Curse

Amity and Truth · Dec 09, 2006, 06:41 PM // 18:41

Yay a rant thread.
Nah, just kidding.
_________________________

Does this:

[_] Local [X] Guild [_] Team [X] Alliance [_] Trade [_] Emotes

...look somehow familiar? I bet it does, it's the way how most people have set up their game and it's a testimony for the maybe dead Multiplayer Aspect of Guildwars.
Most members of the community have gathered and collected an immense disrespect for the other players. I'd go as far as to state that they simply hate each other. The downside effect of this is that people prefer to play with all chats turned off. This worked in Prophecies and in Factions to great success. Some hardcore players could even complete the game without taking anything but henchmen. Congratulations to them and to me, i was one of them.
And back then i failed to see where this was heading, it went down the Single Player Path. Guildies, friends and me also learned to disrepect PUG Players because they were either bad people or very bad players - so it seems. They were used to complete a mission and once in a while you found a potential new friend along the way. Rare but it did happen.

Now however, with the addition of the heroes even the worst player can easily complete the game. This is in itself not a bad thing, neither are the heroes. But the direct follow up of this is that almost no one tries to play with other humans anymore. The usual thing you see when you're playing PVE (and to a degree even PVP) is people packing up on heroes, then henchies and doing everything single player style.

By now your chat configuration could look like this:

[X] Local [X] Guild [X] Team [X] Alliance [_] Trade [X] Emotes
And all you would see is:
"Hello, anyone there? Hello? Echo? Hello?"
I'm just missing the ironical "No one hears you. <--- with the powerful dot at the end)"

Now, if neither heroes/henchies, nor the game is a bad thing how comes that it has developed into a Single Player Game so quickly? On the european servers it's almost impossible to form or join a group. Well there are players, plenty of them. But they all have their Hero/Henchmen Configuration.

Enough of an introduction, i guess everyone has witnessed the problem allready.

The thing i'd like to discuss:
What are possible ways to rebreath "cooperative" into this game. How could it possibly be achieved to put a stronger focus on Teamplay? How could the hatred between the players be cured?
Do you think the Multiplayer Aspect is just fine? Is it lacking? Dead? Barely ressurected? You get the point what this thread is about.

Please no flames and please no "Pugs suck" or "Guildies, Friendslist ftw" comments. While both may apply they're no real solution, they're just trying to bypass it and in doing this make it even worse.

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Now comes my personal opinion on this:
Heroes are imho definitely not the reason, they're just the result of the problem. The problem itself lies in the ongoing hatred between the players. I'm sadly not sure if there is even a way to cure this, except for harsher feedback from the game itself (as in, a day ban for mal behavior). But sadly that's also out of the question due to the EULA and business model.

As of now, i have no idea how this situation could be improved but i hope that with the combined effort of the community of those that care about the Multiplayer Part, a solution for the potential problem can be found.

Bottom note:
Don't blame A-Net.

Bankai · Dec 09, 2006, 06:52 PM // 18:52

I just read parts of your post and the conclusion.

I think the problem is that it's way too easy to make a sucky build. There's so many skills, a new player is overthrown by the massive amount of options, and will, in the end, choose just some skills. And even though they might look good, they might not be.

Because it's so easy to be bad, PuGs get a name of being bad. Why should you play with sucky humans who won't follow you if you can play with bots?

I had been playing through Prophecies campaign with my NF monk for a bit. Was at Ice caves of sorrow. I was loading my group with heroes and henchies. I saw two guys without a group standing there (the rest of the district was empty), just invited them, and we had lots of fun clearing the mission.

Navaros · Dec 09, 2006, 07:06 PM // 19:06

I definitely agree with the problem raised in original post.

In my view the core issue here is that the very concept of "Cooperative Online RPG" such as Guild Wars does not work due to most people in general falling into a "Lowest Common Denominator" category that is not sufficient to perform the gameplay properly.

Most players are extremely horrible, hence Heroes and Henchmen are usually a much better choice than terrible PUG players, the PUGers of course with much worse skills and gear.

When they try to make an area like DoA where you need real players to perform well, most people don't like it (rightfully so) because it is too hard to form a team of competent players.

I think very little can be done to correct this problem, since the core issue is an out-of-game, real life problem that most people suck at the game. That's just reality and there's no fixing that.

Loviatar · Dec 09, 2006, 07:13 PM // 19:13

Quote:

Originally Posted by Amity and Truth

As of now, i have no idea how this situation could be improved but i hope that with the combined effort of the community of those that care about the Multiplayer Part, a solution for the potential problem can be found.

Bottom note:
Don't blame A-Net.

from personal experience from the early BWE on i can state the 2 following items that started very early after release and have only gotten more intense and did not drop off

1 people from the start have been begging for henchie fices

heroes have most of the very things begged for

2. complaints about the pug i was with

every time the basic henchie got a small fix the number of pugs got smaller.

the community has a rep and unfortunately it seems to be a very well earned rep that will stick for a long time if not permanent.

also at the very start in an interview it was stated that with the instanced plan and the henchmen to fill/make a group GW could be considered an online single player RPG which allows you to play with friends if you want to.

i see it turning into a Baldurs Gate type which you can have friends in your party.(i like)

Deleet · Dec 09, 2006, 07:18 PM // 19:18

Even though i love playing without stupid people, and using heroes to beat the entire game. It feels wrong.
Some solutions i could think of:

A - You could make henchmen worse.

Therefore forcing people to have at least 2 players in a party. This would result in serious objections of a lot of good players, who are used to using hench/hero teams to play the game.

B - Restricting maximum AIs in a team to X.

Forcing players to play together.
With a small number, it would force people to play together, resulting in a lot of Pugs with players of skill, again resulting in objections from the above average players.

C - Restricting maximum AIs in a team to X per player.

Mostly the same as above.

brokenmonkey · Dec 09, 2006, 07:27 PM // 19:27

Yes I agree, it is not heros fault, nor anets fault, its people. And there is no cure for people. I'm always for a good pug group, cus without that, you'd never have a good friendslist, or guild.

Loviatar · Dec 09, 2006, 07:29 PM // 19:29

Quote:

Originally Posted by Deleet

Forcing players to play together.
With a small number, it would force people to play together, resulting in a lot of Pugs with players of skill, again resulting in objections from the above average players.

C - Restricting maximum AIs in a team to X per player.

Mostly the same as above.

Factions *encouraged* people to group and the beginners island has some nice scenery. that was it for me

that for Factions .

force me to group with the map drawers/etc and i stop there.

old chapters here i come

Dark Divinor · Dec 09, 2006, 07:37 PM // 19:37

Personally, I belive heroes have ruined - yes, runied - Guild Wars. The whole aspect of being able to complete a game, without playing with other players. Has, in my eyes, destroyed the community completely.

PUG wise, I've never hated them. Up until recently. Most PUG's seems to have a lack fo respect for fellow players and constantly spam comments like: "OMFG!!! You n00b - your a f***** waste of time. N00b!" Shortly followed by '[users name] has left.'

I really, really hope the next chapters brings back the community and social aspect of Guild Wars. Nightfall hasn't helped the community at all, and I hope the 4th chapter doesn't follow suit. Like I said, I really hope the next chapters gives the community a kick up the backside and encourages them to play with other players.

Deleet · Dec 09, 2006, 07:40 PM // 19:40

They cannot just abandon their hero system, and people will be able to keep them for future campaigns. We're trapped in the circel.

Goonter · Dec 09, 2006, 07:41 PM // 19:41

2 things: people/group search and Random Pairing

The deeper you can build on those things the easier and more likely players will work with each other.
Otherwise henchmen, heros and guildmates will get you the most for your efforts consistantly.

Myria · Dec 09, 2006, 07:45 PM // 19:45

Quote:

Originally Posted by Amity and Truth

Bottom note:
Don't blame A-Net.

Ummm... Why not? Blame may not really be in order, but what you describe is a direct consequence of their business model and design decisions.

There is no grouping system in GW, a fact that has been talked about and lamented since before Chapter 1 was even released. Grouping with others has always been a tedious and annoying process, whilst henchies were always a click away and were suffecient for anything in the game save FoW, UW, and the Titan Quests. Factions came along, still no grouping system but they did add even more henchie variety, including something henchies had lacked before -- interrupts. Now Nightfall comes along, still no grouping system (though something sounding suspiciously like one is mentioned in the booklet), but now we have new, improved, and personalized henchies. Grouping with others remains as difficult, tedious, and annoying as ever, but with each new chapter it has gotten easier and easier to hench everything save the 'Elite' missions, which most people don't care to bother with anyway.

Trying to group with others has remained the same tedious process of spamming "LFG!" over and over ever since the release of the game. Henching it has gotten easier and easier with each iteration of the game. That one is dying on the vine whilst the other prospers can hardly come as a shock to Anet or any of us.

As for chat, you can thank a lack of any other viable in-game tools for grouping, guild recruitment, nor buying or selling for its unlamented demise. Far from being an empty echo-chamber, chat in any large town is a confused mess of WTB/WTS spam, guild recruitement spam, and LFG spam, mixed together with the occasional racist/sexist/homophobic rant and an endless stream of low rent con jobs. In places like LA, Kaineng, or Kamadan, chat goes by so fast the average person couldn't keep up with it if they wanted to, and they don't want to. The only attempt to clean it up was the trade channel, and that's been a failure of monumental proportions.

You could clean up chat by providing other in-game tools for grouping, guild recruiting, and buy/sell, and instituting draconian penalities for using the chat channels for those purposes. Unfortunately I doubt either would fit into Anet's business model as both would require fairly substantial resources. As for getting people to play together, it needs to be easier to find/create groups, there needs to be some strong incentive to do so, and/or there needs to be no choice but to do so. Unfortunately a grouping system does not seem to be in the offing, there will likely continue to be no incentive to grouping and the several disincentives will remain, and forced grouping would likely kill the game.

The GW 'community', such as it is, has long been, for want of a better term, broken. It is a direct result of a business model that requires an extreme hand's off approach, design decisions that minimize tools and incentives for player interaction, and human nature -- especially the mangified negatives of human nature that tend to come when large numbers of adolescent personalities, whatever their chronologic age, congregate.

How do you fix it? Without fundamentally changing the game or the business model, I don't think you do.

Rera · Dec 09, 2006, 07:45 PM // 19:45

There is no solution, because you can't fix people. If you tweak the game to force good players to play with bad players, the good players will just quit.

The problem is that GW is pretty much an unmoderated game open to anyone. Without a monthly fee, there's nothing to prevent some 10-year-old kid from buying a copy for $40 and just signing on for an hour or two everyday and screwing with people just because he doesn't get the discipline at home that he deserves. Since you're not paying a monthly fee, there's no reason for the majority of the populace to take the game seriously. It doesn't matter if you fail the mission and get nowhere, as long as you had some LOL's and ROFL's along the way.

I actually don't think there's anything wrong with PvE turning into a single-player game. I'd wager that the majority of the players only care about getting rare items and being rich anyway, so whether they complete the story on their own or with a party is irrelevant. They're going to be spending the rest of their GW lives solo-farming in the newest areas anyway.

tomcruisejr · Dec 09, 2006, 07:55 PM // 19:55

it's not the fault of the heroes. it's the fault of anti-social, emo people wanting to play solo with their heroes.

A.Net should advertise more to Sims or other community fostering MMORPGs than to ps, xbox or other solo online games players

The Ernada · Dec 09, 2006, 08:06 PM // 20:06

No, it's the fault of the immature idiots who just annoy you throughout the mission drawing crotches on the radar, bossing people around and just being an ass. I have never wanted to group up less in any other MMO than I do with GW. Why? Because the community is one of the worst I've seen.

Better grouping features would be nice but still won't fix the problem of the dying PUG situation. It's just less annoying to play with heroes or only playing with people you know.

lacasner · Dec 09, 2006, 08:08 PM // 20:08

If you have ever played runescape...I don't think your opinion would be the same lol.

Deleet · Dec 09, 2006, 08:11 PM // 20:11

People have always said stuff like that. Bad language is a result of internet anonymity, taking responsibillity (sp?) away.

Runescape has the worst community ever, not even worth to compare other games.

I think maybe forcing a max of 3 heroes per player combined with a new LFG system might be a good idea.

Loviatar · Dec 09, 2006, 08:12 PM // 20:12

Quote:

Originally Posted by tomcruisejr

it's not the fault of the heroes. it's the fault of anti-social, emo people wanting to play solo with their heroes.

i disagree on that for one simple reason.

from the start people have been begging for some way to form a decent group.

DECENT NOT MEANING GOOD PLAYERS JUST SOMEONE WHO IS NOT THERE FOR THE EXPRESS *FUN* OF SCREWING THE OTHERS FUN.

most people hero/henching are not antisocial in general just that they have one too many bad groups and say thank you for the hero/hench fixes to a friendly community that lasted 30 days from launch then went from bad to worse.

does that hurt my fanboi rating BTW?

The Ernada · Dec 09, 2006, 08:23 PM // 20:23

Quote:

Originally Posted by Deleet

I think maybe forcing a max of 3 heroes per player combined with a new LFG system might be a good idea.

It's already a max of 3 heroes per player. But if you meant 3 heroes only per group then that's a horrible idea. If I play with my two other friends why should we be forced into grouping with more if we choose not to?

Forcing a playstyle onto others is bad.

Bankai · Dec 09, 2006, 08:40 PM // 20:40

The problem with removing henchies is that it completely screws over casual players. My main character right now is a monk. Say I want to complete some quest to get some experience. Noone will want to do the same quest, probably. So I take henchies. Even if there are multiple people that want to do the quest, there aren't 8 other people, with the right professions to make up a team. Not without a party forming system.

I also like casual play. If I'm bored I'll do some questing. At the same time I read forums. If there's suddenly something, I can just quit. However, with PuGs, people don't want to wait, and you can't suddenly leave.

Yesterday, I had to do Dunes of Despair. I warped there, and got invited into a party of 5. I accept, and we leave. Halfway through the mission, the other monk, who was also the leader, and was also carrying the ghostly, suddenly says: "G2g 4 tea". He doesn't respond and doesn't get back.

What the heck?

We activate the cutscene of the bridge, and luckily, he drops. So we arrive at the altar. After killing the additional guys, we wait for the ele, who was carrying the hero, to put him down on the altar. After 5 minutes, the timer finally starts. After killing 2/3 guys that go after the ghostly, an ele and warrior suddenly run off to one of the gates. Ele wants to do bonus. Being the only monk (there was another one, but he was a smiter), I'm forced to follow. after 2 min of fighting, I see a group of monsters going for the ghostly, so I quickly run back. The ele and the war just keep attacking the boss for bonus, not paying attention at all to what's happening, and die.

Luckily, we still finished the mission with a tank, a smiter and me.

Alias_X · Dec 09, 2006, 08:41 PM // 20:41

Where did you gather the information that most players play like that? I would be interested in someone posting a pole to confirm your data.