Curse

the_jos · Feb 01, 2007, 10:57 PM // 22:57

Reading the OP I know he wants PvP answers, but I only PvE at the moment.

So my opinions on PvE:

Average skill level depends on time of day and players I play with.
When I play during the day in the weekend, I sometimes feel frustrated by the lack of understanding of the missions/enemies other players have.
Like a 4D/2P group that wanted to invite me (monk) at Gate of Madness mission. Or people at Grand Court of Sebelkeh killing everything and not having a clue how to capture the portals (we finished in 31 minutes).

When I play late at night, it's usually easier to progress.
And with my guild we did some 3 / 4 player farmings (faster and less lonely) which went very fast. Did only a couple of missions with some of them, even easier than above average PuG.

On average, the PuG's i've met seem to have improved over the last year.

I rate myself around average for Ranger and Necro.
Ranger has one exception, that's interrupt build. I am above average on that one.
My monk slightly above average.
My mesmer above average.

The reason:
I know my enemies and how to encounter them.
I've learned the professions and studied the various skills and how they affect the enemy or own team. I know the casting times and when they will cast the one I want to interrupt. Or the ones I should be prepared to counter as a monk.

I don't think there is a real problem.
I have dedicated quite some time to the game and don't expect others to do the same.
Besides playing the game I spend time reading this forum and doing some investigating on wiki.
Mostly check on skills I don't have unlocked and want to know stats of without obtaining them (that's 1000g / skill on most characters, i'd rather spend that on something else).
That would add about 1/3 of time on top of 1200 hours/year playing GW.

I don't think the new professions are too easy to play.
When I got guildwars, most people started warriors as first profession.
I thought that was the easy profession, so I started Necro (specialised in curses and blood).
I managed to finish Prophecies faster with my warrior than with any other character, so it's probably the easiest character indeed.
But when I see some guild mates using their warriors, I know I could have learned a lot more and the W can be more complicated.
When I compare that experience to my Dervish and Paragon, I'd say the D is on the same level as the Warrior.
Easy to learn, hard to master.
I still have to learn the Paragon. He's ok, but I just can't find a decent skillset for a non spear-powered P.
Perhaps I can make the full skillset when I get to Realm of Torment, but now the builds on my hero P's are just not that good.
The skills don't give the advantage the skills of an other hero I know better would give.

Earlier there were the Sin and Rit.
I liked the sin, but many teams could not handle the solo-caster killer I ran.
Sins require good team coordination, which the average PuG did not have at that time. Also the way hench worked (switching targets when you did) was not helping to get the right way of thinking.
Rit is easy and was somewhat overpowered (like the non-nerfed Rit Lord build).
I only have the Factions skills, so I don't know how my rit would perform with the new NF ones.

The only opinion I have on PvP is based on RA.
I noticed that's harder because you don't know what you'll encounter.
When you use a generic build, you could be dealing not enough damage.
If you use a specialised build, you could be facing the wrong type of enemies.
I think I would be a very below average PvP player, but will work up to average in some time (I know my skills and weaknesses).
I just like PvE too much to dedicate time to PvP.

creelie · Feb 02, 2007, 01:37 AM // 01:37

I'm pretty much exclusively PvE.

Where do you think the average skill level in Guild Wars is right now?
An average doesn't tell you much. Newbie islands are full of newbies, and difficult missions are bottlenecks for tards, and elite areas are full of twitchy neurotics pushing the limits of the game mechanics. In general I find PUGs to be more competent than AI, and I find the frequency of total idiots to be less than in the past.

Do you think this is a good or bad thing for the game?
Good! Complete idiots are the players that can ruin your fun. Crazy diamonds have always been a precious commodity.

Why do you think it's at the level it's at?
Most of the players I meet have played through all of the campaigns multiple times. Even the dimmest eventually pick up basic competence.

How do you think you rate personally in relation to the average player?
As a monk, particularly a twitch healer, excellent. I make an entirely average necro and barrager, and I'm a newbie to paragon.

How would you remedy the problem (if you think there is one)?
Honestly I think in PvE the biggest problem is population. I hero/hench my way through the vast majority of quests, and some of the missions, not so much to avoid PUGs as to avoid waiting to form a PUG. (I'm still shopping for an active guild.)

Have we begun to reach the upper level for the amount of skills the game is capable of working with?
There's a lot of repetition. Some skills are powerful enough that a team has to specialize to counter them.

Are new professions too easy to play?
Not at all. Rits, sins, and dervishes all require some finesse to play well, and while my paragon is still a noobcake I can tell that at the upper levels she's going to feel a lot like a speedy rit.

shadowmist · Feb 02, 2007, 08:00 AM // 08:00

Where do you think the average skill level in Guild Wars is right now?
Hmm, most players I've run into are either good enough that I won't notice them doing anything good or bad, or horrible enough that I'll notice and get annoyed. Since I get on average, 1-2 bad players per pug, I'll be nice and say in a 8 man group 1 player is bad, 1 is new, 2 are average, and 2 are good.

Do you think this is a good or bad thing for the game?
I think this is a good thing, as it means most players aren't idiots. And since there's usually a bad player in the group, the new players can see what not to do.

Why do you think it's at the level it's at?
Well, guild wars has been around for a while now. If there really were a lot of bad players, it would mean information isn't really getting out about GW. So I'll be optimistic and say this is a good thing.

How do you think you rate personally in relation to the average player?
Actually, I'd like to say I'm fairly pro at PvE. I play all the classes, and know most of the tricks you can do with them. I'm versatile and can switch builds easily. I learn new builds in a few minutes, the harder ones taking possibly a few more, mostly cause I have most (if not all) the skills memorized and have tested them before. I keep up with GW news and usually know more about the game than players in my groups.

On the other hand, I'm only average at PvP. Sure, I won't make stupid mistakes and I know how to do stuff like split team. But compared to a serious PvP player, I can't really compare. Doesn't mean I won't make them work for it though ^_^

How would you remedy the problem (if you think there is one)?
Actually I'm seeing a lack of players in the missions around the middle of the PvE storylines. It's fairly annoying, especially the first time I played the game through. I like pugs, despite all the problems, and even if heroes and henchies are easier, it's less fun. Like the mission where you kill varesh (ruins of morah?) It's so easy to do it with heroes/henchies. But I find it more fun with more players. Missions like Vizunah Square are fun too, but you'll find more often than not that the other side is filled with just computers.

I don't really think there's a solution to this. You could rush through the game with all your characters in the beginnig, I suppose, but I'm sure most of us don't want to spend the time, or effort to do so that quickly.

Have we begun to reach the upper level for the amount of skills the game is capable of working with?
Actually, I think we could use more skills. Some of the skills in GW right now, are just waiting for other similiar skills to appear that will compliment them. I've played TCG games for quite a while, and I know I'm always happy to have new tools to work with. It spices up the game, and keepts it fresh.

Are new professions too easy to play?
Hmm, I actually find all the classes easy in PvE. But in terms of a new player coming in and picking them up, I'd say some classes are harder than others.

Assassins would most likely be played poorly, as shadowstepping is almost entirely exclusive to them (Ride the Lightning, whil technically not shadowstepping, functions the same way) New players will find the style at odds with the basic melee warrior stereotype, and will most likely make suicide runs.

Ritualists would be confusing, as they can do a lot, but not in any traditional way. New players would find themselves discouraged as they won't be dealing high damage, and setting up spirits can be a bit boring at times. Nothing really hard about them, but nothing awesome to attract new players.

Dervishes are a cinch. Heck, I could've played through NF with the same basic build I used in the beginning if I wanted to. Though they have the same armor as Assassin, they have access to more defensive skills than Assassin. This, combined with the fact they don't need to bring skills for attack chains, makes them VERY easy to play.

Paragons aren't hard. But they're not easy either. For a new player coming in, they'd probably find a paragon a nice middleground character. A nice balanced profession, that excels in group enviroments.

Longasc · Feb 02, 2007, 09:16 AM // 09:16

Where do you think the average skill level in Guild Wars is right now?
Most players have builds worse than henchmen. They also have less coordination and teamwork than henchmen.

I think the reason for this is that ANet makes huge areas of the game C-Space-able. Nothing required to progress till the very last missions.

By making it too easy for people, they become even worse players. A vicious circle.

I rate myself as a very good PvE player, having one of each primary profession played through all chapters (still working on NF) and having done almost "everything" with heroes and henchies alone. Except DoA.

Vital · Feb 02, 2007, 10:41 AM // 10:41

Let me just give an example of the skill level in PvE.

I come into the Gates Of Madness and want to try to form a party with reall people. I have already beat GoM with 4 chars, all with pure Hero/Hench teams, 2 with Bonus.

So I get into a group and its the saddest bunch of noobs in the friggin game. I give some pointers and say lets give it a go. We go in, die. I say "I really don't want to lose faith in pugs", lets try again...with more pointers. We go in, wipe...I hard rez everyone and some noob runs directly into two mobs and we wipe again.

I say "I have to eat". I go eat and come back and beat it easily with my Heroes and Hench.

In the GoA Elite I wont even consider a pug, nor will anyone that I run with to make serious time on multiple area runs.

Most people have very little knowledege of the finer points of making GW easy as all hell. But some PvE ppl are Genius in the crazy stuff they come up with to beat missions and farm, so props there.

In PvP, I give most people a decent grade, but then again I play with or agaisnt very good players. I give idiots in RA an "F-".

Xeeron · Feb 02, 2007, 02:01 PM // 14:01

Quote:

One thing I hate is when I monk and my partner is a hero monk someone else is controlling and they pick the worst possible monk bar I've ever seen. I cry at that point.

I might be one of the few PvE people who likes monking for PuG (more of a challenge), but if we have to take a Hero monk, I insist on it being mine. Why use someone else's hero if we can use mine, which has a skill bar perfectly addapted to my own one?

Quote:

How do you think you rate personally in relation to the average player?
A few standard deviations above the mean.

Haha. Very nice hidden way of proclaiming yourself to be super l33t ;-)

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Standard_deviation#Rules_for_normally_distributed_ data

- Xeeron

Asplode · Feb 06, 2007, 09:02 PM // 21:02

I really think this topic deserves a bump, GW is being tardified and something must be done about it! <_<

Crom The Pale · Feb 06, 2007, 10:09 PM // 22:09

I don't think the skill lvl of people is really as big an issue as the intent of the majority of players.

Let me explain.

Most people, when prophicies first came out, were totaly into the game and pushed as hard and as fast as they could. Some took there time to do every quest, explore every map and fight every monster.

As of today there are possibly 75-90% of players that have beaten 2 or 3 campains. These people are still playing but not with the same drive that they used to have. So they log in to have a little fun, maybe 1-2hours max. They put together a standard build, or something creative that may work or fail, then they do a quest or mission either that they enjoyed in the past or that there char needs to advance. Or they go to Random Arena.

At this point they split into two catagories: 1) Those that expect to win, regardless of others skill lvl
2) Those that do not care if they win or lose, they just want to have fun/kill time.

When these two groups mix, you get trouble every time.

The only means of fixing this problem is to talk to people, let them know if your out for fun or blood!

In the end though every team will have somebody that cares less than you and somebody that cares more than you about it. If your not prepared for the possibility then it can be extremely frustrating. However as long as all in the party are on the same page, it can be a ton of fun!

Some of the most fun I've had playing was with my guild all using totaly bad builds and dieing in the most brutaly total team whipe possible!