Grind, and the Skill vs Time Played hypocrisy

Sayshina:

Two points of disagreement with you. Specialisation in PvP is there, and recruitment is (more-or-less) by primary class/archetype. If I need a monk in my starting line-up, even the best target caller in the world isn't going to interest me. In higher level PvP, people generally play a specific assigned role, which is probably going to be the one the player enjoys the most and is the best at. I don't think your characterisation of PvE players is correct in that regard either – most seem to desire to play a certain role (tank, nuker, etc.), and play a specific build because they see it as the best (or it's their favourite, or something).

Also, the PvP playerbase is not dying. The current top guilds are no less competitive – they just object less to spending an hour or two getting skills every time they want to try a new guild. And, besides, both nO and Nu just came back. Competition at the top looks like it's increasing, not decreasing.

As I said in another thread, I think, I am a rather hardcore RPG player. Whether it's NWN, IWD, BG, Sacred or Divinity, I spend a lot of pleasurable time playing RPGs and developing character. That said, this game is NOT an RPG in the traditional sense. I don't expect that it will ever have depth of content that most RPGers want.

If you're looking for a "deep" RPG experience, this isn't and never will be the game for you. It was never advertised that way and it will never become that way in the future. It is strictly PvE-lite and, at least according to those who play that side of the game, PvP-lite.

I think PvP can succeed as long as ArenaNet secures a healthy competitive environment for it. People that abandoned the game in disappointment could decide to return after learning that those issues that prompted their departure have been addressed, because I believe a lot of them recognized that GW has the potential to be a great game when they first decided to try it out; if ArenaNet manages to fulfill that potential somehow I'm convinced people will gradually return.

But yeah, the distinction between the PvE and PvP part is a large problem. Dissatisfied PvPers typically scoff at ArenaNet's efforts to please the RP community (new explorable areas, promises of a hairdresser, etc.) while RPers howl at skill rebalancing for PvP affecting their PvE experience (they nerfed my farming spot/build I use) while refusing to comprehend why PvPers are dissatisfied since unlike PvPers they never had to see the other side of the coin. PvEers basically want the grind that PvPers hate.

But it is possible for a hardcore PvEer to turn hardcore PvPer. Entering a competitive environment is a big step a lot of people are hesitant to take for whatever reason, and ArenaNet would do well to lower the threshold required for people to give PvP some sampling - as long as their baby steps are either getting cussed out in Random Arena or getting annihilated in Team Arena/Tombs/GvG, many will stay convinced PvP "isn't for them". ArenaNet made the gap between PvE and PvP very large for some reason, with content to satisfy extremes, but with a single minuscule overlapping piece of content: the Academy at the start of the game. And yet there are people who brave the madness of random arenas, get to know some people to try team arenas or tombs with and get enough of the fever to want to improve their chance of success, which is the seed of a competitive PvPer.

I also think that not everyone is cut out to be a 'center' in football. People can have personal traits (poor stamina, high running speed, good tactical insight) that make them inherently better/worse playing a certain position - that should not disqualify them from a team, it simply limits their deployability in the team. All-around star players are ofcourse great to have, but even then an experienced defense specialist can still be a better choice. You see the same in professional teams, where certain players consistently take specific roles, and good coaches may even allow for some personal preference to let players play a position they feel comfortable in. Same thing for Guild Wars pretty much, just with added difficulty of pure RPers playing a certain role because of some fantasy personalty they're enacting, but those players actively decide to forgo competitive PvP anyway by the way they restrict theirselves.

I think you're painting too much in black and white, there's a lot of fuzz between carebear and hardcore PvPer that will keep this game alive even if the carebears leave because there's not enough for them to do (grind) and hardcore PvPers leave because the rate of unlocking is unacceptable to them. I think the question is whether GW currently still has the potential to attract new players interested in competitive PvP, whether the topline competition is considered healthy. We recently went from a pretty degenerate spirit-spam environment to something fresher, a definite leap forward. There's plenty of room for improvement still (lack of enchantment removal, some toning down of ER and making a large pile of skills actually worth considering in PvP), but as this rebalancing brought back people who left in disgust, every improvement step should further revitalize GW.

The point is, was and ever will be, that this game is NOT FREE. The moment ArenaNet marketed it for $50 a copy, it stopped being free and became a commercial product. What business model they chose to sell that product makes no difference - they're selling it, so it's not free, plain and simple, end of discussion.

Never advertised that way? The game was advertised as a revolutionary type of RPG. A "CoRPG." Which plays very much like NWN, in that you could complete the game with friends, or by yourself and henchmen. Although NWN wasn't a spectacular RPG by any measure, its plot was still about 7x better, and the voice acting was about 4342.6578% better. AND: get this - it was customizable too. Almost infinite content absolutely free. Unless ANet really shapes up the future expansions, I'm willing to bet money Guild Wars will suffer a large permenant loss of player base once NWN2 and Dragon Age come out.

Social aspect? Okay, you got me there... really
Guild Wars "society" is crap, as is many other online RPGs. Many, many, many, SINGLE PLAYER ONLY RPG communities beat guild Wars communities into the dust. Okay edit: Guild Wars communities, now that I think about it, are actually pretty good in some instances - but only because of websites like guildwarsguru, not because of the game itself.
Also, there have been a ton of ground-breaking RPGs on both console and PC.

There are so many freaking incredible RPGs out there. Your experience with RPGs is obviously limited. Stop posting like you have a clue what you're talking about.

Ugh, I was hoping I could delete my post in time after the biased garbage you posted in #124. Seeing your response, I really wish I had.

Right. So why don't you leave since you hate this game and the people who play it so much?

Been playing Roleplaying games for 20 years. Mostly console, starting with the NES. I am not diminishing Roleplaying Games, I just haven't played any that have made me so uppity and jaded that I couldn't enjoy Guild Wars.

Right back at ya, buddy. Anyhow, I'm no longer responding to your irrational ranting.

you should've. no real argument, no idea what you're talking about.

Are you dumb? Honestly, I'm not just asking this because you've started to flame. I really didn't think you'd actually ask this question.
1) I don't hate "the people" anymore than I hate person X,Y,Z from game A,B, C. I.e., I don't. Where are you getting these crazy ideas from?
2) I'm not leaving this game because it still has CRAZY potential. You know, the thing with revolutionary graphics, unique questing implementation? And just being a new game in general? Games like NWN are at the end of their lifespan.

See above: why are you asking these type of no-brainer questions as if you have some sort of actual argument? I NEVER EVER said ANY game totally invalidates or diminishes GW. Again, where are you getting these crazy ideas, and why are you putting words into my mouth just so you can argue with me? Each game should be judged independently.

Guild Wars is a DECENT game, and it has recieved DECENT ratings. Just no where at the level of its hype. In the end, this is the basis for my argument (which you've completely ignored anyway), and is pretty much supported by most game review magazines. Why are you arguing against me?

What the heck are we even talking about anymore? The current state of affairs in GW's player base?

Seems to me that pretty much everyone is talking based on pure speculation here. Anyways...

In my opinion, a big problem with ANet is that there wasn't ENOUGH game out of the box. For a strict PVE player, there was enough to last maybe through July but barely through August and releasing Sorrow's Furnace, the *SUMMER EXPANSION* (which Pat Wyatt told me was going to be released in "just a few weeks" back at E3), September 7, is really pushing it. I personally think that a major reason GW has managed to stay afloat is that there were no other decent RPGs to come out during the summer block. Imagine if Elder Scrolls IV: Oblivion came out last week? .. Well, Dungeon Siege 2 is finally out, but that game is 2 years too late, so it barely counts.

But it is true, that as far as PVE is concerned, there is less content than in 95% of half-decent RPGs at this point. I really hope ANet won't get in the habit of adding too little too late, because that can really hurt them.

As far as PVP is concerned, Guild Wars has tons of potential. I only seriously got into Starcraft at around 1.06 (I bought it when it first came out, but Brood Wars and the nerfing of Zerg and tweaking of Toss and such made the game much more interesting). The game took a while to mature, in my eyes. The same is true of Guild Wars. Imagine when MTG first came out? There wasn't much to play with, but Wizards threw out expansions decently, going unlimited, legends, antiquities, arabian nights, and revised all relatively close to each other.

Right now, Guild Wars is also hurting not just in lack of PVE content and PVP skills taking a long time to unlock, but there being too few good skills and too many non-PVP-worthy skills. It's like playing with just one set of MTG cards. When you do that, you get a lot uglier of a metagame, because there's relatively little variety in terms of what dominates. (Rebels in Masques block, for instance). Oh, and I'm so sorry for drawing all these MTG comparisons if you've never played the game. But it has so much in common with GW on a fundamental level that it's crazy. (And yes, they *were* inspired by MTG in making the GW skill system.) Anyway, that's why Spirit Spam was nerfed and why Lin-Sivvi is banned in Masques block. There's just not enough tools out there to combat these things to the point that they don't dominate.

Wizard's system at this point is simple: besides having over a decade of experience designing and testing cards, their tournament formats allow for enough *different* cards (Vintage and Legacy allowing the most, that is, thousands) that you don't have just one or two different decks in the top 8 at tournaments (in Standard you occasionally do, because Standard allows the fewest cards--the newer ones only).

The point of all this is (yeah I'm ranting, I know), is that you won't see a truly healthy, widely popular PVP environment until you see a lot more skills out there, providing many more competitive builds.

Also, I still wonder about the 8 skill slots. Adding just one more is really dramatic, and I have no idea if the change would end up being genius or catastrophic. Perhaps both, but what for PVP and what for PVE, especially once the amount of skills DOES increase (although it only will with true, Chapter-size expansions it seems).

Anyway, just seems to me that GW is really plodding along at a snail's pace in terms of gameplay nowadays.

Would it be too hard to introduce matchmaking into the game that matches your (4-8)-man team against (4-8)-man teams that have a similar amount of Faction points?
Also what the hell ever happened to 6v6 or 8v8 ARENAS? Nobody thought of that? Currently, 4v4 to Tombs is suuuch a huge jump in terms of experience necessary and the coordination you need.

Bah, I'm tired of typing.

Actually, I'm going to disagree with you about the lack of content for PvE. It took me about 50 hours to finish the game my first time. That's pretty good, length wise, IMO. The problem is that the storyline/voice acting is garbage. And the gameplay itself (missions) took absolutely no brain power whatsoever.

Content and time-to-complete are not quite directly comparable. You can finish the main quest in most RPGs relatively quickly, but you can spend hours upon hours doing all the side things. In Guild Wars, there are two side things: Temple of Ages, and PVP. Obviously we're not talking about PVP when we're talking about RPG content. But besides Temple of Ages, there's nothing beyond that 50 hours (or much less, for some people) you put in.

If we compare time-to-completion, GW stands on the low end (but not rock bottom at least) of most RPGs (it stands on perhaps rock bottom of MMO ones, but let's not go there, as this isn't trying to be the PVE powerhouse that other MMOs do). But if we compare content, GW is sorely lacking, it really is.

The storyline and voice acting? Well, cant' argue with you on either counts. The story is an atrocity, and the voice acting is so bad it's funny. Let's face it, when you have games like Elder Scrolls out there, you have to have some standards by which to judge games. We're past "the president has been captured by ninjas. Are you a bad enough dude to rescue the president?" At least I hope we are.

EDIT: Also, Traversc, the average MMO player puts in over 50 hours a month into his game. That crap study on Asheron's Call 2 that I posted a rant about a bit ago mentioned that its test subjects played AC2 56 hours in one month. Now, that's AC2, which is such a boring game that it makes Xenosaga seem like Smash Bros Melee at MLG. And still we have 56 hours.

That means, that a month after getting GW, by far the majority of people were *done* with the game's PVE content. (Apart from getting a 15>50 sword, haha, if you can even call that content, which I maintain you cannot.) ONE MONTH. Guild Wars has been out for FOUR. I challenge anyone to do the math and tell me that Guild Wars isn't low on PVE content out of the box.

Guild Wars is very different from other MMORPGs in that it is not persistant. It doesn't continuously change. In the game, YOU are the hero and YOU save the world. In this way, it is very much like NWN and Baulder's Gate, which were also multiplayer. The storyline does not drag on. I've never heard anyone complain seriously about the length of the NWN campaign - which was about 50 hours.

In most MMORPGs, there really is no storyline. You are given background information on the world and are placed into a setting where you compete with other players for power. I would not want a storyline to drag on forever, as that would make it boring no matter what. Guild Wars has a storyline with a definite conclusion. I would not have it any other way.

With Maphack almost universal in Starcraft, you're either cheating or you have no prayer in battlenet.

Actualy, according to the creator Richard Garfield, Magic was never intended to be a competitive venture. They thought they were creating something you might play in the car on a road trip, stuff like that. They actualy thought you'd just open the only 100 or so cards you'd ever buy, maybe trade a couple with a friend (who also only owned 100 or so) and play with what you had. They were shocked when it took off, and everything after that was dictated by consumer demand.

If you want to draw a relavant parallel between GW and MTG, you might argue that Anet seems to have thought GW could work the way MTG was originaly intended, with everyone only ever making 1 prime, unlocking say 6-8 elites and maybe a single superior, and using THAT, and only that, to PvP with.

I havn't played magic in a few years, but historicaly you're wrong there. Most of the block sets (Ice Age, Mirage, Rath) have had BETTER AND MORE DIVERSE metagames. Limiting the skills, and getting rid of the universaly good skills, tends to allow slower strategies to have just enough of a chance to be tempting.

The more skills/cards available, the more EVERYONE feels the need to counter whatever is THE POWER card/skill. As there are only so many counter strategies available, you get stagnation.

In GW PvP, spirits HAD a known counter. If you'd asked the originators of the "modern spirit" build (as opposed to when Nature Rits were abused in beta's), they were happy to tell you what beat them. Why then didn't you see that counter used? My guess is mainly that those who would work the metagame had already left, and those left behind would rather try to work the dev's than work for a solution.

This is NOT a problem that more skills will correct. Or even help.


The names have changed, but the formats are the same.

Type 1 (I believe this is what you're calling "Vintage"): Everything allowed, with the "power 9" restricted, and a few banned cards.

This format sucks. Even when the PT uses it, nearly all of them will tell you it's their least favorite. The Power 9 were outlawed in every other format because they are stupidly overpowered, and EVERY deck is based on these 9 cards.

Type 1.5 (Your "Legacy" is either this or the old "Extended", I'm not sure): This is the same as Type 1, without the Power 9. You'd think it would be good, but it NEVER took off, and has always been a dead format. I wouldn't be surprised if WOTC doesn't even recognize it anymore.

Extended: This used to be an awesome format. Then they started printing more powerfull cards for each expansion, each set trying to out do the last. With Extended allowing roughly 1/2 of all cards in (then, I understand they have rotated out a ton of stuff now), there were just too many "power spells". It was just dominated by Sligh, then Recur-Survival, then Academy, ect. With all the fast powerfull stuff, a medium speed power design dominates. It has enough defense to stop speed, and enough speed to keep ahead of control.

Type 2 (this one I know they renamed "Standard"): This format goes up and down, depending on how powerfull the current cards are. It allows between 1100 and 1400 spells, depending on what time of year it is and how many reprints are in the new sets (disenchant is still disenchant, no matter what the artwork).

When an old set rotates out, and the 2 new "expansions" are yet to be introduced, the card pool is at it's smallest for the year. And the environment tends to be at it's most diverse. As those expansions are introduced at 4 month intervals, the metagame settles down, and normaly will evolve into a primary build, and 1 or 2 counter builds. We actualy saw that in GW, with Air spikers followed by Spirits. This will remain unchanged until some new force shakes things up. In magic this is either a new set, important cards rotating out, or bannings/restrictions (do they still restrict in Type 2? Or just go straight to banning?).

In GW they have the power to instantly rebalance the skills. And there is the fundamental difference. We don't actualy need more skills, and the more skills available the higher the porobability that some geek with way too much time on his hands will discover the GW version of Academy. If you weren't around MTG for that treat, you missed out. A mono blue combo deck that could nearly always kill on turn 3, with enough control to stop whatever you might try to interupt him. And enough recursion to get every part of the combo back if you did somehow manage to interupt him.

There is no equivelant to this in GW, it would be like the spirit spammers having the Air spike damage output at the same time. With a couple of mesmers thrown in.

More skills is a very damgerous road to go down. It's incredibly tempting to try to out do the last skills, and then what? You've screwed the environment, you MUST nerf dozens of skills, you piss off nearly everyone, and months later you STILL can't be sure you got it right.

And once you've started providing new skills, the players will expect similar cookies at regular intervals, with each new set potentialy unleashing a new bomb onto the metagame.

An aside to the guy who thinks I'm painting things too "black and white". You misunderstand. I realize there exist players in the middle, and their numbers are often greater than those on either end, but it just doesn't seem to matter. Even those who are not part of the extreme seem to wish to be, which is why you see so many ebay sales and internet stores.

Game makers seem to design their games for the hardcore, and assume the midling players will follow wherever the hardcore guys go. Historicaly, this seems to have been proven very accurate. This is why the leveling treadmill is ubiquitous in MMO's. For the little guy, their game experience would be VASTLY superior if they had a cap similar to GW. But for the hardcore, his gaming experience DEPENDS on his being able to lord his uberness over all the little noobs. He NEEDS to be many levels higher than the casual gamer has a hope of reaching, with gear the noob can't hope to aquire without pulling out his credit card.

The hardcore PvP guy NEEDS fair competition against equal opposition. That's the whole point. He's putting his ego on the line. If his gear is equal to the other guys, and he just got beat, that means the other guy was BETTER. And if that doesn't hurt, you have no business being in competition, as you're ruining the other guys experience as well as your own.

For whatever reason, the casual gamer HAS followed the leaders. It's for that reason that I take it as a very bad sign that most of those hardcore gamers (from BOTH edges) have abandoned this game.

You also misunderstood the football analogy. I was playing center not because I'm particularly talented. I was one of the few who had actual team experience, but I was also one of the smallest guys out there. I'm 5'10" and was around 180. Why am I playing center on a field of 22 guys, mostly around 6'3"? And why are we playing a game that the NFL (the official rules) REQUIRES 5 guys to be inelligible, with NOBODY on the line?

If we were playing according to talent and ability, I would have been Strong Safety and Fullback. I would actualy have known what I was doing at Safety. Instead, as stated, we had the entire team running dreaming they were Jerry Rice, and we had to have rules about counting to 5 before anyone was allowed to rush the passer. We only needed these rules because nobody wanted to block. It wasn't that they didn't know the rules, or even that they didn't notice the need. They just all wanted someone else to do it.

This is the difference between casual types and team players. The casual types might be "playing" softball every saturday, but they're really there to drink beer. Team players, competitive types? My roomate once blew out his knee at the line. In agony, his first words were "Did we score?". The most important word there was "we".

Guess whos back, back again.

As the Less sensible person that coleslaw is undoubtably referring to, (which is funny when hes sending me pm's that are telling me he hopes that I die.) I'll just skip over all the flames and personal attacks and stick with the meat of the conversation.

I've often heard people who pvp only and give no rats ass about the PVE game tell me that they were looking for something other than the normal MMORPG. Guess what, so was I. I didnt want a grindfest like EQ. And GW doesnt have anywhere near the grind of EQ. I wanted something that I could log into for a few hours at a time and get something accomplished, which guild wars provides. Yes, the total time investment is more than your average FPS to get to the "endgames". But should I choose to I can do that in 2 hour fits and spurts. That having been said. I would like to see more incentive to keep RP characters around, I'd like to not be punished by anet in competitive play because I choose to keep 4 RP characters instead of creating a PVPonly "character" Mayhaps with sorrows anet will address some of the Content issues I feel this game has, I personally belive that the best way to give everyone what they want with this game is to seperate PVPonly and RP characters. That way content and depth can be added to the PVE game without throwing the PVP game into wicked unbalance, and those who enjoy the pve game can enjoy competitive play verses other players of the same persuasion. It just stands to reason.

First of all, my buddy Fade and I are veterans at this point, and we don't use maphack. We have, however, owned people so bad that they claimed we were using maphack, haha. Anyway, we mostly play against CPUs while vastly outnumbered. That way we don't have to deal with constant bitching and whining or with cheaters, and we keep our coordination skills up at the same time ^_^


ANet never thought that. You can't seriously suggest they did; every friggin beta weekend had people switching builds left and right. Substantially.

Maybe it's because you haven't played MTG in a few years, then. The Type 2 scene changes dramatically, sure, but just like every Type 1 deck runs blue, Rebel decks dominated in Masques until Lin-Sivvi was banned, and Ravager Affinity was the man to beat in Mirrodin for a time. Currently in Type 1 you have a good amount of different tier 1 decks to play, including Smokestack, Psychatog, Charbelcher, Oath, and a number of others. Each one is viable, as my friends have made painfully clear at Origins. In blocks and Standard, you have fewer types dominating, and there has been more than one time that the match for first was between the same 2 decks, the difference being like an extra Brainstorm in one or something.

What does that even mean? What *is* "THE POWER card"? If you can tell me what power card everyone feels they need to counter in Type 1, and how that causes stagnation, then maybe you'll make your point. But as it is, one deck runs Mindslaver as its "power card," while another runs Oath, and a ton run Yawgmoth's Will. So, which one of these is everyone feeling the need to counter with their decklist?

No, the actual rason is that while in MTG the tier 1 decks crush the noobs in the lower brackets and only have meaningful matches against other tier 1 decks run by experienced players, GW has next to no matchmaking, making spirit spam that much more effective.

Dead wrong. First of all, Type 1 is making a comeback, especially if you don't limit yourself to "Pro Tour." (That's like limiting yourself to an arbitrary number of high-ranked guilds and talking about what they like and don't, as if they can speak for the rest of the game's state of affairs.) Secondly, while all Type 1's run the power 9, they are NOT "based" on them. They use the power 9 as speed ups, but that's all they are and you ought to know that. You can't win with the power 9.

Well they do, and it is 1.5, and while it's not terribly popular I don't see why saying it isn't has any bearing on the discussion.

Wizards has been taking care to ban cards that cause such an imbalance, so you have Survival, Academy, and a number of other cards banned from the format. Given that, you have a lot more decks that can take top spots than with Standard.

The only format that restricts is Type 1. Everything else only bans. Also, when the cardpool is smallest, the environment is not at all at its most diverse. You have like 2 whole different decktypes that can consistenly win, and that's about it. This doesn't really change with the smaller expansions, but I am completely dumbfounded by how you might assume that in the last few years we've had "diverse metagames" in Standard. We haven't at all. So please take my word for it, and bear in mind that Guild Wars exists now and not when 4th Edition first came out -_- meaning that the MTG they know is not the one you know.

I don't even see what point you're trying to make. The problem was not too many Magic cards printed. The problem was Tolarian Academy. You can't use that to back up anything about how many cards, or skills, are out there to make decks/builds with.

Ummm, you DO realize that with future Chapters ANet will introduce not only new skills but new Professions, don't you? They're going to do exactly what you think is wrong and what I think is right. A "bomb" on the metagame? Well, good thing they playtest and can update skills on the fly. ANet has a lot more luxuries than WOTC does in terms of introducing new things to the game, because they can make a change in an instant as opposed to "effective October 20."

I'd like to disagree with this statement. I know for a fact that you can still be competitive and not cheat at all. In fact, I personally know the top ladder player (at least when SC was hot). And he never, ever lost, against maphack or no. Besides him, some of my friends were very strong players that didn't ever feel the need to use Maphack.

Also, the best starcraft experiences come from LAN, not battlenet. Nothing beats lag free 4v4 in the computer lab, with teams right next to each other, and the occasional yelling when someone gets ganked.

The grind from this game is far from the perfect body, infact if I was to compare Guild Wars to going to a strip club...Walking into a new strip club and ordering a lapdance. During the lap dance something pops out and low and behold you find out it was a guy dancing for you...It wasn't what I was told I was going to get and there is nothing I can do to change it. All I can do is go back to the old strip club with the thought that even if it is old it is still the best one out there.


Back once again to how pvp was perfected....DAOC

You clearly don't understand the base elements of competitive game. This game being advertised as competitive, and if you were around before release, you would understand that A.Net's conception of competitive was once correct, so they must know what it is.
For true competition, both parties must be on equal grounds. By which I mean that both parties have all the same resources available to them. A.Net balanced one thing: Attributes. That, despite what some of you think, does not mean it's balanced. It's a step in the right direction. Next are the skills, they are within resonable balance, but their aquisition takes far too long. Pre-release, you could go to the tombs, get beaten by a great build at the Hall of Heroes, and 2 minutes later come back and kick their asses with a counter. *That* is competition. If you do not believe so, you bought this game without reading the box, so I don't sympathy for your idiocy.

It's fine to play GW for PvE, but don't pretend you understand PvP, and don't pretend it was made to be World of Warcraft 2: Free Edition. A.Net fell through on many promises to both sides, but moreso to PvP. The main problem is that stupid people both working within A.Net and fanboys of the company think that it is a good idea to closely relate PvE to PvP and visa versa. This is a mistake that goes against the very basis of their goals which they set for themselves when they announced the game, and supported and reinforced throughout the developement period. What were those goals: A game "build from the ground up for competition" where you "don't have to slog through countless hours to get to the fun bits".

The solution:

Expand PvE. How?
-Make it so that not everything is instanced. RPG + Instancing = No Role Playing whatsoever. It's cool in places, but it sucks on many levels elsewhere. Make certain explorable areas un-instanced.
-Grindmonkies! If you know anything about the game, you know that grindmonkies are leaching the life out of PvP. So give them something with more blood to gather and on a source that is more favorable: Super Duper Uber weaponry and Armours... Keep them out of PvP. Problem Solved. There should never be an instance in which a brand new newbie player can't pick up the game, and after figuring it out, play competitively with the best players in the world.

Shake This Carebear that's gnawing on my leg off. (Fix PvP). How?
-Seperate it entirely. Unlock All Unlocks. Everything. Period.
-Fix the maps. Quite of a few of them (coughburialmoundscough) are messed up. Please fix them.
-Either seperate PvP characters from playing with PvE characters, or make it so that when a PvE character enters a place of competition, all his skills are unlocked temporarily.

I know someone will flame me or use some dumbassed long winded analogy to do so, so I'm going to preemptively call that person an idiot... Idiot!

i think getting fame requires MORE grind than unlocking a minor necro rune.

I have thought this was a good idea from the first time someone mentioned it. Let PvP have all skills unlocked and let PvE characters who wish to play competitively have skills unlocked only while they're there AND have their equipment reduced (or whatever you want to call it) to whatever the PvP only characters have. Once they leave, they are back to what they were before both skills wise and equipment wise.

And I agree 100% that PvP characters should not be in the PvE game---particularly if their skills are all unlocked. They would have no reason to be there.

It amazes me that people still claim they bought this game to be pure RPG. That's like saying Diablo or Diablo 2 is an RPG.

I'd better make one thing clear. This game is horrible compared to others on the whole RPG end. It's more like a FPS because:

In RPGs you generally have puzzles
In FPSs you generally have you killing enemies over and over

I paid for what I thought was an RPG, but in fact it is more of a FPS. I personally hate FPS because they have no challenge to them besides seeing how many of an opponent you and your team can take on at one time. In an RPG you're trying to figure out a solution to a puzzle or a follow a trail of a clue. The points are layed out for you on quests similar to as how an FPS game would. The only brain stimulating thing in this game is choosing your skills and using them at the right time if you have chosen skills that require actual skill to use. Warriors gaining adrenaline and using the skill once it fills up isn't considered skill. So where is the actual skill in this game? On the name of the 8 things you put onto the slots. Which is why this game is a waste of my time.

EDIT: And Weezer Blue is a god among mortals in a mortal body. That post is what Guild Wars should be.

You've never played a good FPS.

I've played Halo which is supposedly so good. It's not. I beat it though since I payed money for it, after that I did some PVP on it, and that is the only good thing on it because you're playing with everything unlocked and everyone is on equal ground. The PVE version of halo 1 AND 2 sucked. You get weapons as you progress, you kill monsters and go through a good environment, but that's about it. No puzzles really.

I accept Jesus. Christ where's my PS2?

It's off topic, but a few good FPS's have puzzles in them as well... If only someone could make a good rip off of metroid prime that actually required you to aim.

A good FPS will challenge your reaction speed, not just the number of enemies coming at you. A good FPS will do this usually by adding many suprises. A good FPS makes you use strategy against differant enemies and sometimes has puzzles.

A good RPG really isn't as easily defined in termes of difficulty. It's actually quite tough to add ginuine difficulty to an RPG, let alone an MMORPG.

Most RPGs generally go the route of adding difficulty through grind (ie, having to level up to "X" before even thinking of taking on "X" monster or getting enough gold to get "Y" piece of equipment). This isn't, in my opinion, true difficulty.

Other RPGs that try to break the mold and try making it "Skill > Grind" have a much, much tougher time. It's either too easy or too random. This is especially true for MMORPGS and the such. Chances are, when playing through an MMORPG mission/quest, you have someone who has already done it in your group. This means that if that party member has any sort of communication skills whatsoever, this mission/quest will not have difficulty through means of suprises or requiring differant strategies. So what left is there to do? It seems they are forced to make it seem random to give it a false sence of difficulty.

Puzzles/Clues do not apply to this arguement because both games can use them, but they are a completely differant genre if they change the battle system.



I must admit, Halo was mediocre in every way possible, but the hardest mode of the game was difficult. Very difficult. I have never played a single RPG that was ginuinly difficult. If you can find one, please inform me.

Puzzles are mostly a single player thing, though. God knows Pick up Groups can are bad enough without being hindered by gates that don't open unless you answer a quiz, light some torches, pull some switches, or move some boxes/statues/jars/whatever the hell around. I mean, if I wanted to do that stuff, I'd just pick up a Legend of Zelda game.

Now that I think about it, Legend of Zelda online would be awesome. It'd be all "OMG DONT ATTACK THOSE CHIKENS U NOOB, ZONE IT ZONE IT"

Doom2 Nightmare Difficulty.

system shock 2.

Simply stated, if the game have more to it other than just pulling the trigger of the biggest gun, then it is a good fps (quality of programing aside).
That is quite simply a time sink and is not a challenge. Most people call that a grind, because the player feels that they have the ability to accomplish the victory condition, minus the current character attributes.
Knowing the anwser ahead of time with a good puzzle doesnt matter, because it is more of a matter of how logical of a thinker you are. Some of the best puzzles are not just a matter of recognising what the solution is, but making the solution occur. The actual manipulation of the puzzle being just as interesting as the acknowledgement of the solution being in equal parts in both enjoyment and time spent completing. Only one "puzzle" that is recognizable as one would be the teleporter pads in the desert, but those could have been done a little more efficiently(Field of view issues at times). The other is more intuitive, which are the various statues of the gods This is where the character can gain some benefit through "offerings", but its not directly obvious what the player should do when approaching one if the player has not seen someone else do it before.


Halo was tribes, "but without the fun" as a few people i know phrased it. The first halo wasnt so hard, even on the most difficult level once you got used to the idea of breaking shields. The second one was more annoying in spots, due to the sheer density of enemies versus the amount of ammo you get (grenades become VERY important). Too many times it ended up being, dual suppresion fire, drop alternate gun, throw nade, pickup gun and resume firing and watch bodies fly in various directions. Not much is "hard" after doing things like that mid air against another "flying target" with weapons that require lead, they are only tedious in the single player mode. Nothing quite like a mid air nade to disc chain with a switch to laser rifle for a finishing hit, while landing on the slope and finishing the ski route then covering your landing with some nades out the launcher behind you catching your chaser offguard while in persiut.

also try playing Perfect Dark [N64] with 8 Dark Bots/Perfect Bots or however many you can have, and then try and be in first place when its all of them verses you. Only way I could do it was by modifying the weapon-set to non-explosives and getting a bunch of headshots :P but yeah, its one of the hardest FPS games/challenges possible.

Legend of Zelda is actually a pretty good puzzle rpg game come to think of it. It's not based around slaying monsters, although you do it on the side, you're trying to think of how to get around certain obstacles by using certain tools. For those of you who've played Runescape, I beat all their quests without guides and I enjoyed doing it because it didn't dot spots on the map of where to go and many of the riddles and puzzles were tough, and it was incorporated into the system of leveling up skills. That way you couldn't just do all the quests at level 1 but you'd gradually do them as you leveled up.

This thread has veered wildly off course. If the discussion of FPS games is to be continued, it needs to be done in the Off Topic & Absurd forum.

/closed