Curse

zwei2stein · Sep 25, 2008, 05:17 PM // 17:17

Quote:

Originally Posted by Avarre

DoA is barely relevant to the point because it wasn't built on the standard game mechanics. The higher raw stats are pumped the less emphasis there is on player skill - it becomes one dimensional and an application of hard counters (equipped skills against equipped skills).

Zones can be made difficult while adhering to game mechanics and not being one-dimensional, which would require the players' own abilities to be higher. This shouldn't even need debating, and poor design is not an invalidating point.

But that poor design is what we have. So far "ballanced" challenges (i.e. well recieved Jade Bortherhood teambuild) were easily steamrolled.

You cant really offer much challenge when mobs have 600hp and 60 to 80 al armor - they can be spiked down with relative ease.

We could make dozen of different teambuilds with mobs being player equivalent in stats and numbers and in power and populate area with them, but they will be pathetic (321 kabooom most likely). Only way they might hurt player group would be killing off 1-2 players per encounter and hope that DP will eventually reach 60 on everybody.

(in all seriousness: maybe anet can make "make-a-mob" competition where players create teambuild for monsters and then they would populate some offbeat area with mobs sporting those builds.)

House Silvermoon · Sep 25, 2008, 05:20 PM // 17:20

the reason i rarely party up with people is

1. Heros and Henchen > most pve players.

2. Heros can run bars i want them to run without complaint or loss of effectiveness.

3. It only takes 5 mins to make a party of H/H and go hammer anything i need as opposed to the countless hours it would take to get random pugs and groom them to the task at hand.

4. Heros and Henchmen are totally committed to me and my goal, no backstabbing, no bitching, no bathroom breaks, no rage quits, and no trash talking.

5. Heros and Henchmen with their clever but sometimes standard quotes have more personality and interesting things to say then most gw players.

Avarre · Sep 25, 2008, 05:23 PM // 17:23

Quote:

Originally Posted by zwei2stein

But that poor design is what we have. So far "ballanced" challenges (i.e. well recieved Jade Bortherhood teambuild) were easily steamrolled.

Jades were powerful, but in almost all cases Jades were outnumbered by the players and had incomplete skillbars. It wouldn't throw standard play out if an elite zone group was level 24 with a full skillbar in groups of 8 or 10, and slightly boosted stats (18).

ANet could even tie metagame concepts into it by making certain zones run various styles of build. We've seen this to a small degree in certain zones (SB/Infusers in Fow, many more). There's a lot of possibilities for both balanced and gimmicky team setups mobs could run that would give more variety in combat, as well as promote balanced setups and play that best utilizes the system Guild Wars has in place.

All this ties back into the topic, for those of you just skimming, as if the overall quality of players was increased by a higher-peaking difficulty curve, the quality of PuGs would therefore increase to a degree as well. It's quite possible that the combination of better players and harder areas would keep the ratio of pug quality:zone difficulty the same as it was now, but considering the biggest complaints about PuGs are an ignorance of game mechanics, that at least could be solved somewhat.

Kashrlyyk · Sep 25, 2008, 06:13 PM // 18:13

Quote:

Originally Posted by Avarre

If you had a point in that post, it's invalidated by the fact that all games have difficulty curves to some degree.

......

PS: Considering GW was built to be a competitive game, and thus one based on skill and player development, I don't think you have any ground to stand on.

It is not invalidated. Because the player will automatically get better at playing the game till he reaches a certain point and therefore needs harder enemies. It just this idiotic idea of yours of forcing them to be better than they themself care/want to be. Most will not do that, they just quit. How many people play the elite areas compared to the total playerbase?

That is the amount of people that share your idea. But myself and many others are not interested in games and/or areas where you have to know all the ins and outs to beat it.

PS: Andrew Patrick thinks differently and has actually said so himself. So could we please leave that BULLSHIT comment behind. I have a very big ground to stand on, it is roughly 500000+ players wide. And ANet included the consumables and the PvE skills. So even ANet realized your idea is suicide. How wide is your ground?

zwei2stein · Sep 25, 2008, 07:20 PM // 19:20

Quote:

Originally Posted by Kashrlyyk

It is not invalidated. Because the player will automatically get better at playing the game till he reaches a certain point and therefore needs harder enemies. It just this idiotic idea of yours of forcing them to be better than they themself care/want to be. Most will not do that, they just quit. How many people play the elite areas compared to the total playerbase?

That is the amount of people that share your idea. But myself and many others are not interested in games and/or areas where you have to know all the ins and outs to beat it.

PS: Andrew Patrick thinks differently and has actually said so himself. So could we please leave that BULLSHIT comment behind. I have a very big ground to stand on, it is roughly 500000+ players wide. And ANet included the consumables and the PvE skills. So even ANet realized your idea is suicide. How wide is your ground?

Nope. First, procure that quote. I'd bet that he did not mean that "Everyone gets standard issue win & succes ration"

Seccond, how the hell can you speak for 500000 people on this or anything. For all you can know outposts are ghost town because game was too easy to be fun.

Third, why the hell do you require not having to know all inns and outs of game if you are so set to fully beat it in every possible direction. That borders on "hand me win coupon please, i can't be bothered to play but i still want to win."

This is like saying that everyone needs to be able to win doom 1 on nightmare dificult by default. Up untill late 90's noone sane would expect to be able to even finish finish game. If you werent it was your fault, not game or develore's. It worked and people had fun. Classics like Sinistar etc. were played extensively without anyone having to have guaranteed highscore entry.

Moreover, you approach GW with typical mindset of mmos where everyone has to be winner because those games are more about escapism than fun.

Guess what happens if you win all the time in game that was not designed to be addictive? Yep, you get bored and leave for another.

PS: Consumables and PvE skills are more likely directly targeted to subgroup of OCD players which play long hours, suck at gw and want to do "hardcore" stuff. Your average player does not have resources to use them nor do they really have reason, or even knowledge that they exist.

tmakinen · Sep 25, 2008, 07:30 PM // 19:30

The PvE side of GW was originally designed to be a stepping stone for PvP and therefore it wasn't even intended to provide infinitely scalable difficulty.

I can understand Avarre's argument although I don't necessarily agree with it completely. Truly challenging PvE content would require a lot of effort and would cater to a very small minority of the player base, and a minority which will most likely find that challenge on the PvP side anyway. Thus it never was a high priority issue for GW.

DoA wasn't the right approach. Nothing that encourages tank'n spank or specifically crafted gimmicky builds is. ANet came much closer to the solution in some parts of EotN. The last missing components are randomness and evolution. If ANet wants to provide real elite PvE content in GW2 the mobs builds must

be well balanced and effective
be random enough that you can't count on bringing a specific counter
evolve over time

A clever way to implement the third part would be to observe the success of teams in the challenge and insert the most successful real player team builds to the pool of builds from which mob builds are drawn*. That would introduce meta to the PvE side and would guarantee a fresh challenge time after time.

*) this kind of mirror AI is often used, e.g., in flight combat simulators

Avarre · Sep 26, 2008, 01:32 AM // 01:32

Quote:

Originally Posted by Kashrlyyk

How many people play the elite areas compared to the total playerbase?

You mean like FoW and UW, which were actually placed as a progression on the difficulty curve as the first elite areas? Quite a lot.

Quote:

Originally Posted by Kashrlyyk

But myself and many others are not interested in games and/or areas where you have to know all the ins and outs to beat it.

Then, quite simply, you could have picked a better game. Don't get in the way of game design with your mindset.

Quote:

Originally Posted by Kashrlyyk

So even ANet realized your idea is suicide. How wide is your ground?

I'm pretty sure 'appeal to ANet' is some sort of logical fallacy. They also thought Ursan was a good idea to add to the game.

Dronte · Sep 27, 2008, 12:20 PM // 12:20

My lifestyle? Anet will hardly change it, my playstyle, maybe.

Cobalt · Sep 27, 2008, 03:07 PM // 15:07

Quote:

Originally Posted by Red Sonya

And Ursans is still in the game, its just not the Ursan that lasted a year. But, to be technical there's many many many skills that aren't the same as they were day 1 so that argument just doesn't wash as skills can and will be changed over a due course of time that's a norm not a fallacy.

True but the overall changes have been overwhelmingly to the negative, many completely unnecessary like Ursan for example which the way is was did not hurt anything except PVE entities and a few whiners that were to lazy to max their Norn title or two cheap to buy EotN. If they could not have it no one could and they basically got their way.

The Little Viking · Sep 28, 2008, 10:24 AM // 10:24

Test Me, I like how you think, and i totally agree with your statement about people do things in different ways. I'm not a social person, but im also not a recluse. But I also am at an age that i don't cherish the thought of having to run with a bunch of smart mouth 13 year olds either. I prefer to do things at my own pace. And my own pace normally IS NOT the same pace as a pug. If in the middle of a mission I want to stop and grab a snack or a cup of coffee, I don't want to have to ASK if its ok if I go AFK for 5 minutes while I do this. I prefer to just stop and take care of what needs to be taken care of. There are times while doing some of the longer dungeons that i get half way through and want to stop and take a break. With a pug, you cant very well do this, but if your alone, or with someone that thinks like you...in my case, my husband, then they don't mind if you say.. i need a break, lets find a safety zone for a few. But even if I have to do EVERYTHING with just H/H I will rather then be forced to go at someone elses pace. Im not saying I never play with other people, Im just saying that I would like a better option to go it alone if I want to or if no one is available to go along.

Commander Ryker · Sep 28, 2008, 02:45 PM // 14:45

Quote:

Originally Posted by The Little Viking

ys. I'm not a social person, but im also not a recluse. But I also am at an age that i don't cherish the thought of having to run with a bunch of smart mouth 13 year olds either. I prefer to do things at my own pace. And my own pace normally IS NOT the same pace as a pug. If in the middle of a mission I want to stop and grab a snack or a cup of coffee, I don't want to have to ASK if its ok if I go AFK for 5 minutes while I do this. I prefer to just stop and take care of what needs to be taken care of. There are times while doing some of the longer dungeons that i get half way through and want to stop and take a break. With a pug, you cant very well do this, but if your alone, or with someone that thinks like you...in my case, my husband, then they don't mind if you say.. i need a break, lets find a safety zone for a few. But even if I have to do EVERYTHING with just H/H I will rather then be forced to go at someone elses pace. Im not saying I never play with other people, Im just saying that I would like a better option to go it alone if I want to or if no one is available to go along.

Exactly! I am a very social person but I like to play at my own pace and take a break once in a while if it's a particularly long quest/mission. I have people/pets to take care of. I'm going to tell my dogs wait, I'm in the middle of a mission? No, they don't care what I'm doing, they want to go out now.

Amy Awien · Sep 28, 2008, 09:56 PM // 21:56

Quote:

Originally Posted by Improvavel

It starts with the fact that just because you own the same game or anything else it doesn't mean that you have the same objectives or the same way to approach the game.

QFT

Probably the single most important conclusion to be drawn from 4 years of GW

Quote:

Originally Posted by maraxusofk

... if anet allowed ppl to bring all their heroes to solo these quests, wut is the point of playing an mmo? why not just pick up a single player console game? ...

You've missed the point, it's about options, having the choice to risk playing with other players

Quote:

a lil off topic here but ask any of the old timers in guild wars from way back, and they will tell u the best time of gw was before heroes were added

I am something of an old timer, the best time on GW was in Prophecies, before Factions was released and before the Title madness. The heroes introduced in Nightfall made the game interesting again.

Rothan Celt · Sep 29, 2008, 12:59 AM // 00:59

i stay with my heroes because with my heroes i know that i will succeed like today in Hells-P i pugged 2 times (because h/h is boring) failed miserably used my heroes which i hesitated to use as they are not geared with runes and so forth. with my heros i just owned that mission

i think a lot of ppl like me just dnt want to mess around with the dodgey pugs. they can be a huge waste of time.