Curse

Tozen · May 01, 2005, 11:21 PM // 23:21

I thought that many of the release moves they made were brilliant actually. I know that War of the Worlds may not be a popular political move for every player, but I being the simple-minded student that I am, really like the feature. Seeing Korea take a win with a name I can't say, barely read for that matter, is very, VERY cool. I've always thought that regardless of how the real world is, players of all countries are united in games... and I appreciate ANet's recognition of it. (Not that that is some huge ideal and important philosophy, just something that I've realized over the years)

The problem ANet ran into was changing so many things drastically for release without prior beta testing. It made the game unique all over again, but as you pointed out, flaws came flying right out with it.

The skill acquisition system is obviously flawed at the moment because it puts far too much emphasis on stress-related gaming. I'm ALWAYS hessitant to go do what I actually want to do in Guild Wars (like proceeding to Yak's after lvl 8...) because I'm afraid that I'll have missed an important spell.

In other words, this game still struggles with the same issue it did from day one: a lack of direction. Too much of the game still revolves around questions such as "am I really high enough level to do this mission?" "Is there something important in the explorable zones I'm missing? Do I want to risk leveling again and locking myself out of my favorite arena?" For a while they had them nicely hidden, but this latest, sudden change has brought them clearly to the surface.

At the risk of being totally retro, some of you may remember when the second Metroid game was released for the original Game Boy. Yeah, remember when they were hecka heavy and barely fit into backpacks? Anyways, the game was also focused around the concept of collecting and progression; you hunted all the Metroids (aliens) in a certain zone and unlocked the next. This could prove to be a very frusterating task when you could miss one Metroid in a zone and move onto the next never knowing you had missed it until it was too late and you had to explore EVERYTHING all over again. The only thing that saved the game was a little tally you had at the bottom of the right screen that stated how many metroids were still in your zone.

GW has no tally. It has no indication of where your next spell is coming from, or if you've missed any along the way. I didn't even realize some of the skill trainers were even skill trainers until I read about them at gwonline. Also, the explorable zones are huge and take forever to fight through, so even when you do get a quest that rewards with skills it is difficult to find a team that will do the quest with you as there is no way of sharing quests or even viewing the quests of others in this game.

The obvious problem comes at the fact that GW is an instance-based game. Explorable zones are an MMORPG standard, but really, how many times do you form a team INSIDE A TOWN and take it into a zone? I hardly ever did, except for maybe elite quests in which case the huge amount of organization was worth it. No, most MMORPGs do not instance their zones and allow you to recruit team members that you find in your quest area as you need them and find them. It becomes a painless, pleasant process. Do you know ANYONE really that would WANT (they might do it anyways if they're nice) to trek with you for an hour in an explorable zone to complete a skill quest that they get absolutely NO reward for? I don't... I doubt even many of my guild buddies would be up for that one.

One Big Problem... But an Easy Solution
That was a lot of writing simply to say that the game currently lacks guidance to avoid frusteration and the ability to solo the explorable zones. The fix? Let us know how many (maybe even which) spells can be found in each region, raise the henchman level (or drastically decrease the explorable zone monster levels), and make traveling in the explorable zones a less timely procedure. If these simple steps are taken, the new skill system will be the best the game has ever seen IMHO.

By the way, while it has indeed become true that the game does reward players who play longer, I'm at least living proof that having the right spells isn't everything. Before I even obtained seven or so skills from my original set from pre-searing Ascalon I was dominating in the arena with many 15+ win streaks with my Necromancer/Warrior. All it took was practicing with my skills... knowing how to do hit and run attacks using sprint, using enduring pain to give the illusion that an opponent didn't have to heal to finish me, and managing my blood magic to recover health as I needed it. Not to blow my own horn, but I've gotten several complements from team members about how well I play in the arena, but in reality, I probably don't have any skills that other warriors or necromancers don't. I'm not an incredible player and am not trying to put myself up as one of the best... I'm only saying that skill is still far more important than time investment.

At the end of the day, your USE of your spells (not really the spells themselves) is what makes you good. Even the weakest of spells become lethal weapons in a team situation where focus fire is key... and I've found that learning to work with my team warriors to double team a target, sprint away when taking heavy damage or running low on mana, and resurrecting team players ASAP to be far more valuable assets in combat than the attack moves I was using.

So, problems need to be fixed, but this game is STILL fun as heck!

A11Eur0 · May 02, 2005, 03:51 PM // 15:51

Wow. I'll try not to be condescending or flaming here.

You seem to have a serious issue with NCSoft, amd I right? So why are you still playing their games? If you don't like the game, why do you spend so much time playing it? I don't understand that.

Farming of cloth: 75% of all dropped Grawl Gear (very common, and very near to the city) yields bolts of raw cloth. I had more iron ingots at the end of pre-searing only because I kept fighting the enemies that gave iron-rich gear, but I had plenty of raw cloth.

Why are you even complaining about pre-searing anyway? It's .001% of the game! It's where new people learn the game in unchallenging battles with a decent learning curve, and you won't be overwhelmed every time with tons of reinforcements, unlike post-searing, where even the beginning enemies pose a threat if you're caught in the open by a number of them. Gargoyles and devourers, oh my. Their hexes work on level 20 just as well as they work on level 8.

Time spent playing a game should be and is rewarding in every game, including this one. But the level cap is there to keep the no-life basement dwellers playing for 18 hours a day from dominating and enacting control over the casual gamers like myself.

I'm at level 15, didn't play beta, because I had a little extra time when I bought the game. It helps to play the quests through when you get them because this is what the game is about. I'm sure there are the power players who blast through the missions early and buy their skills, but you can't buy the exp. I'm still challenged by the new swarms of enemies that I face in later areas, so it doesn't make it any harder.

In all, I say abandon the game if you don't like it, you have enough of a taste of what it will be like from playing Beta, and you obviously didn't enjoy it.

And I'd like to say to the people saying the names are confusing in WaW, if they used Kryta, Ascalon and Orr:
You've been playing the game for how long now? I learned the names of the kingdoms before I even started playing, by reading the book that came with it. How would naming them Kryta, Orr, and Ascalon be confusing? Naming them America, Korea, and Europe is just stupid, and a severe oversight by the developers. It detracts from the feel of the game. You're playing as this fictional character in a fantasy world, and all of a sudden you're playing as this fantasy fiction character in a real-world-name arena? Nah, doesn't cut it. I may get into PvP later on, but nothing about it piques my interest at this time.

Luggage · May 02, 2005, 03:56 PM // 15:56

Quote:

Originally Posted by Tozen

The skill acquisition system is obviously flawed at the moment because it puts far too much emphasis on stress-related gaming. I'm ALWAYS hessitant to go do what I actually want to do in Guild Wars (like proceeding to Yak's after lvl 8...) because I'm afraid that I'll have missed an important spell.

You missed the part there it was explained that any skill you dont get through questing is buyable from the next skilltrainer if you continue through the main story.

ie: Ascalon Trainer has all the skill you could get in Pre-Searing, Yaks Bend Skill Trainer has all skills you could quest for up till that point and so on...

But you have to pay for them instead.

Tyveil · May 02, 2005, 04:20 PM // 16:20

Good post but I disagree with you on one major aspect of it (that pretty much sums up everything). Betas are suppose to allow players easy access to everything, so that more can be tested (IOW easy skills, low cost on guilds, capes, etc). In the production version, things should be made MUCH harder, and rightfully so. Personally I like the fact skills are much harder to come by now and I also like the outrageous guild cape prices, it weeds out a lot of the lEWt dOoDz guilds because they'll want a cape and not have the patience to come up with the gold to do it. Also it is better to start out with players ratched down tight (difficulty level on everything high, everything expensive) as it is easier to make thing easier for the player as the game progresses than it is to make things tougher on them.

Zek · May 02, 2005, 04:30 PM // 16:30

Personally I really like the idea of questable skills that are all purchasable at later cities if you missed them. It offers meaningful rewards for people who like to do all the available quests, but those who just want to hit 20 and start PvPing(or who missed a quest or found it too hard) can buy the skills they need and focus on later missions. What's the problem? I don't think there's any need for the game to spoon-feed everything to the players.

bstripp · May 02, 2005, 08:36 PM // 20:36

Quote:

Originally Posted by Krindi

First, Skills. It used to be that you could see a trainer and pick skills you wanted to buy. The skills cost you a Skill Point and a number of Gold. No biggie, a tried and true system. Now, you not only have to still pay for these skills, but you don't get to choose what skills you get. Oh, and by the way, you have to quest for these skills that you don't want in the first place. I have yet to find a trainer who offers me a skill I want. Fighter skills, have been reduced to Hammer...basically, you can't find any decent swords as yet and all the skills you can get are hammer related.

Personally, I like the system. I want some reason to PVE. You can build a decent PVP character with a minimum amount of time invested. Then tweak the builds as you work your way through the PVE. It's a brilliant system in my mind. So to your first point, different strokes and all. Realize that you have 6 months before the next expansion (roughly) and giving you reason to revist and give meaning to a large part of the game. We are a week into the game, in another two-three weeks all of the skills will be found and there will be hundreds of guides on how to get the skills you want.

If it bugs you to explore for skills or play PvP without the one skill you wanted, just wait a few weeks and that info will be readily available. With a low level cap in place, it won't take long to get right up to speed.

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Drops for all armor materials used to be fairly close. Granted, some were a little more common than others, but in this final release, casters of anykind are, to put it bluntly, screwed to the walls. Pardon the language, but hey, if it fits...etc... The drop rate between Iron and cloth is about 20-1 by my measurement at this point. Between me and a friend we've run 4 characters all the way through the beginning doing nothing but farming and here are our numbers, out of 4 characters we have a total of 543 Iron, and 29 cloth. Needless to say, we're never going to be able to outfit a caster decently as compared to the innumerable fighter classes we could support with armor at this point.

If you want cloth, hunt the whiptail things. They drop half eaten masses that usually break down into cloth. I have enough cloth to outfit whatever I need at this point.

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Three, Guild costs. When will you people decide on a price? In the begining it costed 50g to create a guild and 100g to create the cloak I think. During the last 2 BWE's the price of creating a guild went to 100g and designing a cloak costed 1000g. At the release, creating a guild costed 200g, and to design your cloaks costs 2000g. Are you just trying to see how painful you can make this. I mean, the name is GuildWars. So creating guilds should be something that is encouraged and fostered, not made into a grind. Furthermore, anyone who was in on the BWE's got to automatically keep their Guilds, and it looks like cloaks as well without paying this exorbitant costs. I thought there was going to be a general wipe with only characters names saved? But what you've done is give some groups a head start on several fronts now. Not only in giving them an organization right off the bat, and thus saving them a ton of cash, but also by making it more difficult for new players to form guilds and compete. Granted, being in the pre-order and running through the BWE's should have some benefits, but not at the expense of literally raping new players.

You didn't keep your cloak. You did keep your guild.

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Fourth, Time Based Gameplay. Here is an excerpt from the IGN interview with Arenanet, http://pc.ign.com/articles/400/400429p1.html . On the second page, second question of that interview they discuss the level drive system, and claim that this game will, in fact, not be like that. That a person who has less time spent playing will still be competative. The drastic changed that I've seen from the BWE's to final release do not bear this statement out. Like all other NCSoft games, the more a person plays, the greater his reward will be. Basically, this game has become just like any other in that respect, contrary to they're numerous claims otherwise.

I think that getting to the level cap in 20 hours is pretty casual friendly. Look at games like COH where 400-500 hours is the norm. While not point fingers directly at you, the instant gratification socieity seems to be alive and well on the boards. What's wrong with a little bit of game play? What's wrong with a bit of story? It's still one week into the game, I have two characters close to the level cap and I explore a lot. How rough is that?

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Fifth, World At War. Who's spastic idea was this? Do you not think there are enough political problems in the world that you have to bring real country names into a game? Do you really think that using real country and geographical names won't have posts and flames flying on the boards and in the chats? Guess what, not everyone playing this game is an adult. Not everyone will just pass it off and say, "Whatever". For absolutely no reason you've inflamed already burning issues.

Bah. Ban the Olympics while you are at it. This is not some burning geopolitical contest. It is a game and a bit of nationalism doen't make this into some kind of social comentary.

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Like many others I'm very disappointed in how this was presented, and I'll be watching over the next little while to see if anything changes or is 'fixed', to reflect your original statements about the games design and intent. If it fails to start taking the shape of what I was originally sold on, I will definitately be taking my time elsewhere.

Well its a shame to see anyone leave, especially over some pretty trivial things. While I am sure there are 'many' who do not like the current incarnation, I am pretty confident there an equal or greater 'many' who are still playing and enjoying a very well crafted game. I have yet to see anything that they have not delivered on, however, that is one man's opinion. Sorry to see you go.

mostro · May 02, 2005, 09:00 PM // 21:00

Quote:

Originally Posted by Krindi

Gonna hafta disagree. I say at least 2 different people within the first hour who had cloaks. Not groups of people with the same cloak, but 2 individuals with different cloaks. I also saw talk within the chats during the first couple of hours people wondering how they got them so fast. A group effort is certainly possible, but when in the first hour you only see one person from a guild sporting a cloak, you have to wonder. And yes, I did take trip through the many districts to see how many others bore the same cloak, nary a single one.
-K

The price of the cape may be based on demand. When I logged in 3 hours after the game opened, I was able to get the cape in the pre-searing ascalon for 100 gold. However as the day goes on people reported that it costed them 2 plats to make the cape. *shrug*

LiquidLithium · May 06, 2005, 04:35 PM // 16:35

I agree and disagree.
I disagree with the armor thing, and the iron to cloth drops. You need to salvage stuff man to get cloth. I have to much cloth than i know what to do with. Salvage salvage salvage.

I agree with the guild expendetures. However, i solo'd for quite a while and then when i had 3k i created my guild and got my cape. And 200g for a guild hall? THAT IS VERY CHEAP. Are you sure it isnt more? I am not that far, but 200g is cheap. Maybe they should swap the prices if that is right. Make it 200g for capes and 2000g for gulid hall.