quests to be random as well as allow higher ups in guilds to generate quests against other guilds.

Not to mention breeding monsters would be a fun MMO style job if you're evil.

Let the game live up to it's name: Guild Wars.

Another thing that really annoys me about the PvE experience, although I'm sure most people will disagree, is the stupid green arrow. That little thing on your compass that always tells you where to go. Stupid, I think, is exactly the appropriate term, considering the effect it has on the gameplay.

I don't really find most quests to be fun. They're too linear, even when you're wandering through open areas, because of that little green magic marker that always holds you by the hand. Go this way, talk to that guy, now go that way, talk to the next guy, now go this way again to collect your reward. It feels like a guided tour more than true questing, and it entirely removes the incentive to explore the world (which is a pity, given the extremely beautiful graphics GW has to offer) and go looking for something, because you already know which way to go, even if you've never been there before.

All in all, the stupid green arrow simply contributes to the feeling of walking the beaten path, and I wish A.Net would simply do away with it (although that's probably never going to happen). Granted, some quests are so elaborate that guidance is needed, but that can come in other shapes and forms, like NPCs giving you hints on where to go, or something as simple as a signpost.


ManaCraft

I actually stopped playing for a while and picked it up again just recently. The game is definately more fun and refreshing not playing day after day. But having said that, I'm one of those mutants that just enjoying playing the game and I'm not out to get every skill or worry about making a fortune. I have another MMORPG that is may main poison of choice.

One thing I do notice is I don't see too many Necros anymore.

no

no it doesn't

wtf

why do you people keep saying that over and over

i love pve way more than pvp, though i do partake in gvg when the guild requires it, and the 4v4 random arena on the occasion

i like pvp, it's fun, but i like pve more

i have logged nearly five hundred hours doing nothing more than pve because i enjoy it

stop speaking in absolutes

It is not a myth, unless you already have said skills. So, in essence, every new person going through the game for the first,second, or third (ect) time is going through that process, whether they realize it or not. Most people who are interested about being competitive or learning different styles will go through that process. People that dont care or are only testing the water will not go through that process.

I dont see any dates attached to the last time each guild fought or when they fought a guild of similar rank, nor do i see any times and dates when they are forced to participate within a match or lose standing.

I believe that was an effort to idiot proof the game. I stopped reading quest text very early on as a result of that green arrow, because i didnt need to know names, locations, or items as all the thinking was handled for me. This caused myself and others i know to become detached from the game and merly added to the teduim of actually playing through the game. Arrows, markers, beacons, ect are useful in a dynamic environment like pvp. In the static pve environment they are more of a nuicance at times and do not really help that much, as they just add to the distraction factor at times while the map continually pings out objective locations or monsters like some 12yr old who just figured out how to ping the map and got into a group for the first time.