Curse

Flame Skyborn · Jun 22, 2005, 07:00 AM // 07:00

I don't have much in the way of an opinion on this matter, because I don't really PvP a whole lot. I prefer senselessly killing monsters and stuff, but anyway.

This occured to me while sifting through the posts here, why not have an arena in Pre-Searing Ascalon? It would provide the perfect isolation scenario so many people here want, because you can't really get an 'uber' armor and there isn't a bank so you can't get any of the high level runes to make your character a demi-god among newcomers.

There could also possibly be some sort of simple 100 exp quest from Sir Tydus that sends you to the arena to check on recruits so that you would know the arena is there, and maybe some random NPC in the market area advertising it. The level 10 cap could remain in place, maybe even level 5 if you are so inclined, or both...Also, so it sort of fits into the storyline of you preparing for war against the Charr, make it a Training Yard instead of an Arena. While we are at it, make it a requirement to participate in a battle there before you can advance to post-searing.

I think that would help solve some of the problems at hand, but then again, MAYBE TEH CHARR WILL INVADE TEH ARENA! Hehehe..hehe...heh...Meh.

Edit: Oh and uh, this is addressing the issue of the high level armor in the Ascalon Arena...I don't know if I needed to say that or not. o_O As for the use of the Lornar's Pass as a shortcut to get armor for the rest of the game and such, I don't care too much.

kungfumonkey2 · Jun 22, 2005, 01:06 PM // 13:06

THANK YOU FLAME!

For having an idea that is not a nerf, or takes away from the game. Instead it adds to the content, and storyline of the game. Your idea may infact create a larger pool of characters that enjoy PvP? Why, because it gets people attempting PvP early on, and allows them to try it over and over again. Unlike the quasi PvP mission that takes you to Post-searing. Most new players dont even know what is going on, and get taken out by more experienced 3rd-4th timers. There really isn't clear warning that you are going to PvP. I know my first time I didn't know what the hell was happening just some counter going down. I was like are we fighting the computer or other players? By the time I figured it out my team was dead. They don't even get a chance to try it again if they want to. 1 shot is all you get. This experience probably sours people to PvP early on.

Dragonkin · Jun 22, 2005, 01:27 PM // 13:27

To all who say the RPG side of the game is boring: Why bother playing it at all? If its even half as dull as you say why are you even bothering?

I've got an Ascended Ranger and a soon-to-be ascdended Warrior/Ele and i've had just as much fun with my Warrior as i have with my Ranger, it feels like a completely different kettle of fish all together when i play my Warrior - it's a hell of a lot different from when i did it with my Ranger.

If you all hate the story so much why are you even playing it? :/

Dax · Jun 22, 2005, 01:39 PM // 13:39

Quote:

Originally Posted by Kishin

Secondly, its been said time and time again. Show me someone with their first character who can be rushed to Droknar's and afford not only 1.5K per piece of armor, but also the cost in materials for that armor. Maybe if I had saved every scrap of money and ran around in Pre-searing armor all the way up to Maguuma, sure. 99% of people who rush Lornar's are people on their second/third/fourth/kabillionth character who don't want to repeat the same content over and over again, or at the very least, make it less aggravating on top of repetitious.

Yes it has been said time and time again but dont' you still have get XP anyways? The game isn't that incredibly hard to get through on the armor provided...And if it's really THAT repetious and aggrivating why bother. Cmon, is that really the reason or is it just cool to have the expensive armor.
Many people (that I know of atleast) who replay games usually replay them on a harder level for the challenge.

Quote:

Originally Posted by Kishin

And level restrictions on armor? Great, now people who want to move through the game quickly have to grind exp to wear armor to stay alive. On top of that, we already have a fixed distribution of skills at various outposts which forces people to play within at times narrowly defined paramaters (Ever wondered why for the first half of the game, every Ele is a pyromancer?)
so, let's reduce choice and playstyle even more. Its like writing up a big codified rulebook for the exact manner in which people are to play the PvE and punishing those who fail to abide by it.

I totally repspect other people gamestyles, but once again if you can run to Droknars, you're probably a saavy enough gamer that this game is easy as cake. Most MMORPGS have some sort of level restrictions on armor and have managed just fine. Is it your contention that at any level everything should be unlocked? It's not enough that you can zone to every town once visited, or that you need no skill points for crafting, or no competion for mobs? Maybe we should have a button that kills mobs on sight if they get too hard too

KaPe · Jun 22, 2005, 03:24 PM // 15:24

"You know what if I had the resources to buy Draknors Armor and 100K weapons for each member of my guild I would, and I would have it waiting for them as soon as they reached post-searing. I do not though, so I do what I can. I happily give a guildie 1K here a couple of steel ingots there. You know why? That generosity pays itself back 10 fold."

I'm not sayiing I don't give guild members gold or crafting materials - but there's slight difference between, say lvl 5 player wanting to buy new armor in Ascalon and another lvl5 expecting 1k from all for 1.5k set. In other words - I help them get stuff at *their* level, not something "uber" which I had to work my ass off to acquire(well, not really, they're not *that* expensive)

I mean:

Lvl5 : "I need 50k for that "godly sword of uberness"
Me : "Why certainly, you want Superior Vigor with that? Or maybe fries?"

Nessa · Jun 22, 2005, 03:56 PM // 15:56

although i feel like this has become a bit of a dead horse i really just wanna add my two cents:
there are things in life (and in a game) that are not fair..... thats the way it is.... i haven't set foot in an arena in the pve areas with my warrior monk or my monk mes (warrior is 20th) i honestly am in it for the pve aspect of the game.... yea i'm sure i can use the practice in pvp for when my guild battles but i have a pvp player i practice with sure not all the skills are unlocked but she has the same build as my 20 and it's good practice for her...
i was goin to go into the ascaolon arena tonight with my lvl 7 monk but after reading this i'mnot sure i want to.. i think i'll try it out see ift he problem is really all that bad...

Now my warrior just reached amnoon getting ready to start ascenion.. now the whole time i've been playing i've been selling everything thats not super speacial to the merchants... salvaging all the crap i can and hordeing money and materials..... this way when my guildies (not many of us but still) needs almost anything i have plenty to share... i'm one of the only character high enough lvl that uses axe to have any use for tyhe gold ones.. one of my bags is full of axes... but they'll get spread around when ore people make axe weildin warriors....
i personly have bought every armor upgrade in order of towns that have better than what i do... (ascalon then yak's then lion) when i reached sanctum cay i sunk Almost ALL my horded money on armor materials and 2 runes i lost when trying to resalvage them from my last set of armor... i was almost a plat short.. my guildies helped me.... when i get to drok i'll be working towards that armor.. thats part of the end game to me.. now that i've reached 20 it's not what do i do now it's oohh i have to ascend, get my 15k armor, and help my lower lvl guildies get where they have to go....
i think that a lvl cap on armor could be good or bad.... there is such a gap sometimes depending on when your charcter left searing.. hell i've been 20 since like riverside or bloodstone.. but was groupin with 15-17 lvls.... armor caps on the arena;s would be good i guess... but it's really not hurting anyone that badly is it???? other than in the arena's it's a moot point.....
and when i see peopel in henge (or past there) that are lvl 7 lfg or lookin to be run i just laugh reject and move on my own merry lil way
creston kungfu and zaku you all have the most valid points in this amusing thread i give you my props....
so uh kungfu wanna run my lvl 7 monk to drok? i need some l33t g34r... but i only have like 3 plat......

:EDIT: BEST IDEA SO FAR.... presear arena (i also did not know that it was a pvp thing till it was happeing it explain whe he talks but not really well enough pretty much i knew it was a test that i had to do well on lol)

Hell Marauder · Jun 22, 2005, 05:03 PM // 17:03

Problem isn't so much for running to Droknor and skip half of game. The problem is there are ppl out there wearing Droknor's armor and beat hell out of everyone at level 10 and level 17 arenas. This is cheating to me. I have a lot of respect for those who run to Droknor BY THEMSELVES. But just how many do that by themselves without outside help?? I don't want Lornar's pass to be closed off, but I don't want people abuse the pass either.

Nessa · Jun 22, 2005, 05:04 PM // 17:04

Quote:

Originally Posted by Hell Marauder

I have a lot of respect for those who run to Droknor BY THEMSELVES. But just how many do that by themselves without outside help?? I don't want Lornar's pass to be closed off, but I don't want people abuse the pass either.

agreed

kungfumonkey2 · Jun 22, 2005, 05:45 PM // 17:45

The thing is we still have not yet, heard from anyone that has been abused by someone playing in the low lvl arenas. Or from a person that has done this. Why? Because there is not an accurate reporting system for Low lvl arenas, and no one has stepped forward to report this. I am against griefing, it is one of our Guild guidlines. You will never find one of my guild members doing something like this.

Although we will continue perfect our Draknor's, and lvl runs. Mind you we only do these runs for members who are on their 2nd-3rd character. First toon members we help thru all the missions and quests. Because there are game play skills and things you learn from playing the whole game thru we consider valueable. It is no good to have a person who just started the game and now they have a lvl 20 characer, and are like "Cool, Now what do I do?"

Yes, the exploitation of the armor is not good, but do not call for drastic game changes.

gabby2600 · Aug 10, 2005, 04:53 AM // 04:53

their is one downside, to the droknar's run. When Arena.net checks server stats, to see how well people are doing in areas after Beacons Perch, they will see that a lot of people are doing rather well, so will make those areas harder. Meanign those without the best armour in the game will eventually struggle.

yes, it's all well and good for those people with the armour, but when everythign after Kryta gets 10 times harder, who's fault will that be??

Tuna · Aug 10, 2005, 04:55 AM // 04:55

Quote:

Originally Posted by gabby2600

yes, it's all well and good for those people with the armour, but when everythign after Kryta gets 10 times harder, who's fault will that be??

Arena Nets, if there wasn't so much grind nobody would really have to run to droknars. But that is a typical ANet fix

DrSLUGFly · Aug 10, 2005, 05:05 AM // 05:05

Seriously... if you play another game... say for example GTA or Driv3r. AFter you beat the game do you want to start over at the beginning and do it again? No, you want to do different things.

Granted my necro and monk are different from my ele, but the quests and missions are all the same. If I can get through to Droknar's forge first then that saves me time on missions I may not want to do and makes those missions easier for when I actually do them. (the jungle is the only area in the game that I don't enjoy... not because of poor design or anything like that, just my environmental preferences... therefore a good area but one I don't wish to spend a lot of time in)

if they just made an armor cap on the low level arena's all this problem would be solved... why should a PvE player complain about people rushing to the Forge? (except for the fact that it's hard to PUG out of Beacon, but not impossible)

Ashley Twig · Aug 10, 2005, 07:05 AM // 07:05

Quote:

Originally Posted by Saerden

I believe the running will be nerfed: the devs made clear that the competitive part in this game is to get 3 characters through the story without commiting suicide.

When did the devs say that?

As for believing: I don't believe anything until I see it, and I don't trust anybody promising me something until I see the action.
Call it a bad attitude, but it comes from experience. I've been promised many things by people involved with GW (including players etc.).

I don't even think it's an exploit, because if it was, it would've been fixed by now.

GW pretty much reflects our social life in the real world.
Maybe even worse: it magnifies it.
There'll be always somebody with the money to buy things others have to put hard work into.
And there's always somebody who will treat you unfair, lie to you, scam you etc.

But there wouldn't be shadow, if there wasn't light.

So there are also people who treat you nice, listen to what you have to say, hand you gold items for free, answer your (stupid?) questions etc.

They're just the minority and you have to look really hard to find them.

Shadow_Avenger · Aug 10, 2005, 10:07 AM // 10:07

I actually tried a forge run with my warrior @lvl 11 2 lvl 20 W/M where doing the run so I though what the hell, I was going to wait till I had hit level 20 before I attempted it.
Why because I have actually clocked over 200 hours and finished the game with 2 characters and opened up every area in the game world with both. Rather than doing the whole mission thing again I figured I'd try to open up as much as humanly possible without doing a single mission. I reached beacon with henchies but lvl 11 without doing a mission. So all those who think its cheating take a chill pill, Just because they say they can run to drognars doesn't mean they will be successful. As I found out.

A fair few of the people actually doing the run have actually already completed the game 1-4 times already.
Never ever pay a penny at beacons, If they say half at snake dance or half at camp rancor well atleast you are going to get your plats worth.
Those that do do wth run will also have 8+ plat in the bank, people with that much spare plat have so because they have finished the game.
It it far from cheating. The only part that is cheating is when a player abused the early arenas after getting the armours at Drognars Forge.
Then again if you really want to PvP wait till you are level 20 and start at the arenas in Lions Arch, as the arenas before there will mean unbalanced fights, where you will fight people who can be higher level than you, with better equipment and own you and you can do nothing about it. Or simple make a PvP character and jump in.

Dax · Aug 10, 2005, 03:49 PM // 15:49

Quote:

Originally Posted by EcPercy

Well I tried to go to droknar's when I was about level 17 with my w/me and I have to say; if there is a group of 6 under level 20 that are able to make it they deserve it! How does someone making it to droknar's effect you???? I don't see this as being a problem. I wasn't able to make it.... With a group of 6 with a pet... we made it oh, halfway through lonars pass.

Actually that's the point, they can't. The only one that needs to make it is the lvl20 rusher the others will rez at each zone, that's how they get through. It is IMO an exploit.

The reason it affects other people is:

One they have an unfair advantage in low arenas. Now one might argue that the lower level arenas don't matter too much, but tell that to a new player who is eager to play and have fun in the arenas.

Two, it sorta screws up the economy because players have no need for mid level armor and the whole buy and trading experience of salvaging goods is lessened.

Three, encourages buying gold from gold sellers. If a person is too lazy to play through to get the armor, they are probably to lazy to farm the gold needed to buy thae armor. I'm sure for people with multiple characters it's easier, but if they have multiple character after only a couple of months they should have nop problem without being rushed

MSecorsky · Aug 10, 2005, 03:56 PM // 15:56

How's this for a twist to the game...

If you zone, anyone left behind as dead leaves the party and gets sent to the town of origin.

Mavrik · Aug 10, 2005, 03:58 PM // 15:58

Quote:

Originally Posted by Dax

Three, encourages buying gold from gold sellers. If a person is too lazy to play through to get the armor, they are probably to lazy to farm the gold needed to buy thae armor. I'm sure for people with multiple characters it's easier, but if they have multiple character after only a couple of months they should have nop problem without being rushed

Wow... did you think on that before you said it? Maybe I'm the ONLY one who's lv18 E/Mo who I had gotten to Sanctum Cay... got rushed to Droknar by a guild leader so I could buy armor... actually farmed the materials for it myself? I've found a rare item indeed, me. I have multiple characters, the other 3 being so far behind they can't even farm. I farmed with my E/Mo, lv'd to 20 and have gained skill points since then, I farmed for droknar armor and then farmed all the materials needed to then get 15k armor. I've now been farming with my E/Mo and salvaging everything as I did before to get materials needed for my Ranger who I just got to droknar for armor.

As I see it since I don't PvP and I salvage/farm/sell a lot, being taken down the route from beacon to droknar is not going to effect the economy and certainly not all your ownage or lack of in the PvP battle areas.

Darksci · Aug 10, 2005, 04:58 PM // 16:58

I've finished the game with three characters, a warrior, monk and a ranger.

I'm planning for creating a nuker for FoW and UW. Why should i have to go though the entire storyline again?

I'd rather pay 6K to a runner than go though it all.
Watching Rurik die over again and watching King Ironhammer getting defeated by his evul cousin is boring.

Getting a runner for this is no problem to me.
With my 2nd and 3rd character i decided to get my character to forge in order to get better armor so that i wouldn't fail a mission due to insufficient armor.

Oh yes and BTW - Why does it bother you that people are getting run to forge for? IN NO WAY DOES IT EFFECT YOU. Your not PvPing hence it doesn't effect you.
IF they join your accended group at lvl 15 - you can KICK THEM. Problem solved.

Charcoal Ann · Aug 10, 2005, 05:23 PM // 17:23

I have (had) 3 lvl 20 chars and 2 of them had done the entire story. from char 2 i was run to Droknars. only for the armour. it has more than halfed the amount of money i have had to spend on armour and still i only have about 50g (not k notice). i have always tagged back on to the missions to lvl up because IMO it is more fun to get xp by doing missions (even those i have done 3 or 4 times before) than it is to wander around outside Droknars killing grawl.
Besides, Droknars is my favourite city (ascalon is boring, lions arch confusing, henge of denravi even more confusing and Amnoon i rarely spend more than 5 mins in)

would you consider a lvl 11 char in the ascalon Arena cheating?

sleazeh · Aug 10, 2005, 05:25 PM // 17:25

In summary, along the lines of some of the other comments in this thread and elsewhere, I have no issue with runners providing that

1. There was a method to disallow running for the first character on an account, so that we don't have literal novices at later missions who have no or limited understanding of gameplay.
2. There was armor and weapon level restrictions on low level arenas.

Perhaps each area (kryta, desert, south shiverpeaks) needs to be unlocked sequentially once per account.

Other than that, its understandable that people may not wish to cycle through the entire map 4 times in succession.

That being said, the spin-off effect of runners is, in my opinion, that more and more people are doing less and less for themselves to progress in the game, which personally rubs me the wrong way. People are now being run through missions (elona, riverside, as examples), paying for party slots, etc.

But it's not my place to dictate how each person should play. I like to play through the game, even multiple times, and feel like I've earned each new map location or mission victory. But to each their own.