Curse

dr love · Jan 31, 2010, 01:38 PM // 13:38

Hi GwG community,

We all know the player base is dwindling. So who is left?

Most of those that were content based left when they completed all the areas a few times.
Most of those that played for purely for 'fun' are happily playing COD and other games.
Most of those that played for the community left for newer community based games with larger population e.g. aion
Many of those that played for pvp left for games that are newer or offer better rewards for pvp.

Those that are left are mostly:
1. dedicated pvp'ers (which is still unique and enjoyable as long as skill updates are regular, which to them is equivalent of new content)
2. title hunters
3. accumulating wealth to purchase items/titles they desire or sell gold to new players

In a nutshell, those that still PvE seek REWARDS BASED GAMEPLAY.

Here's some proof. When skeletons were added to uw, the rewards effectively decreased and so did the 10000s of daily uw groups. Most players went to do fow or DoA. When dhuum was added (rewards increased) there was a large increase in players.

As far as I know, anet is in process of nerfing OP skills and solo farming. These are two good ideas, but they are not enough alone.

This solution would cause elite areas to be done much slower, and also slow down rewards from solo farming. This discourages new players (they get less rewards than old players for their gameplay) and veterans (why should I play anymore? I used to get twice the stuff in half the time.)

I see 3 large problems in the current pve state. And I suggest 3 simple solutions to promote fun, teamplay and revitalize the game.

1. Solo farming, powertrading, running services, botting all offer better and more consistent rewards than pve team based activity
Easy solution: add more value to dungeons and elite areas in the form of end drops

2. Elite areas and dungeons are done in a matter of minutes
Easy solution: skill nerfs

3. The most valueable items in this game are luck based (mini raffles, henchmen contest) or art based (art contests). A handful of people were rewarded far more from winning a contest/raffle than they did from playing the game for 4 years. This reinforces NOT PLAYING the game.
Easy solution: use them as rare drops to satisfy problem (1)

These changes accomplish 3 things:
1. They give new content in the form of skill nerfs.
2. They encourage forming teams to do dungeons and elite areas.
3. They reward skill and gameplay over luck, powertrading, repetitive farming, scamming, botting...

WORST IDEA:
do (2) and nothing else
Some elite areas rely heavily on gimmicky builds for fast runs. Nerfing those skills after allowing them to prevail for such a long time and keeping the rewards the same makes those areas less desirable to do.

Historically, this is the direction anet has taken. Ursan was around for a long time. SF has been around for far too long. I strongly believe the end result will be a mass exodus from pve team-based play, seeing as most pve guilds and activities revolve around fow, DoA, uw.

BAD IDEA:
do (1) and then (2) later
e.g. add dhuum and then nerf SF months later. this promotes farming of the area now, and never going back after the nerf.

MEDIOCRE IDEA:
do (2) and then (1) later
Those areas won't be touched until they offer better rewards.

GOOD IDEA:
do (1) and (2) at the same time
e.g. nerf SF and add dhuum in the same update

easy nerfs:
smite
obby flesh tanks
SF tanks

Example easy rewards to add to end chest (with low drop rate of course). I say easy because they are already developed, and they would encourage play in that area. THESE ARE JUST EXAMPLES:

hall of heroes: everlasting henchmen tonics
gvg: unfortunately it is too easily synced (like hero battles) so no further rewards should be added.

the deep: mini kanaxai
urgoz: mini island guardian

mallyx: gold items, summon stones and chance of mini zhed

Dungeons need better end drops period. Odds are you will get a diamond and an onyx. Why not have them drop at least 2 gold items, 1 diamond, 1 onyx in HM?

kathandrax: mini shiroken
rragars: mini grawl
cathedral of flames: mini grawl
ooze pit: mini oni
darkrime delves: mini yeti, swamp club
frostmaw's burrows: mini panda
sepulchre of dragrimmar: mini polar bear
Raven's Point: mini destroyer
Vloxen Excavations: mini vizu
Bogroot Growths: mini gray giant
Bloodstone Caves: mini ceratadon
Shards of Orr: mini naga
Oola's Lab: mini asura
Arachni's Haunt: mini asura
Slavers' Exile: mini mad kings guard
Secret Lair of the Snowmen: mini polar bear
Heart of the Shiverpeaks: mini shiroken

Some items will go from priceless to obtainable, and some items could remain similar value (1000e+) depending on drop rates. Hundreds of veterans with stashes of rare minis will hate this idea, and some will commit suicide. However, i'm not concerned about that 0.005% of the guild wars population

The rewards can also be new skins, new tonics, new minis, new items. However, this requires work from the legacy crew and their time is limited.

The best part is, this update could be done in one work day.

tldr: nerf SF, obby flesh, 600/smite and add better rewards to chests (especially dungeons) at the same time

drkn · Jan 31, 2010, 01:47 PM // 13:47

the major problem in your thinking is that even after nerfs and all that stuff people will rather play with heroes and henchmen than form pugs. or they'll run a second account for more drops and complete a dungeon in 7/8.
so a way to corelate everything with teamplay promotion would be needed.

and what when the playerbase adapts and finds new ways to run dungeons fast? maybe not as insanely as now, but still faster than with a balanced group. more nerfs? no thanks.

dr love · Jan 31, 2010, 02:00 PM // 14:00

Quote:

Originally Posted by drkn

and what when the playerbase adapts and finds new ways to run dungeons fast?

If it's gimmicky, nerf it fast (weeks) as opposed to months or years.

Quote:

Originally Posted by drkn

people will rather play with heroes and henchmen than form pugs. or they'll run a second account for more drops and complete a dungeon

I would hope an organized team could finish the dungeon much much faster than a H/H group.

Arduin · Jan 31, 2010, 02:20 PM // 14:20

Okay, what is skillful teamplay?

drkn · Jan 31, 2010, 02:32 PM // 14:32

organised =/= pug. and lots of guilds do things together, they promote guild-teams to complete certain goals or finish some areas already.

dr love · Jan 31, 2010, 02:43 PM // 14:43

Quote:

Originally Posted by drkn

organised =/= pug

i never said it did

Quote:

Originally Posted by Arduin

Okay, what is skillful teamplay?

the answer is subjective. to me it's basically anything that involves multiple players striving towards the same goal who are not afk or mindlessly pressing c,1,2,3,c,1,2,3

drkn · Jan 31, 2010, 02:48 PM // 14:48

so what's the use of strong promoting something that's already being done?
if someone wants to participate in skillful teamplay, he should just join a pve guild and organise events there.

unless you want to enforce teamplay, as in 'play with a team or be handicapped'.

Lanier · Jan 31, 2010, 02:52 PM // 14:52

Quote:

the major problem in your thinking is that even after nerfs and all that stuff people will rather play with heroes and henchmen than form pugs.

This is the sad fact. The addition of heroes did more to hurt the "skillful teamplay" you speak of than anything else.

Quote:

If it's gimmicky, nerf it fast (weeks) as opposed to months or years.

Yea... uh... this will never happen. Remember how long it has taken Anet to make a skill update for PvE? The last one was in September and there isnt going to be another one till... February. It shouldnt take that long to change skills but apparently, it does for Anet.

Arduin · Jan 31, 2010, 03:08 PM // 15:08

Quote:

Originally Posted by dr love

the answer is subjective. to me it's basically anything that involves multiple players striving towards the same goal who are not afk or mindlessly pressing c,1,2,3,c,1,2,3

Mindlessly pressing c,1,2,3 is possible because this game is nearly 5 years old, and the PvE you encounter stale as 2 weeks old bread.

It's not the player that's in need of change, because that is never going to work. Nerfing farming/speedclears/or easyway builds will just bring new ones, because players that use them in farms or speedclears are not interested in playing for the sake of playing but playing for rewards.

It's PvE as a whole, with it's predictable foes and builds that need to change. Implementing better rewards for endchests would only add more incentive for speedclears or farming some dungeon mindlessly over and over again.

Shayne Hawke · Jan 31, 2010, 03:08 PM // 15:08

I do agree that rewards for end chests need to be improved, or reworked. But I'm definitely not for adding those minipets to dungeon end chests, and rare tonics and everything else to other formats. What else is going to be left for people that hoard mass amounts of wealth? Save all their money in the form of armbraces?

Forming teams to do elite areas isn't going to improve, or be more encouraged, or happen, unless there's some easy, gimmicky way that we don't want for doing those elite areas, or the Party Search system improves.

Quote:

Originally Posted by dr love

The best part is, this update could be done in one work day.

lol.

Braxton619 · Jan 31, 2010, 03:12 PM // 15:12

I have to say you brought up great ideas. However I only play gw for farming and title hunting. I find farming fun like places like soosc. If anet nerfed 600/sf then you couldn't farm for fun anymore. I'm not a fan of pvp either.

Typed on my iPod Touch.

Eragon Zarroc · Jan 31, 2010, 03:31 PM // 15:31

can't solve a 4 year old problem in one day, pffft

paranon · Jan 31, 2010, 04:07 PM // 16:07

Quote:

Originally Posted by dr love

Those that are left are mostly:
1. dedicated pvp'ers (which is still unique and enjoyable as long as skill updates are regular, which to them is equivalent of new content)
2. title hunters
3. accumulating wealth to purchase items/titles they desire or sell gold to new players

There are still some that play pve because we enjoy it, you know?

Quote:

Originally Posted by drkn

more nerfs? no thanks.

umm, yes please? the more time anet put into keeping this game fresh, the more people will play it. if anet basically nerf gimmicks capable of completing dungeons easily and quickly, and also increase the drops from endchests SIGNIFICANTLY, so that you can easily get 10-20k worth of stuff from an endchest (remember people get way more than that from doasc). then they need to keep it like that, so that the best way to make money is to go and play with friends. and if any more gimmicks arise, nerf them QUICKLY.

If anet had nerfed permaform a week after it had been discovered, then people would probably have been dissapointed, but they would have accepted that it was too imbalanced. By allowing it to stay in the game for years, anet have just been digging a deeper hole. More and more people are doing nothing but SCs and when it gets nerfed i can easily see a large amount of people leaving the game..

But i suppose that as usual, anet's solution will probably be badly thought out and half-arsed.

Lanier · Jan 31, 2010, 04:10 PM // 16:10

Quote:

There are still some that play pve because we enjoy it, you know?

Im afraid we are the minority nowadays.

Reverend Dr · Jan 31, 2010, 04:29 PM // 16:29

1. Since release PvE has been a single player game with option of co-op, your ideas won't change that.

2. Game needs new players, both pve and pvp, no way around this, nothing to address this.

Xsiriss · Jan 31, 2010, 04:30 PM // 16:30

I agree with the idea of mroe rewarding gameplay. Look at the 'F2P' MMORPG's for gods sake (say Dragonica for example),where instanced dungeons are very rewarding.

The game is too focused on destroying farming builds or tryign to achieve 'balance' without actually making playing hte game rewarding. We need something like double dungeon drops (for a full party maybe),higher gold drop rates in general and more gold(the currency) being dropped in HM.

Morphy · Jan 31, 2010, 04:43 PM // 16:43

And after this, PvE still sucks. Funny how that works.

Xslash · Jan 31, 2010, 04:56 PM // 16:56

Quote:

Originally Posted by Shayne Hawke

I do agree that rewards for end chests need to be improved, or reworked. But I'm definitely not for adding those minipets to dungeon end chests, and rare tonics and everything else to other formats. What else is going to be left for people that hoard mass amounts of wealth? Save all their money in the form of armbraces?

they go for a gotta catch 'em all mindset mann.
ghostlys drop in game , still 1000s of ectos.
dhuum drop in game, still almost 1000 ectos.

now if you add them all, instead of farming/powertrading for 3 years for 1 mini, you get all of them.

then the only pissed off ppl would be people with every one of those mini and henchie tonics.
which 0 people have.

jazilla · Jan 31, 2010, 05:29 PM // 17:29

Either that or you could mitigate the pricing problems of rare mini's by offering them as drops from gifts, canthan new year, wintersday, ToT bags etc. so that they will be still rare and not farmable.

Zahr Dalsk · Jan 31, 2010, 06:04 PM // 18:04

God, no, minipets are retarded.

And yeah, what I'd like to see is new content, or the ability to do existing content with greater ease (full hero parties).