Too biased?

I think the actual *difficulty* of the game is fine. And I think runes are good the way they are. The effectiveness of attribute points over 12 is signifantly reduced so I don't even use superiors, except for absorption and vigor. As for grinding, I don't think GW grinds you. I used to complain about stuff like that, but then I took some people's advice that posted in this thread and my outlook has changed. Just go a little bit slower. The only thing I still have problems with is playing my warrior with henchmen. Sometimes. Its better now.

I have a level 20 character, I also have a level 15, a 10 and a guy I just started today ( I just love wandering around presearing Ascalon) so I damn well will reply if I want to. Just want to pick you up on one point and that is your complaint that travelling between towns is too hard.


Quite frankly thats bs, when you can take a level 13 mesmer/necro (with henchies) from The Wilds straight to Temple of Ages and then from there to Sanctum Cay, taking plenty of breaks and just enjoying the scenery in Majesty's Rest, Stingray Strand ect,ect. Hell even in Snake Dance/Mineral Springs you can go off ther beaten path and just chill.

So quit the mock swearing to make you sound big and angry and the ridiculous notion that the grind in GW is anything close to what you get in a traditional MMORPG, because thats just stupid.

Alright then, sicne you obviously are not very old and haven't played many RPGs, I want you to find and get screenshots of any RPG that has half the count of mobs or more that GW has. It's OK to admit defeat after a few hours of searching.

As for going slower, that's what I am doing, and that is grinding. Not all of us want to bash a billion monsters and get 5xp each. Some of us want to get on with the story! I am tired of taking regular travel as slowly if not slower than the actual missions! That's not right. The missions SHOULD be slower-paced and require thinking. The entire game should not though.

I run several dedicated servers for several different games, and have always been 100% anti-cheat. However, with the increasing number of mobs in GW, I am starting to sympathize with them to an extent. I still don't believe any human should ever cheat against another human, but if there are 500 mobs every two feet, I'm leaning more and more towards things that give you extra health, fatser attacks, or whatever. I mean if you want to spend six hours grinding (taking it slower, as you put it), fine. Some of us prefer to PLAY the game, and only take it slow through the important things, such as missions or quests. Just running around should not be as slow. Oh and this paragraph doesn't include people who use cheats to farm or better themselves. I am strictly talking mobile cheats.

You know, making assumptions about the age of other players simple because they don't agree with you just leads to one thing - making an ass of yourself. Just because people don't agree with you is no justification to insult them in the manner you have.

And btw, for the record I've played a lot of rpg's over the years and can name a few that had mods as big if not bigger than in GW - Fallout 2 for instance. There are area's there that will give you random fights that are quite big, and you can be unlucky enough to get those randoms all in a row. Or what about any of the Gold Box AD&D games? Some of those fights you had to go through were huge! And you'd get them in a constant rush as well - you played the original Pool of Radiance? You'd know what that can be like in the starting area's... And thats just to name a few I can think right off my head.

But I guess since I don't have any screenshots" you'll just call me a liar and ignore me. *shrugs*

Press "M" and map to the mission your after. There's few parts in GW that forces you towalk through a bilion monsters to get to a game mission. If you refuse to use the M feature, thats your choice - don't whine at all the monsters you need to fight.

Use the "M"ap feature to move around when you can if your sick of walking. much quicker, and only a few places in the game are you "forced" to walk in maps for the storyline.

Blame the botters (ie cheaters) for this.

Yes, most of us have realized there is a "M"ap function and can quickly move around and play the game without spending 6 hours moving from city to city the long way like you seem to want to do.

When they were saying take it slower I guess they were thinking you were the typical player who utilizes all feature's in a game and mapped to the spots you wanted to be.. rather than walking the whole way the long way. So yeah, if you take it slowly when walking from say LA to Hendge.. I can see why it would take you 6+ hours to do so.. me, I'll just press "M" and warp there in under 30 seconds.

oh.. and i have to say....

So basically anyone who's played the game and knows how to play and what the in's and out's are shouldn't respond? Why not? I guess because you can't stand that someone as/more experienced than you could dare think other than you... but wait, if they do think otherwise it just means they are young idiots right? pfft.

Anyways.. I have gotten a lvl 7 R/Mo and a lvl 6 N/Mo to Piken Square just fine. In fact my N/Mo got there with NO henchies or help at all. It was a breeze... and btw, neither my R or N have forge, 15K or FoW armor, nor do they have max dmg weapon's or any major or sup runes or any vigor runes either.

See I went with the ranger that the game provides. This way you only have to fight like 6 Charr to get to PS. however I'm assuming that you went the long way around and avoided the ranger - ie you went through all the Charr to get to PS.. and then wonder why it was so hard at what.. level 5?. Gee, if you follow the STORY you can get to Piken Square easy as any character...

Wrong. Other classes can run faster or slow the enemy down or stop them attacking. I guess your ignoring Ranger run fast skills, Mesmer slowdown skills or Monk pacify skills.. just to name 3 off the top of my head. Every class has it's strength's and weaknesses, and every class has the ability to deal with getting away from mobs.. you just have to utilize them.

Yes I have a W/Mo. However I'm finding both my R/Mo & N/Mo have a lot easier time taking out groups than me W/Mo does. In fact my N/Mo has solo'ed big groups all by herself where my W/Mo either couldn't or found it a lot, lot harder to do so. Maybe I'm just a better player now, but I am finding groups easier to handle with my R/Mo and my N/Mo than I ever did with my W/Mo.

And if you think that there are few builds that can deal with group's of enemies apart from W/mo... then I feel sorry for you because there's a LOT of builds which can deal with groups... and no, I'm not talking about the solo'ing farm builds either.

If you feel that way, no wonder you have made this thread and are so full of angst about the game. Funny thing is that you seem to be one of the only/few people who seem to be having the problems that your having.

Onto your point, I was solo'ing with my N/mo in old ascalon.. was surprised to see a whole bunch of Charr groups wondering around.. went in and started tackling a group of 5.. when I aggro'ed another group of 4 charr. So it's now 9 charr vs 1 N/Mo with no henchies.. and no other help. Guess what... I beat them. I used my skills and kept my health up and kept them dying. I had NO monk skills on my bar, purely necromancer skills. Necromancer is probably the best class to solo the early ear's with as they can quite easily deal with groups and self-healing.. and it doesn't matter if you ggro more groups.

I've also had my R/Mo get into similar situation - up in Diessa grounds I was up close to the courthouse when I got into a fight with 7 charr (I got 2 groups together.. oh wells).. I had just managed to kill the 1st one when another patrol came behnd me and aggro'ed.. so I now had 10 char to kill.. and I was a lvl 9 R/Mo with henchies and a pet. According to you.. i should have lost/died. nope. I killed them all and only loss was Alesia. Oh wells, stupid Alesia dies all the time.. which is why I carry Resurrect on my bar (only monk skill on all 3 of my chars...). I again survived because of appropriate use of my skills as well as prioritizing targets.

sort of debunk's your whole thoery? Altho I bet you'll claim I'm either lying or I'm irrelevant as I have a lvl 20 character.. or my 2 examples are irrelevant as they aren't over inb the jungle or in the desert... pfft Go ahead as it doesn't matter as your wrong about this. Fact is you can survive and beats groups of critters and can survive even if you aggro other critters while fighting 1-2 groups already. You just have to use your brains and use your skills and prioritize your targets.

So basically what your saying is that if anyone disagree's with you they better not respond? LOL thats amusing.. really.

Hahahahaha.

This is quite the funny thread. For someone who's played so many RPG's you should know that in any RPG, almost every area outside of town has enemies spread about. I don't know of any RPG where you can walk the main path and not fight things and get to the boss and then win the game.

+250 health != 250 damage per hit.
That's ridiculous. Your +250 health guy would die incredibly fast.
Oh, != means does not equal at least in some programming languages, of which you're so very familiar with.

I've played through the game, not using a paladin build, and haven't run into any of the problems you have. I'm using henchies for the most part. Why do you need so many superior runes? I haven't used any runes at all and I'm still doing all the missions and bonuses just fine using henchies only for most of them who are worse than a well formed group. If I wanted, I could use minor runes for no health loss and stat gain, but it's not even necessary since I'm playing with SKILL and STRATEGY. I am doing just fine using those 2 abilities w/o "uber leet armor/weapon/rune/etc".

Most places in the game, if you clear your immediate surroundings, you can take a breather. In fact, if you travel on the "main path" you avoid a lot of the enemies.

+5xp per creature. Hmm....sounds like someone is much higher level than the enemies yet still struggling a lot. Sounds like someone is not smart enough to use common sense, as you like to put it, to figure out a strategy to beat enemies. Sounds like you're only capable of clicking on an enemy and using the default attack button. In which case, I guess a W/Mo as you say might possibly be the only class that has a shot of beating the game. Though I doubt even that's possible by using only normal attacks.

Overall, thanks for making such a funny thread and posts. If this was all a massive ploy to boost the self-esteem of everyone else playing, by showing us that we're capable of developing strategies, then I applaud you for the great job you did.

First of all you should stop whining.. and stop asking players who've played longer than you not to post.
This is not a flame.. I just dissagree with you.

Then let's get down to buisness..
I couldn't be arsed to read the full thread.. I just read your first post and the last page cuz it was just full of bullshit, so I really did not want to read anymore.
So some things might've been said before, just saying.

I myself have 4 characters 2 at lvl 20, a lvl 17 and a lvl 15. all RPG chars.

The runes for example.. you can't stack positives that would make it and too easy and more unbalanced.. besides if you can stack them.. you could use 4 minors and 1 superior for example gain 7 for a stat with only losing 75 HP.. that's insane that's like giving a player like 30 more attribute points or something.

I don't get how you can find this game too hard.. so far I've not found it very hard, yes I have a W/Mo but it was not my first character, my first and still my main character is a Mesmer/Necromancer, and I've easily gone trough every mission with that character, a lot of times just with henchmen.

About the Piken remark.. I don't get it just go to the Breach and talk to the Ranger guy and you'll encounter.. none to 4 Charr.. you could even run passed them all.
And if you seriously think it's an uphill battle to get to every little town I don't get you.. seriously you say how many RPG's you've played.. in a lot of RPG's it takes AGES to get to other towns .. or you have to fight.. lots and lots just to get there, like RO or Lineage 2 and if you've just been there and go to another town, reach it 20 minutes later after just WALKING THERE.. and you want to go back.. you'll have to walk back or pay an enormous price to teleport.

And grinds.. seriously take Lineage 2 for example.. to switch to advanced classes you need to do certain quests.. for which.. you have to walk.. HUGE DISTANCES.. that is UNLESS you teleport.. which there costs quite a lot.. so in Guildwars that would mean.. walk there once.. teleport back.. and forth etc.. LOT EASIER.

Leveling aswel you don't go out to level in GW, you just do the quests and coops and you'll gain lvls automaticly.

stop saying there are uber classes who can take 500 damage.. cuz there aren't. just no... what you're refering to.. are some classes which can have a farm build. all the farm builds have loads of enchantments..and what's popular at the moment, that's right, Nature's Renewal and what does that do ? yes it removes enchantments. Farm builds might be good for one thing, but they suck at the oposite.

Too many mobs ? not really.. you encounter groups.. that averagly differ from 2 to 10 I guess.. and if it's 10 they're easy. If you think there are too many mobs you're not using the minimap and the environment.. then you lure too many monsters towards yourself. Therefor there's the little circle around your character on the minimap.. USE IT!

Fighting in GW is my favorite.. cuz at least you're busy.. in Ragnarok it's the same skill over and over again, Priston Tale was just boring fighting, so was Lineage 2, and then you have to wait 10 minutes to regenerate. But here you're busy, and you have to watch your health and use skills at certain times and watch the radar. it's not boring, it's NOT TOO DIFFICULT either.
And don't complain about no calm places.. just fight a few mobs, and there are your calm places.. fights in GW don't take that long, unlike in a lot of RPG's where you have to sit and wait for your uberly overpowered skills to recharge.. and in the meanwhile u have an endless hack n slash battle with a mob.

And now I don't mean to flame you with this or insult you. But as you must have realised in this thread is that A LOT of people disagree with your point of view, you basicly think the game is too much of a grind and too difficult for people who don't have a W/Mo =/.
Now I found things to go pretty easy with my Mesmer/Necromancer, and I have to say if you find it hard.. and if you level from 5-8 just from traveling to Piken Square .. then you're obviously doing something wrong.
Spread over my 4 characters I've done a lot of the coops at least 1 time with just henchman.. and I must say they're more than enough. as long as you're carefull and use what you can and you use it PROPERLY, you really can't go wrong.

Just don't go say the game is a grind.. and go say it's too difficult.. when you can't come up with your own proper strategies and apparantly.. reasonably builds for your characters.

some tips:
-Look at the RADAR!
-use the circle around you to see when mobs come at you.
-Call targets, even Henchmen listen to that.
-look at the environment, if you're a ranger seek higher places, if there's a ranger character shooting at you, and you use skills which don't require a line of sight go stand behind something so he can't hit you etc..
- come up with strageties, look at how the mobs patrol, look at which one to take out first etc.
- know your party members, what skills they have, sadly to mention but know if they can pull of things like proper interuption etc.
- Play to your profession, probably the most important tip, don't go attack normally if you're a mesmer or elementalist for example, use their skills and use them wisely.

well maybe that will help you a bit further in the game and hopefully change your mind at least about the difficulty, cuz it's really not hard.

Oh.. and that you run dedicated servers for games.. makes me wonder... you might want to stop shouting that out in the open on forums like these.

Does anyone else get a weird vibe from Baratus' posts? Half the things he says implies he's an incredibly experienced GWars player, the other half sound like he hasn't spent 10 hours on the game. Strange.

And Baratus, I really -hope- you aren't as old as you imply you are, because you communicate like a 12 year old boy with Tourette's Syndrome. If you are actually an adult I feel for the people who have to deal with you on a daily basis. Here's a tip: if you want some credibility when you post, drop the massive exaggeration and constant swearing. The combination of both utterly undermine any point you are trying to make.

And now that I've banged you on the head a couple of times, let me agree with you on something. The ANet team's response to botters by plopping down huge piles of creatures at the entry point to many zones in the game (Southern Shiverpeaks in particular) is not a win. I personally don't give a damn about botters, I do care about getting massively gang-banged (I use all-henchies, so good pulling is often impossible) due to ANet's anti-bot response. IMO, ANet needs to do some zone editing to make the worst offenders of this more reasonable. Not -easy-, just reasonable, as in, in line with what one would expect in that zone.

The only really bad interrupters I've encountered are the 'floating jelly fish' type. But, that's really their only strength. They are two-trick ponies: health degeneration and interrupting. They die like bugs once you realize that the way to deal with them is to simply use only your fast-casting spells.

Triggering a large group of scarabs is something that will test your defensive ability. Almost every build I can think of has some way to defend against such an assault. My pyro/geo elementalist would cast armor of earth (almost insta-casts and greatly reduces scarab damage), then eruption (nice AoE damage combined with a 10 second blind that pretty much nullifies any group of melee creatures), then firestorm, then fireball. Boom, entire group wiped out with minimal fuss. Anyone who designs a build with no defensive capability can only blame themselves when they find themselves overwhelmed from time to time by a large group.

As to exploring the map and doing role-playing things, what can be said except that GWars is a very shallow game when it comes to that area. Its strengths are the skill/spell system, the ability to redefine your character with refund points, and pitting your character against creatures and/or other people. In every other area I can think of offhand it's either mediocre or downright weak. Drops are currently horrible, though there's a change coming up in that area so I remain hopeful. The economic system is just abysmal, in some areas it's been improved but for the most part it's just downright bad. Worst economy I've ever seen in a game in over 15 years of gaming.

A game will fit with your desires to a greater or lesser degree. If lesser, then play it for awhile and move on. When you find yourself bugged by basic implementation decisions (like mob density, the rune rules, mob placement, game difficulty) then you are in trouble, because it's damn rare that a design team will alter the basic gameplay once the game hits market.

Must be nice to be a f*cking idiot, eh? So I can take my pre-sear character post-sear and travel to Elona by using M?! Sounds like a hack to me because all I see after going post-searing is Ascalon, until I march that character over the same paths I've been down before, only this time with tons more monsters and ten times the grind.

Also, this is where it would require common-sense, but you don't arrange a goddamn game that thousands of people play around the few that cheat. You ban the cheating few. Show me ANY other game that has changed due to people using external hacks. Exploits are one thing, but bots are not exploits, they are external hooks or trainers. The way I see it, if the devs wish to focus the game's changes around what bots or cheats are out there, then maybe we should all be trying to make a better cheat than the other guys.

You are correct, but thanks for backing me up! You see there should be some areas with large fights, but not every single f*cking area! If it was specific areas in GW that had large concentrations of mobs, I wouldn't be complaining. The fact that there are large concentrations popping up everywhere is why I am complaining. In fact, I have counted more mobs in most outdoor areas than in most missions! I spent several hours today comparing to make sure I wasn't totally insane. That's f*cked up.

Oh and as for the more experienced comment, it shows your insane lack of experience. I managed to get my Mo/N to Lion's Arch without a single death. My tactics must totally suck, right? Problem with that is that I was lv20 when I finally reach LA, and it took me almost a week of playing to get there. That's TOO long. I also do as few of the missions as possible now because I'm tired of the same old thing over and over.

Jhyphi, I suggest you take a few basic English courses. You just said EXACTLY what I said, meaning things would balance! Sure, you'd have a ton of life, but you'd die fast. Likewise, the guy with only superior fighting runes would deal heavy damage, but wouldn't have much life.

Also, you need to READ the post before replying, you won't look so stupid. You just reinforced what I said AGAIN. There are so many enemies in most (not all) areas now that you level insanely fast then top-off and don't get any experience at all. My methods are much more advanced as well, but you're too damn stupid to realize I posted about a specific macro-pad that I use which does chains of skills or spells based on character. That doesn't matter if you're fighting a billion guys. You're missing the f*cking point. If you can take on ten or twelve guys with your 1337 5ki11z, then please, share the hack.

Thank YOU for reminding me why I don't enjoy grouping with players; because they're generally not even out of HS yet, think they're sh*t doesn't stink, and can manage to post a reply in an attempt to insult when they actually just restate what the original poster stated. Good job, retardo. You want a cookie?

I now see why I'd read multiple reviews of this game that say this game is nothing but grind. All it is, is slay monster after monster until you reach the last area. You never have to use your brain, you will ALWAYS have a ten-mile trek around monster-filled mountains because the normal ten yard path is blocked by a small bush, and you can't customize your character worth a damn without taking HEAVY stat hits. Hell, you can't customize them at all really. I'd like to see a rune that improves energy regen so those that choose warriors for their primary can actually use their secondary more than once a millenium due to the +2 regen and low mana capacity. This game has so much potential, but instead of realizing it, the devs are simply throwing more and more mobs at us because the veteran players are bitching that it's too damn easy. No sh*t, if I had a max-level paladin with all elites I'd probably have it easy also!

*EDIT*

Vorlin I understand that. I am insanely angry right now because I blew $80 on the collector's edition, fell in love with the game, and now ANet is sending it to hell. They found botters so instead of just banning them, they punished everybody with reduced drops until they decided to ban them. Now they're dropping in more monsters to combat cheaters. My very common-sense, pissed-off message to ANet is this, "STOP F*CKING CHANGING THE GAME OVER CHEATERS AND BULLSH*T! RETURN IT TO GLORY AND BAN THE CHEATING F*CKTARDS!!". Does that NOT make sense?!

I do agree with everything else you have said. Unlike most of these childish players, you came on and talked sense. That's one way to instantly calm me down. People that get on and post they can do this or that are not helping and just flaunting. Big-whoop, if I decided to honestly cheat, I could have a character with 5000hp and 5000energy in a few hours. All i do most days is program, and am currently working on the first native (C++) protection for the Unreal Engine. Hooking GW would be a walk in the park!

I have tied multiple things against the scarabs, and the oens in the desert actually bother me less than the ones in the jungle. The jungle scarabs seem to be more likely to group and do far greater health-degen, plus they have vampiric touch. They don't do squat for hit damage, but if three or four hit you with vampiric touch after casting their degen spell, not much can handle it! They need to give them one or the other, OR they need to reduce their skill with those spells.

If they would reduce the number of mobs and place them farther out, in areas you never have to go to, like far north of Ascalon or Dragon's Gullet, along with some nice drops, it would TOTALLY make the game more fun. Right now it's basically run through to get ascended, hit Drok's to get your armor, you're a god. After you beat the game, there is a LOT left unexplored. All of that is potential for rare items, super-hard battles, and what-not. Put the huge numbers of mobs and best drops there, and remove some from the areas you HAVE to go through and don't drop the absolute best in those normal areas. That would encourage exploring, players could go through the normal story with less of the grind feeling, and Anet would have still won against botters because the best drops are still heavily guarded in areas far from towns!

I agree with ANet easing up on their focus over botters, farmers, ebay gold, and such. Their economy was screwy enough to begin with, and they've made it even worse with some really half-baked attempts to stop various exploits.

I've mudded (online multi-player text based games) and played various other online games for about 10 years now, and I've found that almost any time the game designers start focusing on cheaters that they end up implementing changes that hurt the average player far more than they discomfort or stop the cheater. It's a good example of being penny-wise and pound-foolish, because there are always far far more average players than uber-players and cheaters/exploiters. Design the game for the average player and you'll find yourself with a lot happier playerbase.

***************************

Added with edit: note that I'm currently playing an elementalist. Creature attack AI usually prioritizes certain targets, it's possible that I'm low enough on the scarab list that I don't get hit nearly as hard as you. Certainly if a high percentage of 20 scarabs all cast on me at the start of the fight I'd drop like a stone.

*reads Baratus' post* I'm not even going to bother to respond to anything said here - not because he's right but because there's no point to it. There's no point trying to respond to a stuck-up smart-aleck with a "know-it-all" attitude who just can't ever be wrong. You look at every rebuttal he makes - he's either swearing, insulting people, putting them down.. and every rebuttal he's "I'm right, your wrong" even though time and time again it's been shown he's wrong.

classic example of this is how he challanges people to find any game that has hoardes of monsters to fight (since he hates the hoardes of monsters in GW) and says that they basically won't find any because they don't exist. I point out they do exist and put forth 2 examples (and btw, the fights 1n the 2 games i mentioned stay same sized/power/frequency the whole time through...). I basically trashed his whole "you'll not find any other game like this!" point... and his response? Does he acknowledge that he was actually wrong? Nope.. suddenly what I said was in support of him... how did that happen? Suddenly something I said that shows he's wrong is supporting him? Pfft.. sounds like someone who just cant ever admit to being wrong.

so to save myself any further grief, I'm not going to bother trying to discuss anything with Baratus. I'd get further discussing with a brick wall - heck I bet if I said the sky was blue and baratus though the sky was red.. yno-one could convince him otherwise.. because he's Always right

Edit - btw, I gotta love his edit where he basically accuses everyone of being able to do something he can't of being a "childish" player as well as accusing them of cheating. Yay! So I'm a childish cheating player! go me for being able to play the game and do things he can't! hahahaha. That just kills me! *dies* :rollseyes: btw, I don't cheat and I suspect I'm a lot older than what Baratus think's.. and anyways, not like his constant swearing makes me think he's all that old

Oh snap you do MUDs also? I had two that I ran ages ago, and still have one on my secondary Linux box that I never got enough help to create. The code is completed, but I need to make areas and crap. Those are awesome because it forces you to imagine what your player is seeing. Some of my favorite RPGs were MUDs back in the early 90's. You ever want to run a MUD, I'll fire it up and give you access.

My current build is E/Me. Scarabs jump on me like I am sugar or something. I generally die within two to three seconds, lv16. That is why I got pissed and restarted. I made it that far with no deaths, just a lot of grind, and now these puny things can drop me like a fly, and target me above all else.

*EDIT*

Kam, I agreed with what you said. You said there are areas, not that there are hordes in every single area, in other games. You are 100% right. My gripe is that the farther you get from Ascalon the longer it takes you to move forward. Ascalon is not, but almost everything after Yak's gets horded. The Jungle and the Desert are horrendous in places.

Elementalists generally aren't meant to take damage. That's what tanks are for. If they target you before anything else you're standing too close.

But... if you do the missions, you don't have to go through those areas. And the missions are easy. Don't complain if they're the "same old thing", so are the areas if you've been running around.

I play an e/n and the mobs go for me too. Have you tried backing off and getting out of target range for a moment? This works well and people will expect you to do this in a group, not stand there. An ele's defense sucks, you have to back away and let the mob retarget the tanks. Then move back in for the nuking. You will die if you do not do this. I am one mission shy of facing my doppleganger and I am just now working on this, so i can understand. You don't need to do this until later on, so most people don't practice it. But you must learn to do it well, you cannot have your group constantly rezzing you because your just standing in the middle of the action without attempting to shake the agrro on you.

Yak's is an increase in difficulty by a few notches, but why is that a bad thing? And it does get much harder in the desert, but still more of a challenge.

I still don't get why the missions and mobs shouldn't get harder as you go along. How are you going to get better as a player if you are not challenged?

I don't know maybe it's me, but you seem to be coming with up all kinds of reasons why you can't succeed at this game instead of trying to do it.

Now I want you to take a good look at where you stated you weren't being sarcastic

Once again, if there was a character that had 1000 health, but did 1 damage, and a character that had 1 health but did 1000 damage, the game would be perfectly balanced, yes, but it would be no fun at all. What you propose is the same, only on a slightly smaller scale.

You are taking warrior runes as an example, but think about other spells such as defy/endure pain, demonic flesh, and pacafism. There are numerous others that would quickly be very imbalanced.

Once again, you blame ANet for not banning botters, but as I already explained, unless you can think of some very easy way to do it, stop complaining. It's not as simple as you make it sound.

Maybe if you would use your brain you would not have a hard time, and not be complaining so much.

That would be ROUGHLY 10,000 exp. If someone knows the exact figure, a correction would be appreciated. You receive probably an average of 20 or so exp per monster, considering the char are level 5-8, and the monsters between ascalon and the breach are level 2-5 or so. That would mean the death of 500 monsters. Very unrealistic.

cmon now aB, saying there are 1500 monsters in a 2x2 area isn't being sarcastic

5xp time 1,000,000,000 = 5,000,000,000 exp

i would like that

go back to d2

Up yours Picard, go back to Star Trek.

Art, I am playing the game. In fact if I had half a brain on me I'd fraps this BS. I just went to Piken with a new char. No problem. Left Piken to come back to Saradelec area, and the radar is poka-dotted red everywhere. WTF is that BS? That is EXACTLY what I am talking about. I just didn't know this crap was random. Maybe I should walk in and out of portals until the map loads properly or something.

I also noticed a large number of charr that were soloing?! Maybe the game screwed-up, spawned groups of one, realized there weren't enough mobs total, then spawned more normal groups (3~4). Something is up though. By the time I made it back to the low part you run through with that Ascalon Hunter, the radar was almost solid red. When I came through there not five minutes before, there were only a few groups. Is the number of mobs spawned based on the number of map locations or something?

I will test this and get screenshots to prove the game is severly imbalanced. I will go through once and get screenshots or the radar, then come back through and get screenshots again. If it's normal for mobs to randomly double, then the game is right and I am in the wrong. Otherwise, tomorrow night you will see why I am complaining.

aB, I have no trouble using my brain, but yours seems a tad out of whack. Not picking up on obvious sarcasm is a big hint there. However, I was dead-serious about levelling between Ascalon and Piken. This character went from lv5 to lv7 between Saradelec and Piken tonight. Maybe I have the uber-leet h4xx3d version, right? So tell me, where is the god-mode cheat, screw the experience cheat!

Can you give a screenshot to back this claim? Even Dreadnaught's Drift isn't almost solid red. There are gaps between groups.

I find it insanely hilarious what you said right there, because I have nearly finished the pve portion with nothing BUT henchmen. I have been spending more time in WOW lately, and helping lower level guildies gain levels, so I have not pursued it recently.

However, that statement you made, about henchmen (henchies is not a word) is completely inane, filled with pointlessness, and basically makes you look utterly devoid of coherent thought.

Of course, after reading your OP, I can see where this thread was headed from the first moment it breathed.

Someone smother it.

after reading all his complaints about useless henchmen and insane mobs of monsters... it makes me feel like i just did the impossible

Only got two comments here:

1) If you are soloing with an E/Me, what do you expect? This game is meant for team play with parties up to 8 in the later stages. Elementalists were meant to stay behind a line of warriors or other melee specialists and you don't have this when you solo. So of course this game is difficult if you are trying to solo or go out with a less than optimal party in a high level area.

2) I haven't been over the entire map yet, but maybe 85% of it, and I have never experienced the masses of enemies in one location that Baratus describes. There are some areas where large groups roam quickly, and to deal with these one needs to move tactically, attack carefully, and be quick to retreat before extra roaming groups join the battle. But otherwise, what Baratus is describing sounds like the typical situation where a party does not use luring tactics, but instead takes a stand at first enemy contact. In high level areas, nearby groups do get attracted and drawn in. The correct tactic is to make contact and back off, fight the ones that follow, then move forward again.

Baratus you've not read my post at all have you.. just look at the tips I gave you.

one of them was

- Play to your profession, probably the most important tip, don't go attack normally if you're a mesmer or elementalist for example, use their skills and use them wisely.

Now if Scarabs jump on me.. you're doing something terribly wrong.. you're either too close or you try to solo them or tank them or something..
that's not what E/Me are meant to do..

Why.. in the name of whatever would you WALK from Piken to the Sardelac area..
just tele to Sardelac and go out there then.. isn't that like lots times easier and faster... I mean if you spend time getting trough an area you've just been trough while you can just teleport to a much closer location, then you're fighting monsters while you shouldn't have fought them at all.. no wonder you think it's a grind.

I have gone out with my Monk with henches many times. When there are those damnable bugs coming out of the ground every ten feet you have to tread softly. I walk up(you can smell the area that they will jump up out of) and when I stop my Henchmen will always run a little past me. This is how I trigger the bugs. Taking my time like I am in a old WWII movie clearing a mine field. As soon as these things try to surround me I have already backed up and my Tank Henchmen have already started fighting. They usually have killed one or two of them before other bugs have come into the fray.

Yea, the problem IS that you were level 20 when you reached LA. I was level 14 and that was doing EVERY quest and bonus and mission plus beating on all the northland charr in pre-searing many times, not running anywhere. I could've gotten there at a much lower level if I wanted to without being run there.

Yea, your tactics do suck that you needed to be level 20 to reach LA. Clearly, there's something wrong with the way you're playing.

Maybe the GW game has a built in function which tracks how many times you swear, which you seem to do incessantly for what seems to be a lack of a vocabulary and therefore punishes you by placing numerous groups of enemies everywhere. That would be hilarious.


No, thank YOU. Hahahaha.

Oh, and by the way, they're is they are, what you were trying to use is "their". It's the possesive form of they. They teach that in elementary school.

Baratus, stop whining, put the game down for a few days, go out & get some *~$£y,
FFS its just a game.

AGREED! Those RED ENGINE GORED ENGINE GORED ENGINE GORED ENGINE GOing bastards at Anet make it so retarded. I mean face it. Is there an actual point to fighting endless waves of the same monster over and over? I think once we proved ourselves we should move on. I'm just so sick of going to do stuff and there's a ton of god damn monsters in the way. I mean come on. I've killed these guys like a million times, I just want to run past the same old RED ENGINE GORED ENGINE GORED ENGINE GORED ENGINE GOers and finish quests and what not, I'm tired of it. Anet has completely ruined this game and you're right. They're doing nothing to fix it, so hell with it. Enjoy what you can, at least you're not paying a monthly.


One main biased thing you forgot to mention was the classes that can run from beacons to draknors for money. Come on, I get horrible money because I'm a WEAK class me/mo who can't do shit jack by himself. I am literally unable to solo anything except maybe in old ascalon.

Anet's primary means of nerfing farming, or indeed solo play, is to add enchantment breakers. If you're THAT dependant on your enchants to survive, what does that say about your build?

Many have commented on the solo Mo/War build. It's horrible. It ONLY works if it can keep the enchants up, any disruption on that front and it falls on its face instantly. It works in the UW because it doesn't have to face mesmers. I would expect Anet will eventualy get around to adding a few enchantment disrupters to the area, and that will be that for the solo Monks.

The game does have huge gaping flaws, which don't seem to even be on the list for future fixes. Personaly, I suspect they're never going to get fixed, and would guess that the devs are already working on whatever they plan on selling next. Everything about this game looks like the owners have written it off and are moving on.

There will be some bug fixes still to come, and they probably will release that "summer update" sooner or later. After all, they already have most of it coded, it's not an enormous effort to shove it out the door. But real, serious fixes for this game? If they were ever going to happen, they would have been done by now. Most of the good players left this game not because they didn't get their way, but rather because it became obvious that the ONLY people the devs were listening to were the carebears, and the ONLY changes the game was EVER going to see had to be pre-approved by the same.

Well put, Sayshina. These other players who have access to buffs from previous players and don't realize all of us can just go out and buy million-gold items to buff our new characters seem to be more intrested in saying "I can do it so it's fine" rather than looking into the actual problem. They're no different than the players in first-person shooters who are damn good and run up against a lone wolf or two that can spank them. Instead of figuring out how, they shout cheater or quit.

The game talks about free-form and other lovely things but never offers any of it. It did at one time. I mean I soloed to Droknar's at lv15 with my W/Mo. I was careful not to fight everything in sight of course. Still, that same character is now stuck at Thunderhead due to over-nerfing. I have played that mission over seventy times now. This includes with players, with henchies, and a mix. Easy as pie until the very last part. Something comes in that puts max health-drain on you and then shatters any enchantments any healers attempt to use, along with using energy-draining skills. So you can either take all 500hp from it fast, or you can die. The latter happens every time.

The response from the few who have done it? Your tactics are wrong, you suck, etc etc. Tell that to the others that have been trying to get through the mission with and without me for the past two weeks. Only one of them has made it through and he claimed it was due to the monster not casting the shatter enchantment spell and somebody using healing-breeze.

The problem is that the devs are customizing the game for cheaters. You bot, they lower drops. Use skill-hacks, they buff mobs. There is a simple fix for the game, that would appease everybody. Simply set mob-counts and drops back to what they were at release, and ban the cheaters. No more cheaters, no more players becoming frustrated with grinding and way too many mobs designed to stop cheaters.

this is a rehash of your original argument in your first post. I understand your frustration, going almost five days without beating a mission is aggravating.

But I don't get your approach. Not once have you asked for ways to beat the mission, you just complain about it. And when people give advice you shut them down.

Don't try doing pvp, you'll piss off anyone your teamed with.

Because he doesn't want help. He just wants to complain and call anyone who disagrees with him an idiot. Time after time people in this thread have pointed out mistakes he has made and how to correct them yet he keeps trying to pass off his errors to the game developers. It also doesn't help his cause that he exaggerates almost every problem he is trying to point out. Just stick with the facts. There is no need to embelish things.

You hardly need "million-gold items" to finish the game. You can do it with collectors' items or just about any junk you get your hands on. And the "million-gold items" are maybe a percent or two above the "crap" items the rest of us carry around. And having lots of gold has to do with what problem again?

Last I checked, you were having the problem, not us. And I really can't see a connection between this and GW. It's a pretty terrible analogy.

If it's so impossible, how come I see people at Ember Light Camp all the time? For that matter, how did I make it, with the bonus at that? Maybe it's because we had more than just damage-dealing skills. It's not that hard; if you played the slightest bit of PvP or actually THOUGHT for once, you'd understand that to play with SKILL you need to do more than just hack n' slash. Anyone who prepares could get through the mission easily, even with a W/Mo. Thunderhead Keep is actually *different* than 99% of the PvE, you need more than just the ability to tank through everything. I love this mission solely because of that. And I fail to recall Thunderhead Keep having ever been "over-nerfing."

You can pick your own classes, pick a SECONDARY class with that, and it's not freeform? What do you mean by "freeform" anyway?

And you still haven't quite addressed HOW Anet is going to just up and "ban the cheaters." It's not like they have a list of every bot and are just sitting around debating whether to or not.

Wait a minute, does this have anything to do with the original post? And for that matter, where are those screenshots of the mobs Baratus promised us?

To the original poster:

First of all, your thread turned into a flame the second you wrote "f***".

Finally, the game was supposed to be a PvP game, which didn't need any long term PvE accomplishments to keep you playing. That was the model... Appearantly, someone tripped and fell on the model, or spilled cofee on their keyboard when they were looking at it... Because they screwed up PvP, so now none of the game is worth while.

Lost - don't forget that everyone who can do anything he can't do has to be cheating or hacking or using items/weapons/runes/armor/etc bought from Droknir, etc.

I mean, just read his latest post.. quoted for emphasis..

Funny how I stated that I could do everything he said he couldn't.. or that I never experienced what he was.. and I clearly stated I don't have any sup runes, max damage weapons, max AL armor, etc. In fact if anyone is interested I'll post SS's of what each character of mine uses. But forget that... I must be using max al armor, max dmg weapons, etc because I can do something he can't.

Oooh, you know.. that last part makes me laugh.. because he's describing himself. He can't seem to accept anything apart from his opinion.. so everyone else must be cheaters. Just check most of his post's.. he refer's to ppl who disagree with him as being cheaters or hackers or botter's.. all because we can do things he can't do. Makes me laugh to see him accusing us of doing exactly what he's doing.

Skill hacks? Excuse me.. but the 105/55 monk build and/or using a enchantment based farming build is *not* using a skill-hack. But this again shows his mentality - if he can't do it or can't understand how something works.. they are cheating. Because he doesn't understand how the 105/55 and/or enchantment based farming builds work... they must be using skill-hacks.

Thats why mesmer critter's were added - to combat the solo enchantment botters that were farming area's easily. But does he understand that? pfft. I don't think he does.

Oh yeah, like it's that easy. How can you spot the difference between a bot running through an area multiple times and a player running through the same area multiple times? answer is you can't. It's an extremely hard process to track potential botter's and actually prove that they are botting. but no.. according to him ANet should just up and ban all cheaters - which I guess would be anyone who disagree's with him and/or can do thing's he can't do as well as botters.. or anyone who even looking like they might be botting.. pfft!

but I guess someone like him who's run multiple MUD server's (according to him) and such knows everything there is to know about catching cheats and has a 100% rate of getting it right 100% of the time... *rolls eyes* yeah right.

Isn't it funny how he refuses to take advice about anything. Yes that mission is hard and tricky and can drive people nutz.. but look at how many people DO complete that mission. There's threads in this forum with help and advice about that mission - the mission is doable, even with henchies.. enough people have done it and posted on how they did it.

but he won't accept any help or advice. As Lost said.. he'd rather whine and moan and complain and blame ANet about it all and call anyone who says anything different to him a "childish' person, a "cheater" & put them down. He'd rather say we're all cheaters and hackers and anet is at fault rather than take any advice from people who obviously have more GW experience than him.

The main problem with GW is the lack of variable difficulty objectives.

We want to reward "skill", but it shouldnt come at the expense of progress.

There are many ways that the game can be designed to allow players of all skill levels to "succeed", but offer rewards to the skillful.

Take bonuses in pve. Currently the bonuses are a mixed bag of easy and hard. But they always occur during the mission, and often attempting the hard ones just leads to party wipe and frustration.

Instead, they could have had several bonuses per mission, that mostly occur AFTER the mission, in gradually increasing difficulty. Then, you would finish the mission (possibly easily), and be able to continue attempting harder things until you died/failed, which wouldn't impede your progress. The Dragon's Lair mission is something like that. The mission itself isn't too bad, and then there's this optional bonus that's tricky and gives you a sense of accomplishment when you do it.


As for pvp, GvG and Tombs is pretty inaccessible for many players due to the extreme tactics employed and the weakness of PUGs. Random arenas are, well, random. There's only a limited feeling of success through skill there. And team arenas face similar issues to GvG although at a smaller scale.

They could have merged team and random arenas together - (ie. in team arenas, give an ability to quickly find a random group). And then, divide the competition up into sections based on your streak - teams just starting face other teams in the same position, teams that have won 5 in a row face other teams that have won 5 in a row, etc, up to a reasonable limit. Although it wont guarantee it, it should help in giving a progression of easy/random opponents slowly working up to successful difficult opponents as you win more matches. Thus making a winning streak MEAN a little more than it does now.


Instead, we have "do or die" missions that end up being frustrating rather than challenging, and PvP that's often just nonsensically pointless and forbidding rather than enjoyable for all.

ROTFLOLMFAO! Do you know what nerfing is? Thunderhead is the only actual mission that requires skill, that's all.

Baratus, you mentioned far more enemies spawning once you left Piken - there is a mission at Piken that spawns extra enemies and a new boss, which might have been what you came up against. Sort of like accidentally running into the mob of baddies from the "Undead Hoardes" mission at Bettletun, only not as severe.

I'm one of those people who doesn't have the best items or any major goodies from previous players or help from level 20s hanging out in lower level areas - I can do it so it's fine. Well maybe that's overstating it but many of the problems you seem to be having I certainly never had or heard about others having. I got through all the missions up until Aurora Glade using only henches with my Mesmer (*still* don't have the best gear for her) without too much difficulty and I've been revisiting a lot of them lately to do the bonuses I missed (including The Wilds). Aside from how much damage I can do and take (better armor, better weapon, somewhat better build) I'm not seeing much of a difference from when I last completed those missions. Either you have the worst luck ever, we're not getting the full story, or you're messing up somehow. Everyone messes up so that's hardly the end of the world but you probably should be open to the possibility that some of your difficulties aren't problems with the game itself.

There are groups that I absolutely agree are too large - my death run to Marhan's Grotto consisted of knocking off enough Mursaat so I could run (with a major DP) and use my henches for meat shields, either getting to the town or dying near enough to Marhan's rez spot that I could make it the rest of the way. I do think it was too hard but I had a blast making it to Marhan's.

There are probably only a handful of characters that don't get stuck at Thunderhead. People have done it with henches, and recently, but for most of us it's difficult. It takes a lot of organization and strategy, moreso than any other mission I can think of. If you did make it to Droknar's soloing at level 15 once, I have two things to say: first, congrats. That's impressive. Second, they were absolutely right in making the area harder. You shouldn't be able to bipass that much of the game that easily.

I just did this mission recently and the only person who went down that fast was the one guy (great until the end) who only had his older armor infused, not the stuff he was currently using. You've said you're infused and I'll trust that, but I don't have a clue in hell why you'd be dying that fast. It's an easy place to die but what you're describing sounds abnormally quick.

If enough enemies were targeting you at once maybe, but then some people have survived the strategy of ignoring the catapults and the main gates into the fort, just standing by the King for the hoardes to come, so that many at once still probably shouldn't kill you that fast.

The problem, as I understand it, is that they simply can't catch everyone botting. For one thing, you don't want to go around banning accounts that you suspect of botting but have some doubt about.

*sharpens the butcher knives*

So, what you're saying is that you should be rewarded for time you're not spending playing. Your claim of "real lives" is just bunk. Make a monk if you want money. End of argument there.

Yes, something is wrong when you get wiped by a single monster. What I think you fail to realize is that the "something" is your party's strategy. Adaptation is how you win in Guild Wars, PvE or otherwise. That's why air spike groups aren't at the top of PvP right now.

So really, your stance is that Guild Wars is a horrible, immoral waste of precious time, and anyone who plays it is a loser/pathetic/throwing life away/insert unsupported criticism here. You're not getting to a point. You're just throwing random insults.

I'll spare you my rebuttal to that little "real life" gem you have there.

By the way, I get plenty of gold and purple drops while farming. Maybe you just need to ADAPT YOUR STYLE TO THE GAME'S REALITY.

this thread is one major flame war.

i can see that baratus hasn't really listened to much advice, just throwing out slightly censored cusswords....

ooh, you play UT 2004? the was one hell of a fun game. i loved it. but i don't see how that has to do with Guild Wars at the moment.

about these skill hacks.....there are some Mesmer skills that allow you to steal an enemy's skill for a period of time. maybe these people that were bragging were talking about their mesmer that had that certain skill.

Thunderhead keep is a subject that keeps popping up. i failed it 20+ times. why? because i wanted Melandru's Arrows. the damn boss just wouldn't come up. after i finally capped it, it was rather simple.....because i had my armor infused.

this mob problem that you're talking about....not really a problem because i tread carefully through areas that have these mobs. hell, i went from Camp Rankor to the top of Snake Dance with henchmen to capture punishing shot. i only died once. now, Snake Dance might not be tough, but if you're not careful you'll get ripped apart by the summit and azure. tell me where you're having these mob problems, and i'll investigate.

i'll admit that i have been playing GW a lot lately, that i'm probably younger than you. that's because i'm a minor on my summer vacation.

take some vicodin, ease up a bit. read what others have said, please. give us some proof other than words.

Yup, Arcane Thievery steals a random spell from a foe and Arcane Mimicry copies an elite from an ally. You can copy skills from professions that aren't yours but you don't have any attribute points devoted to the categories those skills are in, so they'll only be as effective as they are at 0. But you could certainly have a W/Me cast Fire Storm without anything being amiss. Is it possible the W/Mo was actually a W/Me?

Edit: And for heaven's sake stop assuming everyone who disagrees with you is a 1337 asshat who plays the game 24/7. Just like your earlier comments about everyone disagreeing with you having access to perks the average player doesn't, it's an unfounded assumption.

So it's normal for a monk/necro to cast firestorm? If so then I stand 100% corrected. I had the opportunity to witness just this tonight! It was during the Nolani mission. Impressive, if legit.

Ross, you need tor ead the entire thread, not two sentences, before you post. It'll help keep you from looking stupid. You see if you had read the thread, you'd realize that I have been on TS with a party of eight players, and tried three times to do the mission, using different tactics each time. I have also used henchies and pubbers to do so. Fails every time. There are plenty of others up there that are having the same problem. We've tried suggested tactics, our own, and even made stuff up on the fly. I was in one party with three monks, and all three monks couldn't keep this one guy alive with all their focus on him and trying to keep him alive as he and I fought the bastard. Something is WRONG. Just because you have not experienced it doesn't mean it isn't a problem.

Good example is one that ANet is actually looking into finally. It happened to me twice, once in a party with my guild that affected all of us. All adrenaline-based skills stayed grayed-out, like we weren't building adrenaline, but we could use those skills back to back, like we always had max adren! I tell you, doing final thrust every single attack is DEVASTATING. Don't know what caused it, but apparently enough people reported it or complained about it that they claim they're looking into it. Or so said the email I got a few days ago, even though I submitted the problem two weeks ago.