Curse

Juhanah · Jun 09, 2005, 03:09 PM // 15:09

Actualy i think they are very fast to fix things. Some game take 2 years before fixing a major bug.
The two last update are massive compared to update in other games. Some game such as Ragnarok Online even go down every week for maintenance and they get update only every 2~3 months. Most of the time their update cause more bugs than it fix because they need to translate them from korean to english and they don't really seem to understand their own Data file structure. Gravity clearly stated that they would never take suggestion from players.

Arenanet on the other side implent suggestion in a matter of week if not less. I remember when people sugested to make cape for guild emblem. They made it the same day as the suggestion came.
When you send them an email for support or bug report, they answer you in 2~3 days(in your language).. in other game it take about 3 month to receive an automated answer that don't help you at all.

They cannot take all the suggestions. They cannot implent them all very fast. They have to study the impact that it would cause on the game and what would be the best idea to fix a problem and minimize other problem it may cause. They have to think about the up and down of a new feature. They cannot just throw in all suggestions.. it would make the crappiest game ever.

There's no game in the world that is 100% what you want. Even if you made that game, you would always want to change something. And if you have 500,000 person who play that game, you would always have the half of them not happy with what you changed.

The only time i was disapointed with GuildWars is when i had to wait 1 month between each first weekend of the month to play the game again during Beta Weekend Event

Saerden · Jun 09, 2005, 03:19 PM // 15:19

Quote:

Originally Posted by Niare

Just another reply, I feel that people got spoiled from the various BWEs that ANet put out. Maybe they should have done closed beta testing instead, and not let everyone who reserved a copy of the game help test it? Honestly..god forbid you buy a game to -play- it..

Sigh

The betas where for testing! To find out what people consider fun and entertaining. And then to remove it after release. Else it would have been a game. That you play.

sigh, how comes that people dont actually want to <<gasp>> play the game?

***
Really funny to see that the pvp crowd is accused of actually having fun in a game

Whats even more funny? GW had a beta that is considered to be better then almost every single MMO out there, even after 4 years of patching. And they still managed to have a disastrous launch / flamefest

asdar · Jun 09, 2005, 03:41 PM // 15:41

Yup, a disastrous launch. /sarcasm

Number one in every country they launched for PC games, no crashes at all, very very few bugs comparitively, 1 hour downtime for a server update.

I'd like to see more disasters like this out there.

sama · Jun 09, 2005, 03:44 PM // 15:44

There were definitely some good updates and bad updates in the sense of more or less grind yesterday. But at least some action has been taken...even though it took 6 weeks to do so. I'm not going to argue that 6 weeks is too slow or just right, but I'm happy to see some changes finally and hope they continue to work in the right direction.

My guild spent a lot of time yesterday trying to figure out if there were any changes to the rune drops. What we found, and strongly believe to be true, is that the rune drop rates were not changed. However, what was changed are number of monster spawns, location of monster spawns, and types of monster spawns. For example, now you have to run past a pack of tengus to get to the ettins. Tengus, as many of you know, are quite annoying for solo farmers because of their enchantment removals. In Sanctum Cay, there's less Hill Giants, so less drops, but same drop rate. They also made it so that not every monster has a drop. There's a little quest with eight ettins that use to have all eight ettings drop something. Now, only four of the ettins drop anything.

Personally, I don't think Anet did this to increase Grind, but instead to cut down on people using macros for farming and people selling runes on Ebay. I'm sure they must have considered the side effects, but decided to go through with it anyways. My solution would be to make runes so easy to find that it wouldn't be worth selling on ebay and making macros. (Read articles on DVD Piracy solutions for analogies.) Either that or take them out completely. I'm very much for level playing fields where skill > time spent. The rune trader will help, but not in the long run. I only use PVP chars for pvp, so I would hate to buy a new rune whenever I'm using a new build or just testing a new build.

FireOfHell · Jun 09, 2005, 03:44 PM // 15:44

Specifically... THEY NERFED THE GIANTS AT SANCTUM (or rather made it harder to get there and then kill them)

Moskel · Jun 09, 2005, 03:46 PM // 15:46

If you want a game where you have to spend 1,000,000,000 hours to be "UBER" so you can win this is not the game for you. If you like "fishing" as somebody called it there are plenty of MMOs and other games out there that encourage this to no end.

I went and "farmed" some last night to see and well where I go the drops were fine and nothing I couldn't still handle solo (my farming build is pure Warrior, don't use my secondary at all so its no special super trick build) I pulled 5 purple and 2 gold armor drops in maybe an hour (I was also bouncing to the rune trader all the time to see what the prices were doing so I could unload my inventory full when they finally got up to a reasonable price).

The PvP here is dramatically different than CS or UT. This is like Chess those games are like Darts. Here you have to plan and execute on that plan while adapting it based on what your opponents do to you. In CS or UT you have to fire your gun and aim it like throwing a Dart. If you're the best at aiming and can react fast (think combat Darts where you throw them at each other) you win every time. If you suck at aiming and react like a troglodyte but know how to use the Internet then you can download your favorite bot and still win every time. Maybe I'm just old now but I prefer a good game of Chess over a game of Darts any day of the week.

The rune trader is a wonderful addition, this gives the PvP players a way to buy runes and use them if they don't reroll their PvP characters all the time (which with 4 slots if they are all dedicated to PvP they shouldn't have to). They can sell Sigils to make gold to buy the runes. It would be nice to see each player on a team get paid for winning the rounds to go along with the fame, perhaps 50g per round victory for 1 v 1 maps, 100g for 3 team and 200g for 6 team maps.

It would also be nice to see a skill trader at the HoH that sold skills for fame, as with the skill trainers have the cost go up over time. Maybe something like 1 fame per skill for first 4 and then go up 1 fame per 4 after that, so to unlock 80 skills (which would let them make a good number of builds) you're looking at 840 fame. To unlock all 600 skills you're talking 45,300 fame (I've heard of a couple of people having 6,000+ fame already? Maybe this would need to taper off some as it scaled up?)

In the PvE aspect of all games for some reason many people want to use the equation of TIME + LUCK = SKILL. I'm really glad to see a game that breaks that mold because that equation is inherently wrong (use a dictionary and see if you can figure out how to make it add up). I like the fact that a Minor Rune of Vigor is 30h and a Superior is only 50h, does the 20 extra help? Sure it does. Does it guarentee victory? By no means. Can it almost completley be negated by Fertile Season? You bet it can (when you have 1120 health vs 1100 health the difference means a lot less).

What makes this game good? A nice PvE story to get you pulled in, teach you the game and give you plenty of things to do for a long while. What will make this game last? The near infinite combination of 8 player teams that can be created (look at the math of 150 choose 8 just to see how many different combination of skills a player can use, then imagine attrib points, weapons, and then all of the possible 8 man teams, you end up approaching infinity) to battle against somebody else that has done the same. Will there be a FOTM that you run into "most of the time"? Always, because most people are sheep. Will the sheep cry when somebody disrupts their flock? You bet (see other threads for examples of this such as 5E/3Mo teams crying about 4R/4X spirit teams) because they don't want to think they just want to play and win. If you just want to play and win go to CS or UT or somewhere that doesn't present near infinite possiblities so your FOTM will never change.

[sarcasm]
And in fine forum trolling fashion I'll now state that I've spent 1,03004034,000 hours playing the game and that makes my opinion so much better than anyone elses. Sort of like killing 13,4,3,4,3,0100 Hill Giants makes me have more skill too. Ugh.
[/sarcasm]

FireOfHell · Jun 09, 2005, 03:51 PM // 15:51

Oh I just think that people are mad they cant make 100k in one hour now...

none · Jun 09, 2005, 03:57 PM // 15:57

Just to add my 2 cents: I love the newest update. I've been playing since day one, and I've been playing alot (played through the game twice and almost ascended a third char) - yes, I've been doing some farming, yes I've been doing some grinding. Still, I think those new changes are great, and I'm looking forward to next week. As long as PvE (that's my focus) stays fun, I don't care if they adjust loot/spawn balance in order to make the game more fun for everyone.

I have a certain feeling though that some ppl, those that are called grinders, have a fear of losing their position. They have all the ph4t runes, they have all the items and money. It can be fun to grind, not because it's fun to do the same thing over and over again, but because some ppl love just being better, having more things, the love showing off. They feel they have a right to have more - much more - than everyone else. I hardly doubt anyone can really claim that doing the same thing over and over again is fun for them. If so, I'm sure ANet won't change their game experience, because you will always be able to do the same thing, you just won't get incredibly rich through it. Too bad. I know that I enjoy being 'better' than others. I love to have things others don't (I spent roughly 100k counting materials and dyes for each of my chars' citadel-armors). But I won't go as far as to call it a 'nerf' if everyone else is able to get the same things I have, easier and faster. I had my fun with them, I know I had them earlier, I know I had alot of fun gathering materials and money to get them. It still isn't easy to get everything you need for high-lvl-armor, so it is still an achievement and something to be proud of (you still have all the right in the world to feel special if you managed to get an armor from the citadel and dyed and tweaked (runes) it the way you want it to be).

In the end, everything will be the same, just more reasonable for casual players. More time to develop real skill in playing, rather than in repeating the same thing over and over again.

Too sum it all up: ANet is doing a great job, period.

Shadow_Avenger · Jun 09, 2005, 04:03 PM // 16:03

Quote:

Originally Posted by Saerden

Sigh

The betas where for testing! To find out what people consider fun and entertaining. And then to remove it after release. Else it would have been a game. That you play.

sigh, how comes that people dont actually want to <<gasp>> play the game?

***
Really funny to see that the pvp crowd is accused of actually having fun in a game

Whats even more funny? GW had a beta that is considered to be better then almost every single MMO out there, even after 4 years of patching. And they still managed to have a disastrous launch / flamefest

Hmm I always though BETA events where to test for bugs, server stress test, last min skill balancing. Nothing to do with finding out what people wanted. Basically at that stage they have already design the game and already know how it is going to be released. The infamous Uas, well how else are they to actually test all the 375 skills available? The only ran Beta weekends, most MMORPG's run beta's for months continously.
It is the alpha stages that the majority of gameplay descisions are made, and these are behind closed doors, and the Alpha testers are often proffessional games testers / bug finders.
The actual Beta weekenders actual are the culprits behind the majority of Flame posts.

Saerden · Jun 09, 2005, 05:09 PM // 17:09

Quote:

Originally Posted by Shadow_Avenger

Hmm I always though BETA events where to test for bugs, server stress test, last min skill balancing. Nothing to do with finding out what people wanted. Basically at that stage they have already design the game and already know how it is going to be released. The infamous Uas, well how else are they to actually test all the 375 skills available? The only ran Beta weekends, most MMORPG's run beta's for months continously.
It is the alpha stages that the majority of gameplay descisions are made, and these are behind closed doors, and the Alpha testers are often proffessional games testers / bug finders.
The actual Beta weekenders actual are the culprits behind the majority of Flame posts.

I dont care what UAS was for. If a janitor programmed it while the devs where asleep, to have access to everything because he is looser who wants everything handed to him and does not want to put time and effort to "earn" it... Fire the devs and make this janitor lead designer.
Fun >> all

Rasp · Jun 09, 2005, 05:22 PM // 17:22

Quote:

Originally Posted by http://guildwars.com/gameinfo/default.html

Built for Competition

If you like Player-versus-Player competition, Guild Wars was made for you. In addition to building up a character by undergoing missions and quests, you can choose to create a character specifically for head-to-head PvP competition or guild warfare. The game is designed to reward player skill and teamwork, not time spent playing, so you won't need to spend hundreds of hours leveling up your character to compete.

The game includes integrated support for guilds, with the ability to create unique guild emblems, to acquire guild halls, and to keep in touch through in-game guild messaging. Guilds can challenge other guilds to battle, compete for control of key parts of the world, and be ranked on a worldwide ladder.

Please everyone shut up about the game being too easy. That quote is from the Guild Wars site.

Keesa · Jun 09, 2005, 05:33 PM // 17:33

Juhanah, you rock.

dansamy · Jun 09, 2005, 05:45 PM // 17:45

Quote:

Originally Posted by Diplo

So, let me get this right... The patch has at once taken all challenge out of the game in order to appease n00bs and, at the same time, it is has also made the game far too difficult for new players. I'm confused

The patch only "lessened the grind" for the pure PvPers. It screwed over the PvEers. I had just gotten to the point where I had the skills necessary to farm. I was not farming to sell to some website or on eBay or to gouge other players in Lion's Arch. As a matter of fact, I suck at selling. So I don't do it. Nor do I buy. If I can't find it myself, I don't use it. That's not because I'm a purist. It's because it's a pain in th @$$ to buy/sell from/to other players. I'd like prettier armor........

And yes, PvE players buying this game a month from now are screwed. The monsters have higher difficulty with lower rewards. You tell me how that makes for "fun, compelling PvE content".

NilePenguin · Jun 09, 2005, 05:45 PM // 17:45

I got three golden thingies in a single hour after this patch, while I got only one in the 130 hours before. I doubt they've nerfed anything like that.

bladerunner007 · Jun 09, 2005, 06:14 PM // 18:14

Quote:

Originally Posted by dansamy

And yes, PvE players buying this game a month from now are screwed. The monsters have higher difficulty with lower rewards. You tell me how that makes for "fun, compelling PvE content".

I concur.

They also screwed up players who put a lot of hours to capture elite skills. Now its easy for everybody to get all of them.

I played through whole game without getting a single superior rune. And they lowered drop rates even further.

PvP is getting old pretty fast. I mean you're fighting to get a stupid sigil

Saerden · Jun 09, 2005, 06:34 PM // 18:34

Quote:

Originally Posted by bladerunner007

I concur.

They also screwed up players who put a lot of hours to capture elite skills. Now its easy for everybody to get all of them.

I played through whole game without getting a single superior rune. And they lowered drop rates even further.

PvP is getting old pretty fast. I mean you're fighting to get a stupid sigil

The point of this game was that you can have everything fast (have you reached lvl 99 yet?). If you think that your work is no longer worth anything, then your "fun factor" capturing the elite wasnt at all based on how difficult it was. Unless AN travells back in time, capturing the elite still WAS difficult. If you want something that NOONE in this game has, go for the top spot on the ladder.

dansamy · Jun 09, 2005, 06:36 PM // 18:36

Quote:

Originally Posted by bladerunner007

I played through whole game without getting a single superior rune. And they lowered drop rates even further.

You and me both. I have yet to see a superior rune unlocked on my account, even with the small amount of farming I did before this patch. I cannot take a character into the tombs for 2 reasons: 1) I don't have the runes unlocked and 2)I don't have the gold necessary to buy them. Now, Anet puts another wrench into that by making it impossible for me to farm for gold or runes. All this did was screw the later arrivals. Those of you who have been playing since beta had access to what you needed, got in on farming early, amassed the gold you needed and unlocked a large percentage of the unlockables.

Chev of Hardass · Jun 09, 2005, 07:12 PM // 19:12

Quote:

Originally Posted by Castanza

I hope those of you who are saying that there is going to be more grind now read that and understand what they are trying to do, they are going to be making the effort to get rid of the need to farm in order to unlock items in the game. this isn't going to happen all at once, but they are taking their time and doing it right, have some patience

There is more grind now.

I was farming riverside for 3-5 runes a day. Mostly minor, some major and one or two superiors, now. In four days.

Now, I cannot farm Riverside, I have to take friends or strangers in there, and the giants now only drop white boots, if any at all.

So, what am I to do to unlock runes?

I cannot buy them at the trader, I am done with the missions, I cannot afford the 15K armor, and I cannot farm.

This is no longer the game I played in Beta at all.

I guess i should have quit school to play non-stop for the first few weeks, so all of................................................ ....

Now, I guess I may have to delete my character and play all over again to try to unlock the runes I need for my team build in PvP.

Now that is GRIND.

sama · Jun 09, 2005, 07:26 PM // 19:26

i find it funny that because some people are still able to get 2 gold and 7 purples in one hour, they think that's no grind. ok here's the thing. I can get that too. I can get more than that in a faster time. In fact, I have all my minors, all but 2 majors, and about 11 superiors left. Do you see the broken part of this system yet?

Ok to make things easy, I can't get the rune that I NEED. I get tons of superiors, but not Superior Death, not Superior Smite, not Superior Fire, not Superior Earth, or any Warrior Superior. So to repeat, I get TONS of Superiors, but NOT the ones I'm looking far. One time I got 5 straight Superior Healings. Um, so I continue my rune grind ad nasuem for the random chane that I'll unlock something that I haven't unlocked.

Again, I know about the rune traders. But I don't want to be buying runes over and over whenever I make a new team build or just to test something. Perhaps they should make it so runes ALWAYS salvage back out so you only need to buy one and be done with it.

Tuna · Jun 09, 2005, 07:34 PM // 19:34

Quote:

Originally Posted by dansamy

The patch only "lessened the grind" for the pure PvPers. It screwed over the PvEers. I had just gotten to the point where I had the skills necessary to farm.

You got this backwards, the patch lessened grind for PvEers through the introduction of a rune trader (although you could previously buy from others just as easily) and made it exponentially harder for PvPers to unlock the runes they need. Your second sentance is also a major problem at the moment. All the 'hardcore' gamers have most of the runes unlocked while those who play casually have a snowballs chance in hell to unlock runes.

A lot of people like to bash those who complain, but we're doing exactly what must be done. (provided that you complain with reason) Arena Net makes changes or 'fixes' and we tell them that they broke it more.