Curse

DutchSmurf · Jun 13, 2008, 11:34 AM // 11:34

Quote:

Originally Posted by Red Sonya

It's what's in the game that GAME DATA that Anet should be concerned about and mostly that. How many people are playing, how many are leaving per day, how many are coming back that left, how fast is the population dwindling, How many new players are joining per day? None of us have those figures so to say anything has such an adverse effect on the game on these kinds of forums is rediculous.

There are some things you can notice tho. Like the amount of GvG's played in the top 100 for certain timezones. Or how many people play in the MATs. There are days that there have been 5 or less GvG's played by top 100 guilds in an 16 hours period time. 16 hours which contain all of America's prime time.
So no, we don't have exact numbers about the complete game. But what we do know is that high end PvP outside of Europe is dead. I do know that rawr and dR manage to mask the problem nicely, but it is still there.
Same way you can also get an idea about other areas. Count the amount of district in RA, TA and HA. All three are far less then they were a year ago. I'm sure you can do similar things for the PvE part too. The amount of people playing has declined a lot over the years. You can't argue against that.

the_jos · Jun 13, 2008, 11:52 AM // 11:52

While I agree on most things in Avarre's posting I feel I should say one more thing (no, did not read the previous 24 pages).

The PvE side of the game changed from a game with mainly team achievements (team being either humans or hench) to mainly individual achievements (the HoM titles).
This has a huge impact on how players play the game.
Why do players solo-farm or play the elite areas with Ursan teams?
Because that's the most efficient way to get the gold to achieve the titles.
And this is exactly what A-net seems to support at the moment, with the recent changes of Shadow Form and Mystic Regeneration clearly targeted at farming builds.

From A-net's perspective this is understandable, they made the choice to bridge the time between GW1 and GW2 with the EotN expansion and the HoM to take GW1 achievements to GW2.
Introducing overpowered PvE skills is also not strange, since the 'veteran' players would have a 2+ year advantage over the new players, given that the titles effect GW2 a lot. So most titles should be obtainable in reasonable time, even for new players.
So supporting more efficient ways to obtain gold is not that strange, since most titles are just gold sinks.

The thing that bothers me most is that the game moved from team to individual play.
I don't play a game like guild wars to team up with H&H or solo farm, I play to enjoy playing with others. I know others think different but I can't see why people would want to play an online game as single player game (though GW is/was good enough for that up to a certain point).

Even the elite areas are all about individual play now.
A lot of the players think they are god and act like that.
Not understanding that finishing such an area is team effort and has very little to do with individual achievement. Even when playing UB, when you have an inexperienced team you will fail if you can't play as a team.

Same with players who use hench and heroes, I see a lot of them fail when using heroes because they don't understand how to make a team instead of individually strong builds.

While I still enjoy playing GW it's something I'm concerned about in this bridging period.
I'd like to keep playing but prefer to do that with people who play for fun and not for individual achievement.

Bryant Again · Jun 13, 2008, 12:10 PM // 12:10

Quote:

Originally Posted by Darksun

Of course. My point is that I think things have fluctuated throughout the growth of the game, and this mystical time when GW "died" is another point in the fluctuation, not an end all that made the entirety of GW "unbalanced".

Guild Wars didn't "die", it just got worse. ANet took the latter meat of their game and tossed it over to a crowd that didn't want to think, didn't want to wait, and just in general wanted anything they wanted regardless of game design. I explain a bit more further down.

Quote:

Originally Posted by Darksun

Maybe they learned that all the "balance" that made the game more challenging was contradictory to what the actual majority wanted...

You'll never know what the actual majority wants, mainly for two reasons. The first is that the actual majority is huge and can never give a voice. The second is that they really don't care about what goes on in the game. They don't notice buffs, they don't notices nerfs, they don't notice...well, much. That's why it's not always good to keep the majority player at the front of priorities, but to keep everyone in with the same mind set.

Forums are always tough to listen to, since you're always listening to a minority. But that doesn't mean that feedback should be disregarded nonetheless. You don't have to "read everything with a grain of salt", you just have to pay attention, be careful, and don't be impulsive. Avarre's concerns aren't that "GW is dead", just that reversing on the initial core game design that brought many players to enjoy it is no longer the defining rule and that that is a terribly bad idea.

Balance is always difficult. Whether or not it was a good idea to add as many skills as they did we don't know. But it's hard to understand why they'd want to reverse the "skill > time" principle, the one thing that set it apart from being an MMO, when Guild Wars was doing incredibly well regardless.

Quote:

Originally Posted by Kashrlyyk

3. Guild Wars 3 starts off "good" and stays "good", but the perception of the players change. And instead of letting the game go, they cry a river.

I'd agree if Guild Wars *did* stay the same. It did not, and it changed for the worse.

Quote:

Originally Posted by Red Sonya

SOME players don't like what Anet is doing!

MOST players LIKE WHAT ANET IS DOING!

No, most players don't know, don't care about what ANet is doing. Like I said, they're just enjoying themselves in the game, updates and patches be damned.

Quote:

Originally Posted by the_jos

From A-net's perspective this is understandable, they made the choice to bridge the time between GW1 and GW2 with the EotN expansion and the HoM to take GW1 achievements to GW2.
Introducing overpowered PvE skills is also not strange, since the 'veteran' players would have a 2+ year advantage over the new players, given that the titles effect GW2 a lot. So most titles should be obtainable in reasonable time, even for new players.
So supporting more efficient ways to obtain gold is not that strange, since most titles are just gold sinks.

The only problem is that providing for faster ways to up the titles comes at the cost of challenge and gameplay. I would much rather wish that they just downsize the requirements for titles rather than dumb the game down in entirety (figure of speech).

Lopezus · Jun 13, 2008, 01:01 PM // 13:01

Quote:

But it's hard to understand why they'd want to reverse the "skill > time" principle, the one thing that set it apart from being an MMO, when Guild Wars was doing incredibly well regardless.

but maybe creating challanging but accesible content is harder then you think.
Before PvE skills DoA was a joke in term of balance and skill, you could have all the skills you want with your mesmer and if you made into the team the best you could do was not to be a burden.
And is easy to say: they should have made AI better, closer to how players play in pvp, but who knows even if they succeded in this what impact it would have : like maybe elite areas being challanging and fun to play but it could also caused that just explorring normal areas would became tedious and frustrating for many players. -> another sets of balance issues.

Bryant Again · Jun 13, 2008, 01:07 PM // 13:07

Quote:

Originally Posted by Lopezus

but maybe creating challanging but accesible content is harder then you think.
Before PvE skills DoA was a joke in term of balance and skill, you could have all the skills you want with your mesmer and if you made into the team the best you could do was not to be a burden.

Then fix Mesmers and not sacrifice the entire game?

And regarding making "challenging content accessible", I suggested to make the Normal modes of elite areas easier so they become more possible to complete by inexperienced players. They did this with DoA, making Normal mode so simple that my "newbie" friend was able to come with me with mending on his sin's bar.

Quote:

Originally Posted by Lopezus

And is easy to say: they should have made AI better, closer to how players play in pvp, but who knows even if they succeded in this what impact it would have : like maybe elite areas being challanging and fun to play but it could also caused that just explorring normal areas would became tedious and frustrating for many players. -> another sets of balance issues.

It would be an entirely different game. Whether that challenge could be achieved or not we don't know, since the AI would need to be able to handle all of the variables you could find in a team build.

Either way, neither point excuses reversing on the "skill > time" principle.

@Fenix: That's probably my favorite - Whoa nevermind

zwei2stein · Jun 13, 2008, 01:08 PM // 13:08

Quote:

Originally Posted by Lopezus

but maybe creating challanging but accesible content is harder then you think.
Before PvE skills DoA was a joke in term of balance and skill, you could have all the skills you want with your mesmer and if you made into the team the best you could do was not to be a burden.
And is easy to say: they should have made AI better, closer to how players play in pvp, but who knows even if they succeded in this what impact it would have : like maybe elite areas being challanging and fun to play but it could also caused that just explorring normal areas would became tedious and frustrating for many players. -> another sets of balance issues.

Thats why we had normal mode/storyline/quests set apart from hardmode/elite missions/masters quests.

Players who don't want to get frustrated had cool option of staying in normal mode.

pumpkin pie · Jun 13, 2008, 01:09 PM // 13:09

Yes I've come across players with emote that gets kill by me (mainly PvE players who play lots of AB/RA) in AB :P~, GvG players play in a team, AB players have to "mostly" try to survive on their own since you rarely get monk in your team, theres the different. I am not saying all rank players are bad, but there are bad ones out there with a tiger emote lol, and its true. On some rare occasions, you get kill by "mysterious high damages" or "really fast degen" sometime you can't even get up after they knock you down, the next minute you're dead! that's when you know you've met the really good players who know what they are doing and that they've truly earn their emotes.

RhanoctJocosa · Jun 13, 2008, 01:12 PM // 13:12

I think the problem lies with people who have played the game for numerous years and still think like that ^.

Red Sonya · Jun 13, 2008, 01:12 PM // 13:12

I'm happy with the way things are going and hope they continue to go the same route in GW2. Grind is great, time>skill is great and NO MONTHLY FEE with these principles is great.

Just want to make sure in this "Letter to Anet" that Anet is sure to see that others are enjoying what they have done even though most of us are PLAYING it and not whinning on a forum about it. So for everyone that likes it Anet be sure that 10 others like it as well not the 1's that don't like it singularly.

Bryant Again · Jun 13, 2008, 01:21 PM // 13:21

It's not that "10 others like it", it's that "10 others don't care about it", just like they don't care about *not* including these things. The majority of players aren't farming or maxing titles or using full PvE skills and Ursanway, they're just playing in the middle of the games.

cerb · Jun 13, 2008, 01:23 PM // 13:23

It's funny how SOME people speak, without right, on the behalf of the community, assuming their opinion is that of the majority.

Without bias, the FACTS remain that areas such as Fissure of Woe, Underworld, Deep, Urgoz, Mallyx, all elite areas were designed originally to be tough. And all those areas are now easily accessible to anyone.

Now the PROBLEM is that the sole purpose of having elite areas was to give players an aim, a goal, a direction, "you'll be able to go there eventually". But with ursan and all skill changes, anyone can go there. A new player can skip the whole story, go straight to level 20 and access these areas with ease. Is it really that much of a problem?

YES it is, and that's exactly what Avarre is trying to saying. That makes Guild Wars like any other online game. Seriously, if the sole reason you are playing GW is because you don't have money for WoW, don't even voice your opinion in this thread.

Guild Wars had a unique style, it filled a niche, as said by Avarre. And it's turned like any other game. Why is that? Because it's been listening to the bad part of the community. That part which wants to play WoW, but cannot. That part which in Guild Wars, sees a free WoW. The real, solid, fanbase, that which you must keep and not lose, is those players who bought the game and have stuck to it because of its formerly unique concept, and not the one which keeps asking for changes constantly in order to make it feel more like any MMO.

Lopezus · Jun 13, 2008, 01:30 PM // 13:30

Quote:

Thats why we had normal mode/storyline/quests set apart from hardmode/elite missions/masters quests.

But's that not how the things were/are.

Quote:

Before PvE skills DoA was a joke in term of balance and skill, you could have all the skills you want with your mesmer and if you made into the team the best you could do was not to be a burden.

So it's ok that mesmer class even if player is very skilled with gw is pretty much useless in elite areas and in hard mode ? that's is your balance ? thank you very much.

Quote:

Then fix Mesmers and not sacrifice the entire game?

Once again how ? mesmers were receiving constant nerfs being too strong in pvp.

pumpkin pie · Jun 13, 2008, 01:36 PM // 13:36

cerb, for your information:

I don't use Ursan/pve skills, they just seem confusing to me and i don't like them, the only one I use a lot a while back is nercosis. I already have level 6 (norn) on 2 of my favourite characters, and level 3-5 on 3 others characters, and I've not even enter slaver exile or any elite areas YET, I am enjoying myself "until eventually I get there", my question: how come I can do the "eventually get there" style of play with no problems playing the same game with all the "broken skills" that I choose not to use? I suspect that's the different between people who wishes to enjoy the game and eventually get to the things that they wanted and then there are players who probably do not have as much patient or time as I have, maybe some players just simply wants to feel HURRAY!!!!!! I BEAT THE GAME IN 3 HOURS... so wheres the problem in that? Different styles of play. Currently you can do it the old ways, and you can do it the "Ursan" way. so where's the problem?

Golgotha · Jun 13, 2008, 01:38 PM // 13:38

Quote:

Originally Posted by Bryant Again

No, most players don't know, don't care about what ANet is doing. Like I said, they're just enjoying themselves in the game, updates and patches be damned.

As the way it should be. Its a failure as a developer for a patch or update to be that disruptive to the average player. Would them knowing what Anet is doing chance their perspective? Certainly not. In the end, the minority will moan no matter what they do and the majority of players wouldn't even think of going to the forums unless they were to have a patch that was that heavy handed.

moriz · Jun 13, 2008, 01:47 PM // 13:47

the reason why anet didn't make pve reflect pvp (that is, making mobs using some gvg/ta builds) is because the average player won't be able to beat it, even if the monsters use level 20 and normal attribute spreads.

let's face it, the vast majority of pve'ers won't be able to crack rawr's fortressway build. hell, they can't even crack dR's old split build, which had much less defenses built in. gw AI has already progressed to the point where it can run these builds flawlessly. the only thing it couldn't do is adapt.

maybe anet should add this as a "pvp" mode, on top of hardmode. but using this system in general pve will cause the vast majority of players to fail. whether that's a good thing or not, i'll let you decide.

Bryant Again · Jun 13, 2008, 01:47 PM // 13:47

Quote:

Originally Posted by Lopezus

But's that not how the things were/are.

And how were/are things?

Quote:

Originally Posted by Lopezus

Once again how ? mesmers were receiving constant nerfs being too strong in pvp.

By not thrashing the entire game. I'll be honest, I haven't spent a whole lot of time with the Mesmer class to provide accurate feedback. But I do know that excusing the current atrocities in PvE because of the Mesmer class is the complete wrong way to go.

Quote:

Originally Posted by pumpkin pie

my question: how come I can do the "eventually get there" style of play with no problems playing the same game?

Not everyone sees the problems in the same light. Different players, different needs, different perspectives.

Quote:

Originally Posted by pumpkin pie

Different styles of play. Currently you can do it the old ways, and you can do it the "Ursan" way. so where's the problem?

Why's this sound a bit like "don't like it don't use it"? But to answer anyways: Part of the problem is that it's ANet catering towards a minority of people who want things from the game that go completely opposite of what made Guild Wars unique in the process.

Quote:

Originally Posted by Golgotha

As the way it should be. Its a failure as a developer for a patch or update to be that disruptive to the average player. Would them knowing what Anet is doing chance their perspective? Certainly not. In the end, the minority will moan no matter what they do and the majority of players wouldn't even think of going to the forums unless they were to have a patch that was that heavy handed.

Then it comes down to which "minority" you, as a dev, are going to head to for feedback: the one that speaks more on the behalf of the game, or the one that speaks more on behalf of themselves? The one that admires Guild Wars' unique aspects, or the one that wants another MMO but without the monthly fees?

Quote:

Originally Posted by moriz

maybe anet should add this as a "pvp" mode, on top of hardmode. but using this system in general pve will cause the vast majority of players to fail. whether that's a good thing or not, i'll let you decide.

Create Ludicrous Mode: You cannot use PvE skills or consumables.

DarkNecrid · Jun 13, 2008, 01:48 PM // 13:48

Quote:

Originally Posted by Golgotha

As the way it should be. Its a failure as a developer for a patch or update to be that disruptive to the average player. Would them knowing what Anet is doing chance their perspective? Certainly not. In the end, the minority will moan no matter what they do and the majority of players wouldn't even think of going to the forums unless they were to have a patch that was that heavy handed.

yeah, I sure know being uneducated about what your producer is doing is sure how I like to be in real life, that gets me everywhere as a consumer.

No.

Being uneducated about the people you are giving money to, is never a good idea.

Jetdoc · Jun 13, 2008, 01:52 PM // 13:52

Quote:

Originally Posted by Red Sonya

SOME players don't like what Anet is doing!

MOST players LIKE WHAT ANET IS DOING!

None of us have those figures so to say anything has such an adverse effect on the game on these kinds of forums is rediculous.

The reason with Airtsu's statement is true and yours is unsubstantiated is based on the last statement you made above. Surmising that the majority of the playerbase enjoys the overpowered skills is just as faulty as those who state that a majority of the playerbase does not like the overpowered skills.

Since we unfortunately do not have access to that type of information (and I find it highly unlikely that A-Net does as well), all we can do is put forth our own opinions and let A-Net's developers (if they are getting the feedback via Regina) evaluate whether their design decisions are "good for the game" or not.

Dismissing forum opinions simply because "well, we ain't be knowin' whether everyone feels that way" is flawed logic, since none of us know whether those opinions are widely held or not.

Lopezus · Jun 13, 2008, 02:07 PM // 14:07

Quote:

But I do know that excusing the current atrocities in PvE because of the Mesmer class is the complete wrong way to go.

form your perspective it probably is, but for ANet it probably it isn't, thay don't consider pve skills as atrocieities but as patch up issues to unbalancend content .

Quote:

Create Ludicrous Mode: You cannot use PvE skills or consumables.

personally i wouldnt mind but it will be just reverting to pre pve skils/EoTN state where you can be masterfully skilled mesmer and your presence in some end game content (DoA) would be practicly not possible. So it won't be going back to skill>time period of gw.

Golgotha · Jun 13, 2008, 02:10 PM // 14:10

Quote:

Originally Posted by Bryant Again

Then it comes down to which "minority" you, as a dev, are going to head to for feedback: the one that speaks more on the behalf of the game, or the one that speaks more on behalf of themselves? The one that admires Guild Wars' unique aspects, or the one that wants another MMO but without the monthly fees?

You somehow believe that a game should be more than just for enjoyment. If speaking on behalf of themselves so they can enjoy said game, which itself is making the game fun to them, how is that not speaking on behalf of the game in their eyes? Making the game more fun is what everyone should be aiming for. The problem? What you and a few others find fun isn't what the majority of players find fun. The needs of many... You can paint it anyway you want in your head, but at the end of the day, its just two people with different opinions and only one of these groups run around with an elitist attitude attempting to put down people with an opposing viewpoint.

Quote:

Originally Posted by DarkNecrid

yeah, I sure know being uneducated about what your producer is doing is sure how I like to be in real life, that gets me everywhere as a consumer.

No.

Being uneducated about the people you are giving money to, is never a good idea.

Really? They provide a service which you pay for. If you're happy about the service, end of transaction. If you want to play politics, go right ahead but don't be surprised when most people don't care.