Curse

Xeeron · Jan 25, 2007, 05:45 PM // 17:45

First off, yes I am a beta players (since E34E), but I dont like the restriction you place on posters. All of the points you speak about can be reasonably commented on by players who joined in the first months of prophecies as well.

PVE vs PvP - Who Wins?

The battle between PvP and PvE is a constant (annoying) theme here on the forums. Am I really the only person who splits his time almost 50/50 between the two? The only one who can enjoy getting a protector title just as much as winning a guild battle? Sometimes I get that feeling when reading posts here...

Comming to the point of balance changes for PvP, I have to back up ANets developers. Balance affects PvP alot, while it affects PvE almost not at all. So one farming build is nerfed ... 2 days later the next one is all the rage. I still remember the first "elite" area, which was supposed to be tough for 8 person teams was farmed by 2 or 1 person teams and you had trouble finding a full team in TotA. Or how the new elite areas of factions developed "standard" builds which required so little actual effort that you could browse the web while playing if you wanted (Hp, Hp, Hp, ... move, Hp, Hp, Hp anyone?)

Humans will always be more clever than the AI, therefore they will always find a way around nerfs of certain skills. Unless an area is found which is truely unbeatable, the argument that skill balances should be catering to PvE seems to miss the point.

The Fellowship is Broken

Your best point. There are definitely less player groups around. But honestly do you want or need them for the early Istan missions? These are at best at tutorial level in terms of their difficulty. At least once you reach Vabbi, you will notice that the majority of mission groups is human, not hero/hench.

So shrug off the first few missions and look again later. The harder the missions get, the more people split: The elitist few, who do every single mission with their henchs/heroes and the rest who return to human groups. And tbh, I didnt like playing with the first group anyway.

For the love of Money

You are contradicting yourself here. You want to have something special: "I earned it, and i was proud to wear it. Everyone I met commented on it." But you hate high prices for items? If something is rare, it will get a high price. The only way to make its price drop is to make it less rare. As long as people try to distinguish themselves by wearing better armor than others, they will always be caught in a rat-race trying to better others who are trying to do the same.

Farmer Joe

See above: You say you "spent hours upon hours creating the perfect weapon" and how proud you were when buying your first 15k armor. Guess what: Everyone wants that feeling. How do you get there? Farming yourself ... or Ebay. Like in EVERY economic system there will always be people who try to cheat their way to riches. You can combat them, but you can't stop them trying.

Deja Vu!

I am with you almost 100% here. Tyria lent itself to exploration and travelling, Cantha was boring and ugly. Nightfall is better, but suffers from to much desert. Why do all mid-high level areas have to be barren wastelands?? I hate being in those places, why do I need to spend most of my playing time in something as ugly as the desolation or the realm of torment, when I would much rather explore the beauties of Istan. Come on designers come up with a villian living in a gorgeous landscape for once.

- Xeeron

Crom The Pale · Jan 25, 2007, 06:45 PM // 18:45

There is one fundamental problem that Anet can do nothing about, the learning curve.

What I mean by this is that for long time players there is not a huge amount of learning required in each chapter. Yes there are new skills and new monsters. But the way you tackle them won't change a great deal from your last mission in Prophicies.

This lack of time needed to learn has made many older players a little jaded when it comes to new areas.

We don't all remember that it took us 3 attempts to beat thunderhead peak mission or the dozen of times for getting the bonus on dunes of despair....

We've come to expect - start mission - complete mission - if I want bonus I got bonus.

We have become very critical of mistakes other players make and have little room for people who wish to test a build or idea.

Efficency has become key to most people when making a team, they have little room for a build that may be fun but does not work as 'well' as the accepted cookie cutter builds that are posted on the forums.

End game content tends to be more frustrating than fun for the new chapters. Sorrows furnace was the best and still is the best end game content they ever added. It has repeatable quests, reasonable difficulty, farmable items and is lots of fun to do with other people.

IMHO the greatest mistake in the two new chapters is the denial of exploration. Putting up walls, unopenable doors ect... that require a quest or mission or tittle to progress is just annoying. Most of the hard core players will do the missions at least once, but forcing us to do them add nasuim for every char we have( i've got 9) is just mean and short sited.

I do understand that running is the reason they made exploration impossible in the two new chapters. But there were much better ways of dealing with runners that what they choose.

For example one thing they should have done a long time ago was move the armor in Forge to the Dragons lair, that would end most forge runs quickly and easily. They could have moved the 15k armor to the ring of fire islands to stop those runs as well, putting some quests in the grotto/citadel to make up for it.

A big part of a role playing game is the ability to control the corse your character takes. Forcing us to do missions in the order you want is a bad move. If we choose to follow the story we will follow the correct order, but we want it to be our choice, not forced upon us!

I hope that in chapter 4 there is more interaction between new players and old. In NF by the time new players reach the mainland theve spent many hours lvl up heros and have little interaction with people, so the vets tend to look for other vets because they want to move on as fast as possible.

wynoski · Jan 25, 2007, 06:46 PM // 18:46

I'm a short timer, but a consistent player (2-4 hoursa night)

This is how i see it...Back in 1989 I heard of this band called the Barenaked ladies. I bought there CD, gave copies to my friends went to concerts and talked them....I was in on the ground floor and I found something new...I loved them and I wanted everyone to hear about it...

This continued through the Alboms Maybe you should drive and Born on a Pirate ship. In 1995 the Barenaked ladies came to Indiana to play at my student center. I was in the third row with all my firends so excited about what my favorite band had accomplished...

Fast forward to 1998 and they have a radio hit "one week" that I hear over an over. Now everyone likes them. They play the winter olympics. My frines 12 year old daughter loves them. I see them in concert with my eventual wife...they play only new songs..nothing from the old albums...they play for 45 min...what a gyp...they are my band...I have been by their side from the beginning...they owe me more.

Fast forward to today...a friend told me that the Barenaked ladies have a new album out...I could care less...they have changed so much...they are a gimmick. they for got who their fans are...i've moved on...

Does this sound familiar?

All GW is doing is going where the money goes. For every hard core gamer that takes screen shots and just explores, there are three mindless noobs that jsut want to be "run through NF so I can get Primeval armor."

I like this game because I don't want to pay monthly and for the time I put in (over 800 hours since July 2006) it is a very cheap, fulfilling pway to entertain myself. I will buy each chapter, play it according to the way that A-net concocts and be happy..why? cuz its better than watching Grey's anatomy or playing something else I have beaten 40 times.

I understand your exasperation...you were on the vanguard...you were involved with something new...now you are the equivalent of the 30 year old at the rock show surrounded by 12 years olds...its hard man, but understand this you are not A-nets #1 priority...they care about selling copies and dominating the industry first. The 12 year olds on the floor buy what ever they sell...so sometimes A-net will cater to the lowest common denominator.

You have 2 choices...you can do what i did with the barenaked ladies and walk away, or you can evolve as nature intended and look at each new chapter and change as a challenge. Also, you can pull out those old CDs and relive the memories...speaking of which...maybe its time to hit Amazon and give my old favorites a try..what's that new song called again?