Too biased?

Glad ya' like it. My next hit is "Cry me a bloody river" :P

i have to say i love the RED ENGINE GORED ENGINE GO filter

Maybe I missed something, but I never encountered a massive group of enemies (as in more than 8) except in the Southern Shiverpeaks, and for the Monk's Path I think. Unless you decide to run and aggro everything, there isn't usually a problem with large groups of enemies. If you're fighting your way through, like UW and FoW, it's usually pretty easy.

Yeah the RED ENGINE GORED ENGINE GORED ENGINE GORED ENGINE GOing swear filter is so RED ENGINE GORED ENGINE GORED ENGINE GORED ENGINE GOing awesome.

All I can say to this and other posts of Baratus is that he definitely has played this game too long and should move on to something else. When you have played it too long, of course things become mundane and boring, and when every step you take still is a challenge of course you will become tired of it. If you've beaten the game with 4 characters, isn't it time to move on? Or wait for the expansion?

Regarding the difficulty of the game even at high level, I think it is great that Anet has made the game this way. That there are areas in the game which still require a lot of effort and good teamwork to get through, even if you are high level and have the best equipment. For me, the greatest pleasure I get out of this game (and at times the greatest disappointment) comes from the team effort (or lack thereof). It is fantastic when a group of formerly unknown party members really function well and the humor clicks. Its great when you get praised for a good effort, or when you can praise others. In other words, the game has been developed well for team play, and egoists/soloists therefore really have less to enjoy here. If the game was made much easier for high level chars, then this team effort would not be necessary.

Anyway, if some of the areas seem to difficult for your lvl 20 elite characters, then go back to earlier areas, like outside of Ascalon or Pikes Corner. You can be king there.

An example of how much fun (or not) team play can be: Tried to walk with a group from Agura Rock to Thirsty River. Half the group wanted to run past all monsters, causing us to attract too many at one time, turning the effort into one boring run-die-resurrect-run trip. Next trip with a different party was from Agura Rock to Elonas Reach. This group, however, worked as a team, played tactically (sneaking, luring and killing off smaller groups of monsters) and in fact the trip became quite an enjoyable adventure. Needless to say, most of the group continued on to do the missions.

[QUOTE=dansamy]I wasn't arguing the game is biased, and while the collector's items are nice, I've seen far nicer in random drops. [QUOTE]

Wait... are you joking? O.o
In fact random drops (even the gold ones) are almost always INFERIOR compared to collector's stuff.

You can unlock superior health rune with a pair of days of pvp... for ALL your pvp characters, you can buy a major health rune for your pve char, its not THAT sucky you know there is only a difference of 10 health.

That area just outside of Amnoon Oasis is a real bitch for Scarab spawns..unless you are VERY VERY slow moving forwards your whole party gets swamped by about 20 of them in a few seconds. The difficulty level when you first arrive in the Crystal Desert is ramped up massively from previous areas for sure.

Strangely, that little area just outside Amnoon Oasis seems tougher than the further in areas of the desert - it really screws up the 2 quests you pick up when you first arrive there. Pretty sure Arenanet have overdone the spawns of the bloody annoying Scarabs that pop out of the ground from nowhere. I prefer mobs you can see on the map, so that you can plan tactically rather then these annoying bugs that appear from under your feet in their thousands.

Im not talking about the mission, I solo'd that with henchies too without infused armor. I'm talking about the group of ice imps that replaced the stone summit howlers outside the city itself. And not everybody is going to conform and be a W/Mo either. As for my intelligence, I wish you would just leave that area alone. First of all, I got top honor grades in all my classes, so intelligence isnt an issue. Also, I work, so I may not have time to play the game 24/7 and perfect myself. Third, I never singled anybody out and put them down, so I would appreciate that others do the same. It was just a general statement from my experience as playing.

I agree with you. You did nothing wrong. You seem to be a well grounded young man. Don't let others throw you off. Just remember that they only feel superior when they are Flaming You! You see they have this super hungry Ego that needs feeding all the time in order for them to feel secure. Just don't allow them to take a bite out of you. Just keep plugging away at your grades and work. Someday people like that will be working under you. Blaming the rest of the world for their shortcomings...

i appreciate it warrior dood

First off, i must give a very heart-felt f*ck-you to those who simply posted and claimed they're right without backing shit. Same to the idiot who also just calls people liars without even investigating. Obviously this has happened to one or two other players, hence the posts supporting what I said. Just because you don't mind spending three and a half days going from Lion's to Divinity doesn't mean we're all game-addicted kids. Some of us have lives and can't sit for an hour doing nothing but swinging a sword because instead of providing challenges that require intelligence, we just get spammed with monsters.

This isn't all over. There are plenty of useless areas with virtually no monsters, but the oens you fight are challenging. I believe the first example of this was FoW. Those bastards are FUN to fight, but they're not spammed every two feet. Unfortunatly, the guys that designed some of the other areas made me feel like I was playing the last part of Half-Life again. Not much design or ingenuity at all, just hordes of monsters.

Look at it from the normal gamer's viewpoint. You work 8~10hrs a day, five or six days a week. That leaves about an hour a day, give or take thirty minutes, to play GW. if it takes an hour just to go from one town to the next, how are you ever going to have fun? The game gets boring when all you do is fight a horde, rest, fight a horde, rest, and repeat for hours at a time. That is grind, like it or not. Every other RPG and MMORPG I have ever played has always had some kind of ingenuity in the game to avoid this. Areas with few monsters, but puzzles that needed to be solved. Things that made you think. In GW you *NEVER* see that. It even gives you a damn compass with magical arrows to show you where to go for each quest! So instead of being a true RPG, it is more like, kill this horde and level so you can go to the next are and kill that horde. It's all repetitive. The entire game is nothing but hack and slash (or cast and heal if you're those classes). You never once have to do anything but click on monsters. Everything quest-wise is handed to you on a silver-platter.

One other thing I had to point out before I left. If you're so anal or idiotic that you can't catch a hint of sarcasm about 500 enemies in a 2'x2' area, you have no right to post on a public forum, ANYWHERE. I have never seen that many monsters in a single area, but I *HAVE* seen twelve or thirteen that group on the exact same spot, making it impossible to pull just one of their groups. That is the crap I was referring to.

If the rest of you have ten hours a day to play this game and can do so quite well, maybe you should look at what your lives are. Get a job, get a girlfriend or boyfriend, get a hobby, do something. I enjoy my games and have virtually every PC game ever released, dating back to the Atari and Commodore era, but I have never sat and played one for hours on end. The only game I could play for more than two hours was Daggerfall, and the only reason I could do that was that it was near-perfect. RPG with puzzles, battles, spell-creation, fatigue, everything. Too bad it was DOS and single-player only.

[First of all, I got top honor grades in all my classes, so intelligence isnt an issue.]

Making top honor grades in school doesn't mean you are "strategically or tactically" intelligent. This game has nothing to do with "grades" it has everything to do with strategy and tactics. And I've slaughtered those Imps outside of Caves of Sorrow as well. If you don't take charging ass henchies with you like the warriors, you won't have an overpull problem if you "figure out the best pulling technique like I have".

Something else I will comment on about "the working class" those that talk about working 8 to 10 hours a day 5 to 6 days a week. I think many of you forget most all games including this one are made and geared towards KIDS, not the working adult, so to come here and whine and complain because the game doesn't conform to your schedule of life is pretty stupid and silly in the first place. If you can't keep up, get out, it's that easy. They aren't going to tone the game down or make it easier just because of your lifes schedule. It's for a KIDS schedule who have many hours to play on the average. The working adult isn't supporting this product by a majority, it's the KIDS who have the free time and the money (probably from their working parents) who are supporting the majority of it and that's what they will continue to make the game for. It's also for those that make a living playing mmorpgs or mmo's and sell items and accounts for real life money. So, you working class just need to move along, go play Dungeon Siege II or Diablo 2 and Neverwinter Nights, those are the games that conform more to your lifestyle.

Nope. Not joking. I have seen the (albeit very rare) gold flame artifact that was much better than the 20/20 collector one. Since I know that at least one rare better than a collector's item exists, it follows that in random drops there is a chance for any rare drop to be better than the collector's item. The fact that most of them are not better does not mean that it is not possible for better ones to drop. Almost always does not equal always.

tl;dr

elder scrolls lol

RED ENGINE GORED ENGINE GORED ENGINE GO

For what travel (from what city to what city) do you need 1 hour?

It takes 1 hour for certain missions, that's true. But the only thing that takes really longer than 1 hour is UW and FoW. All other missions/quests are doable in at least 1 hour and a half. To travel takes much less time. At least if you go from town to the next town. From Ascalon to Yak's bend may take more than an hour...

I just went with my Mesmer (armor level 51 only) from Icecaves of Sorrow to Copperhammer mines with 7 henchmen. The iceimps are difficult. Travel like this (fighting, no running) is difficult and time consuming. My tactic is to go slowly and lure small groups when possible (more difficult with henchmen warriors, but they do retreat when you do and so it is possible to lure).

Twice on this trip I found I attracted too many creatures than the group would be able to handle and so I retreated. On one occasion only one other henchman made it back alive with me alive (my mesmer cannot heal or resurrect!). So after the enemy backed off a bit, my one surviving henchman could resurrect Alesia, who then resurrected the remainder, and we continued. Once on this trip I died, but was quickly resurrected.

My point is, this kind of travel can be done. I think only few areas are not possible to travel without running. It is tedious, and it is not what you want to do all the time, but it can be done. From my experiences playing with other human players, many of us do not know how to tackle this kind of travel. I see too many players try to sneak past groups of monsters that should be removed instead, and then wind up attracting too many to fight at once. I see too many players advance too quickly, take a stance, and fight to the death instead of retreating a bit and luring. And I see too many players "do their own thing" without regards to teamwork.

(Once when I advertised to form a group to fight/walk to another town, someone asked if I seriously thought I could do that. My answer was yes, why not? It was probably someone making money running people).

You should have done that traveling from iron mines of moldune. It is way shorter to go from there.

as I said: if you are going to skip certain cities/missions traveling can be awful long. but from iron mines of moladune to copperhammer mines take not more than 10-15 minutes. maybe longer if you fight everyone.

I once went from icecaves of sorrow to copperhammer mines and I have to agree: a really hard way that takes quite some time. But you don't need to go that way

You're right coolsti, not all mobs should be ignored because it can bite you in the butt. However, you should also not have to fight every last mob in an area to make it through. My gripe witht he mbos is simply that there are WAY too many, and half of the bosses or special mobs are too powerful. Hell every other game on the planet is realistic in the sense that if you stick to the main roads, you won't be attacked as often, while exploring places you into combat with many more enemies. That is what lures you into exploring. You can gain experience and you might find something useful. In GW however, you can step out of most any town and walk maybe twenty feet and there are at LEAST four or five mob-groups on the screen, with the exception of the early Ascalon areas.

They need to reduce the number of mobs period, but I'd settle for them just moving the damn things off the main roads. Just travelling from Ascalon to Piken today I went from level five to level eight! How the hell would a lv3~5 survive there if they're new to the game? It's beyond me. I know that if the mbos had been this thick when I started playing GW, I'd have quit right after post-searing. Hell I still enjoy pre-searing because of how efficiently the mobs are placed. The only real grouping of mobs is where the boss charr are, north of the wall, and I have taken them down many a time. And OT for a sec, if I kill all those bosses, shouldn't that stop the searing? Food for thought !

The only other gripes I ahve are the insane imbalance in runes. Superior anything takes 75hp, but superior vigor only gives 50hp. Not balanced. How you ask? Well think for a nano-second. I have five pieces of armor to use runes on. If I have to rune one piece with a superior vigor (assuming it was +75) to counter another superior rune, I just lost one piece I can do with another bonus rune. Right now it's so unbalanced you need a superior and minor rune to counter a single superior! That's WRONG.

That isn't my only gripe though. I also dislike the fact that negatives stack and positives don't. That is just RETARDED. Once again it takes common-sense to realize this though, and apparently those who go to college for years on end lose theirs. That's the ONLY reason the game is this way, because nothing else comes close to making sense.

You see, if we're both warriors and I rune all superior vigor and gain +250hp, but you do all superior hammer and get -250hp, it balances because while I don't do much damage to you, you do INSANE damage to me. Perfect balance there.

The other thing is that because only negatives stack, you cannot counter more than one negative. That is f***ing stupid and constantly pissing me off. If you get one superior rune of whatever, you ahve instantly lost 25hp permanently. That isn't fair. But let's pretend we have two major runes of whatever. Still, you lost 50hp. If negatives are allowed to stack, positives should. If I have two major runes of something, then damnit if I can cough up 2mil for two superior vigor they sure as hell should stack to counter it. Once again, that just removed two slots I could have used to further buff my character, thus further proving it balances.

These are my biggest two complaints with the game. Nobody can deny that the current rune setup is insanely unbalanced and biased towards the negative area, but the fact that the busiest roads in the damn game are swamped with monsters makes you wonder why the human race hasn't gone extinct on that world eons ago. I mean five feet from any town you find monsters galore. You're telling me a brick wall protects them? Yeah right! They need to at least move the monsters back from the main roads and possibly setup patrols along the roads so those of us who want to get somewhere don't have to fight 100 mobs to get two feet. They also need to seriously overhaul the rune setup. Either allow positives to stack right along with negatives, or don't allow negatives to stack. Hell I could deal with the very unbalanced -75 effect from superiors versus the +50 of superiors if you could stack the positives. Something needs to be done though.

I find the exact opposite. The game is too easy and you can run past/skip too much of it will little or no effort.

Did you completely ignore the Ascalon Ranger guy that leads you to Piken Square along a path that you only have to fight maybe 4 to 6 Charr? Or did you just decide to clear out the entire area and then go to Piken so that you could deliberately complain about fighting a bunch of mobs? I usually don't even gain one level going to Piken or fighting through Charr doing the quests around there.

Are they biased towards the negative? Yes. Is this a problem? No. The runes are fine as is. And 30 points in an attribute is way overpowered and would make PvE way too easy (and many would argue it already is way too easy).

OK since you failed to read the start of this thread, lv20 players need not respond. I too have a lv20 that can fly between Piken and Ascalon. However, almost every other class aside from warrior gets held up due to not being able to run/rush/charge away from bad fights if too many start seeing you. You are WRONG here, like it or not. There are a few builds that make fast work of most groups, but some of us prefer builds aside from the famed paladin. Some builds have a harder time healing while they can dish tons more damage. Still, if six or seven guy manage to agro while you're standing still fighting two or three, you're screwed, end of discussion. If you run you get hit slower, but still die. If you fight, you die. Only way out is mapping to town or logging out.

Travel between primary towns and such should not be so f***ing hard. It's a constant uphill battle which si nothing but grind. I don't give a damn if you have f***ing god-mode enabled, clicking on monster after monster is grind, win or lose. The only solution is to use common-sense. Clear the main roads somewhat (hey, if these are the main roads, what good are they to normal people in the game if they can't be used?) and leave the monsters off the roads so that when a player goes exploring he can enjoy the combat, but when it's time to go back to town or get on with whatever quest, you're not stuck fighting every three seconds.

ArenaNet advertised that the game would not become grind like other RPGs. They are right, it doesn't grind like others, it's a billion times worse. Hell even in Everquest you can leave town and find quiet areas to just sit and relax if you want. In GW there is not a single safe area outside the towns, and that's just flaky. Honestly, if there were that many monsters, humans could not survive there. Monsters need thinning, plain and simple. Even if you can take 500 lv50 enemies at ocne and come out without a scratch, having to fight them for no reason is grind. I am sick of the grind. First they ruined drops because botters were in the game. Finding items was a grind. Now they fixed drops but doubled monsters, again grinding. The game is not balanced, and if you're too damn stuck on your goddamn perfect built character to realize that not every class can take 500damage every three seconds, then don't bother replying.