The Guild Wars 2 Thread

[LeStryfe79]

well I've barely played after hitting 80.

It's a fun game but the fun things only lasts a few times over. If you've done a dungeon once (story mode) you won't miss anything by not playing some other version (exploration). same goes for WvWvW - it's always 1 server zergig a location and another defending, while the third is doing something else. all wvwvw matches are the same.

Definitely worth the initial cost and I got my money's worth and all that, but I'm glad there's no monthly fee.

"higher tiers" of pve, pvp and crafting doesn't matter, because gear doesn't matter. it's a cute idea but it kills the incentive to play - unless you're all about dressing up and RP.

What do you think MMO's in general can do to avoid this problem? More sandbox features? Faster content delivery? Slower grind with better loot?

 

[Zed]

What do you think MMO's in general can do to avoid this problem? More sandbox features? Faster content delivery? Slower grind with better loot?

Those are all good suggestions.
They could simply have an item-based endgame and make new content bimonthly/quarterly. A lot of people hate this but it's how you keep people interested beyond "having fun".
I know, it would be like WoW, but there's a reason why so many people didn't get bored of it.

 

[Zed]

Just crafted a "unique" exotic pistol in the forge.
5 highest tier pistol barrels + 5 highest tier pistol wood thingies + 30 coins + 1 scroll.

 

[Angthoron]

Thief bros, what builds are you using, and how are they working out for you? Trying to build a better Dungeon thief at the moment, so suggestions welcome.

 

[acolyte289]

It really shouldn't come as a surprise that a game you don't need to play constantly to keep up is going to be a game you won't want to play constantly. Not that MMO players necessarily want to play a single game all the time, but WoW (and its clones and/or predecessors) have conditioned players to think that is what an MMO should be.

And like the first Guild Wars, it's a game where PvE takes a backseat to PvP (which basically IS the endgame, IMO).

I really hope they add GvG in some form eventually, that was my favorite format (although most of my time spent with GW1 was before factions).

 

[JarlFrank]

It really shouldn't come as a surprise that a game you don't need to play constantly to keep up is going to be a game you won't want to play constantly. Not that MMO players necessarily want to play a single game all the time, but WoW (and its clones and/or predecessors) have conditioned players to think that is what an MMO should be.

For me, it's rather that games where you have to play constantly to keep up have little motivation to play because they feel more like work than fun. Grind, grind and grind again for hours so you can keep up with your guild buddies and join hour-long raids? What exactly is fun about that? Bleh.

 

[Average Manatee]

I just hope that once they iron out all the remaining bugs, they'll get working on new content. It's a fun game, and we're even having fun in WvW as a small group going around and capping tents and doing various opportunistic shit, but they really need to add something big for guilds to do together like, a proper casual timesink. Suppose sPvP and WvW fill that role for the most part though, and the dungeons are challenging enough (at least Catacombs on Story mode, holy shit, didn't expect that much dying on a bunch of trashmob pulls, bosses are WAY easier than some trash pulls seem to be) but hm, needs more perhaps.

Also, dungeon gear prices need to drop by a lot. I get that the "few great men" should get the really good gear, but the "goodness" shouldn't be coming from their willingness to rerun same dungeon 20 times to get one piece.

Had no problems on story mode, but exploration mode definitely buttfucked my team. Apparently there are multiple paths you can take with different bosses for each one. The one my team chose didn't have an end boss at all, but forced you to defend two allied magic-gatherers while trash mobs streamed in from trash mob spawners that continually spawned while more semi-boss enemies (some of who were also spawners) spawned from the spawners. Best we got was 65% completion of the goal in gathering magic, which is a lot better than it sounds since there aren't more than 2 spawners for the first 30% or so. Both of them dying of course resets the challenge. Unless there is some trick (and we tried a lot of them) I seriously doubt that level 35s with level 35 equipment could get through that stage.

There was also a boss that shot out Scorpion-style GET OVER HERE on the whole team then instantly KOed anyone nearby, and this is while mesmer and ranger enemies were being a PITA. Team wiped twice before people learned to dodge the pull move consistently, but after that it was pretty simple (though still a tedious HP-attrition battle).

well I've barely played after hitting 80.

It's a fun game but the fun things only lasts a few times over. If you've done a dungeon once (story mode) you won't miss anything by not playing some other version (exploration). same goes for WvWvW - it's always 1 server zergig a location and another defending, while the third is doing something else. all wvwvw matches are the same.

Definitely worth the initial cost and I got my money's worth and all that, but I'm glad there's no monthly fee.

"higher tiers" of pve, pvp and crafting doesn't matter, because gear doesn't matter. it's a cute idea but it kills the incentive to play - unless you're all about dressing up and RP.

What do you think MMO's in general can do to avoid this problem? More sandbox features? Faster content delivery? Slower grind with better loot?

It depends on what the game is about. If you want an MMO with a constantly escalating power creep curve like a traditional MMO or Diablo-like, more grind with better loot is OK. If you want to deliver no power creep and have dungeons purely for the fun of it for the most part, you want far less grind like GW1.

The problem is that Guild Wars 2 straddles the margins here. It sets a hard limit to equipment power so those high level dungeon grinds can't actually give you anything useful. On the other hand, the far greater grindiness than a game like GW1 means that playing high level content with a variety of classes at your disposal requires a ridiculous time investment, so there is never any time you can simply think to yourself "It would be fun to try this dungeon with an all-mesmer party", then get on your off-character and do it. You're looking at nearly 100 hours to raise a character that much, no one will do that just for the variety of being able to play slightly different roles in a party.

I honestly can't see the reason why there are 80 levels other than to placate those who think level grinding is good. Going to an area half your level and having your stats halved makes the fact that no relative factors are changing clear. Level could easily have been capped at 20 or 30, then you could explore 90% of the game as soon as you reached max level rather than being locked into the 2% of content that is level-appropriate. Trait points could be earned through advanced questing/dungeon completion/story advancement or whatever. Certainly dungeons would be more attractive if you had to do each one at least once to get all of your trait points.

Thief bros, what builds are you using, and how are they working out for you? Trying to build a better Dungeon thief at the moment, so suggestions welcome.

As I mentioned before, if you want to go toe to toe then I recommend Death Blossom spam. It's basically the equivalent of being able to evade 6 or 7 times consecutively. Against a lot of bosses you can easily spend a minute before running out of juice and retreating to a ranged position for a short while. If you aren't confident in your dodge ability though (or are at a new set of enemies and don't know the moves yet), I recommend Gun/Dagger for melee enemies and Bow for ranged. The reason being that the dagger offhand has an amazing multiple hit cripple move that anyone kiting will love you for, but bows have the weakness combo field which is probably your best support otherwise.

 

[Ulminati]

Thief bros, what builds are you using, and how are they working out for you? Trying to build a better Dungeon thief at the moment, so suggestions welcome.

My lv50 PvE build is currently:
Pistol/Dagger - Dagger/dagger.
Hide in shadows, Calthrops, Ambush, Signet of Shadows, Take Root (Sylvari racial elite. Like thieves guild but static and on a shorter cooldown).
20 ranks in Deadly arts - Sundering Strikes, Dagger training
20 ranks in Critical Strikes - Pistol Mastery, Practiced Tolerance

Calthrops and dagger toss to cripple enemies. Take root/ambush spawns tanks of there's a bunch of ranged. Otherwise, just kite with pistol/dagger. vs single targets, I switch to dagger/dagger for faster burst.

My sPVP build is:
Dagger/Dagger - Sword/Pistol
Hide in Shadows, Devourer Venom, blinding Powder, Signet of Shadows, Thieves Guild
30 ranks in Deadly Arts - Sundering Strikes, Dagger Training, Panic Strike
30 ranks in Critical Strikes - Side Strike, Furious Retaliation, Hidden Killer
10 ranks in Acrobatics - Power of Inertia
Berserker amulet/jewel, runes of the pack, crit chance sigils

Standard dagger burst rogue. Heartseeker hits like a truck and critical chance is ~65-70% depending on circumstances or 100% from stealth. Sword/dagger gives you access to the awesome shadowstep/recall power on skill #2 which is great for confusing pursuers as well as a nice extra stun with pistol whip.

 

[acolyte289]

It depends on what the game is about. If you want an MMO with a constantly escalating power creep curve like a traditional MMO or Diablo-like, more grind with better loot is OK. If you want to deliver no power creep and have dungeons purely for the fun of it for the most part, you want far less grind like GW1.

To be fair, it took a fair amount of time to max a character in the Prophecies campaign. Still, I more or less agree that GW2 doesn't quite get the balance right. I haven't even bothered with dungeons since "event farming" (as many zones have very predictable and frequently repeating event chains) seems to be the fastest XP and I go do WvW when I get bored of that.

The problem is that Guild Wars 2 straddles the margins here. It sets a hard limit to equipment power so those high level dungeon grinds can't actually give you anything useful.

If players can only enjoy a challenging dungeon if there is "epic loot" then what's the point. If you add those rewards, the player base will start whining about dungeons being too challenging (one once this happens they become a boring grind for gear). I think this is another area where gamers have just been conditioned to expect it. If the rewards are too good, I know I would feel like I "had" to farm the dungeon, which turns it into another bitter grind. I know I would still have a choice, but that choice would be more like the choice I have in WoW to raid or not raid. I don't like those kind of choices (the ones where you lose more by not doing then you would gain by doing).

On the other hand, the far greater grindiness than a game like GW1 means that playing high level content with a variety of classes at your disposal requires a ridiculous time investment, so there is never any time you can simply think to yourself "It would be fun to try this dungeon with an all-mesmer party", then get on your off-character and do it. You're looking at nearly 100 hours to raise a character that much, no one will do that just for the variety of being able to play slightly different roles in a party.

GW1 is one of the few games where I actually felt learning the ins and outs of each class was fun (even the classes I didn't care much for playing). But this was mostly due to the game's secondary class system and emphasis on builds. None of the classes in GW2 feel like they have the depth of GW1 classes even though you do have more skills to work with in combat. The GW2 classes that I have tried so far are fun to play in (and obviously balanced for) PvP, but PvE outside of events (and possibly dungeons, which I haven't done yet) is a fraction of the fun I had playing missions solo with henchmen in GW1. Although, to be fair, even farming events doesn't feel too grindy to me when done in moderation.

Finally, on an unrelated note, I don't get people complaining that GW2 is not GW1. Are people honestly complaining that a sequel is not a clone of the original with better graphics? I thought that was a bad thing. If you like GW1 there is nothing stopping you from still playing it.

 

[Average Manatee]

Finally, on an unrelated note, I don't get people complaining that GW2 is not GW1. Are people honestly complaining that a sequel is not a clone of the original with better graphics? I thought that was a bad thing. If you like GW1 there is nothing stopping you from still playing it.

If they wanted to make World of Guild Wars they should have called it as such. There is a reason WoW was not named Warcraft 4, there's a reason Fallout Brotherhood of Steel wasn't named Fallout 3, and there's a reason Fallout 3 was hated for pretending that Oblivion with guns was a main line Fallout game.

A clone isn't expected. A similar game but with a refined skill system, leveling, PvP, etc is.

To be fair, it took a fair amount of time to max a character in the Prophecies campaign. Still, I more or less agree that GW2 doesn't quite get the balance right. I haven't even bothered with dungeons since "event farming" (as many zones have very predictable and frequently repeating event chains) seems to be the fastest XP and I go do WvW when I get bored of that.

Prophecies is basically the extended newbie tutorial campaign though. I think Anet wasn't confident in their idea of being at lvl 20 for most of the game and so dragged things out a lot in a more traditional manner. Once they saw that players were OK without arbitrary levels increasing arbitrary stats they made Factions and Nightfall which pretty much leave you at lvl 15 at the end of their tutorial.

Funny that they then needed to take a step back when they decided to more directly target the MMO audience. It's almost like that player base is only satisfied with watching their experience bars fill up 80 times over.

If players can only enjoy a challenging dungeon if there is "epic loot" then what's the point. If you add those rewards, the player base will start whining about dungeons being too challenging (one once this happens they become a boring grind for gear). I think this is another area where gamers have just been conditioned to expect it. If the rewards are too good, I know I would feel like I "had" to farm the dungeon, which turns it into another bitter grind. I know I would still have a choice, but that choice would be more like the choice I have in WoW to raid or not raid. I don't like those kind of choices (the ones where you lose more by not doing then you would gain by doing).

I don't pretend to understand the point, I only know that if you want to bring in the WoWtards/Diablotards then that is what you want to do.

 

[Angthoron]

Finally, on an unrelated note, I don't get people complaining that GW2 is not GW1. Are people honestly complaining that a sequel is not a clone of the original with better graphics? I thought that was a bad thing. If you like GW1 there is nothing stopping you from still playing it.

It's a bit of a "complex" question - there are bad "completely different" sequels, and there are good "completely different" sequels. Of the bad ones, you have the Syndicate one, the upcoming X-Com FPS, and, naturally, Fallout 3. However, what some people seem to ignore is that tiny aspect of quality, and instead pay attention to superficial aspects of form. Would X-Com FPS necessarily be bad? No, if it was competently made, and if it, for instance, had squad-based combat like that of Codename Venom, or Rainbow 6, or ARMA. Would Fallout 3 have to be terrible? No, and F:NV proves that it can at least be competent. Thing with GW2 is that it is definitely a competent game, but it's probably not the game all of the fans of the original were expecting. To be precise, this was initially supposed to be a game called Utopia, but during the early iterations it was largely reworked, and perhaps it was easier to follow up a hit title than to try to bet on studio name alone.

However, this isn't "WoW 2" or "Warcraft 5" or any other silly stuff like that. Were it WoW 2, I'd not be bothering with it since I already am playing WoW 1, and yeah, I'm still capable of telling the difference.

 

[Mangoose]

Fallout 3 sucked because it was a shitty game with a shitty engine. Nothing to do with whose sequel it was. Period.

 

[Average Manatee]

Fallout 3 sucked because it was a shitty game with a shitty engine. Nothing to do with whose sequel it was. Period.

Fallout BoS was an equally bad if not worse game than Fallout 3. It still was not hated as much because it was a spinoff, therefore it did not affect the potential future development of a proper Fallout 3 that was a turnbased isometric exploration-driven etc etc game. Fallout 3 did affect all potential future development of the Fallout series and those potential games are now an FPS with minor stat input. When a spinoff is bad you can just write it off and pretend it never happened, you can't very well do that with a direct sequel.

 

[Average Manatee]

There are ghost trebuchets and cannons in the Diessa Plateau. Wat?

/facepalm

 

[Angthoron]

Fallout 3 sucked because it was a shitty game with a shitty engine. Nothing to do with whose sequel it was. Period.

Being a sequel only made it worse. Arguably, as "Bethesda's Post-Apoc Adventure In Fairylands" would've made it at least not offensive to the fans of the first two games, but it would still be a shitty game on a shitty engine. GW2, on the other hand, seems to be an affront to some of the fans, but is a competent game as it is - suppose this is a case of Deus Ex vs Deus Ex Human Revolution more than Fallout vs Fallout 3.

 

[Angthoron]

There are ghost trebuchets and cannons in the Diessa Plateau. Wat?

/facepalm

...And you have no problem with Spirit Weapons, then?



See, as there's no Weapon Afterlife, their souls are left to wander the world endlessly.

 

[Average Manatee]

It's more the fact that they act of their own accord even without people manning them. Apparently if a vengeful trebuchet is destroyed it can haunt the area or something.

 

[Angthoron]

Maybe it's possessed by demons.

 

[acolyte289]

Prophecies is basically the extended newbie tutorial campaign though. I think Anet wasn't confident in their idea of being at lvl 20 for most of the game and so dragged things out a lot in a more traditional manner. Once they saw that players were OK without arbitrary levels increasing arbitrary stats they made Factions and Nightfall which pretty much leave you at lvl 15 at the end of their tutorial.

Funny that they then needed to take a step back when they decided to more directly target the MMO audience. It's almost like that player base is only satisfied with watching their experience bars fill up 80 times over.

Part of why factions levels you so quickly is because the campaign is much shorter than either of the other campaigns. I think prophecies is still a valid comparison because it was the only campaign at release. Who knows, the rate of leveling in GW2 may be boosted in the future, especially if they plan on adding levels with "expansions".

I do like GW1 much better in respect to amount of grind (basically entirely optional) and time to max level. And yeah, it seems rather disingenuous of Anet to take out any gear grinding but keep an obnoxious level grind, especially with so little endgame outside of PvP. I would like to tell myself that the choice of 80 has nothing to do with WoW, but we all know better.

I don't pretend to understand the point, I only know that if you want to bring in the WoWtards/Diablotards then that is what you want to do.

Well with no monthly fee they only have to trick those people into buying the game in the first place (as they have much less incentive to keep people playing every month than a subscription game would). That's what allows Anet to get away without adding some sort of treadmill to begin with.

 

[Average Manatee]

Anet has a cash shop just the same as Diablo 3's. They have every incentive to make players grind.

 

[Angthoron]

Yeah, sure they do, exactly the same.

 

[acolyte289]

Anet has a cash shop just the same as Diablo 3's. They have every incentive to make players grind.

How so? It's mostly vanity or things like bank/bag/character slots. And cash to gold of course.

Yes, it's there to make more money but it's far from giving them "every incentive" to keep players active. Especially in comparison to the average 15$/mo subscription MMO.

I'll give you that they probably have some incentive to keep players into it for a couple months to net some cash shop profit, but that's still far less incentive than a subscription MMO would. Most of these "grinders" will be gone when MoP releases anyway. Obviously that's wild speculation, but look at TOR. All evidence points in one direction: you cannot beat WoW at what it does. So it is smarter to release a product that doesn't directly compete, such as a game that appeals to those who don't like the treadmill of WoW but like a lot of the other stuff. I think that's what Anet has tried (for better or worse) to do with GW2.

 

[LeStryfe79]

Yeah, the removal of dual classes made me steer clear of GW2. It's kind of weird that they abandoned all the good features of GW in order to make a WoW clone they claim revolutionizes the genre. The first entry did this far more IMHO.

 

[Average Manatee]

Anet has a cash shop just the same as Diablo 3's. They have every incentive to make players grind.

How so? It's mostly vanity or things like bank/bag/character slots. And cash to gold of course.

If cash -> gold and gold ->everything else then cash->everything.

I'm not saying that Anet is trying to push their cash shop as hard as Blizzard is, but the means to profit by it is the same and so is the incentive to alter the game in ways that support using the cash shop.

 

[waywardOne]

I'm only playing about an hour a day since the band I'm trying to organize is an unweildy mess.

I hate crafting in all forms in all games. Can I ignore it in GW2 and just buy or find decent loot? I'm only level 7 across my 4 characters (lol) and feel like my gear is terribly generic.