Curse

Dyeeo · Aug 12, 2005, 07:24 PM // 19:24

Solutions

Seeing that people had so many complaints, I decided to come up with some solutions. Hopefully someone with Anet will see this and it will spark their imagination.

A little background about me:
- I am a PvE player but I see the value of PvP
- I have played since the game came out
- I have had my ups and downs about the game
- I am a former farmer and trader though I gave up on both
- I did not cash in on the recent trader reset
- I am not rich in game

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Favor:
This is not an easy one to solve. The problem is it’s hard to keep a sense of “rooting for the team” when one team is severely disadvantaged. What makes it worse is that the favor is linked to PvE. There are two solutions: 1. Remove the link between favor and PvE. Make it like the Olympics. People will be happy enough to see that their region is winning. 2. Allow those who don’t have the favor to enter UW but make the price higher. This solution is for those stubborn ones who like the current favor system.

PvP:
There are actually several problems with this. The first is the limited amount of choices pertaining to PvP. Here are some ideas of new PvP options.

Many people want large scale wars and whatnot. Obviously the technical capability is there as seen by the 8 team battles. So why not have some where its 4 teams vs. 4 teams? There is still teamwork because its squad based, and it would be so much more fun.

There should be more “fun” modes of PvP play that are not as competitive. Just things to help stimulate people to people interactions. I am sure Anet can think of something. Just have one mini game at each outpost and it will give people an incentive to get to those outposts. Any level can play at any outpost because the game would pit them against teams of their same level. If one team is dominating, they get pitted against higher level teams.

Faction and PvP Skill Gain:
This is a pretty simple one. Any skill that can be bought in PvE should be able to be bought for PvP unlocking by PvP players. Any other skill should use the faction system. However, the faction system really has to be adjusted. You simply need too many faction points right now. And yes, PvP players should have unlimited refund points when in town.

Skill Points:
Many people complain about the lack of skill points. Frankly, I don’t see the problem with the amount a person gets. I can see how it could be a problem for those that want to unlock ALL their skills. I just want to unlock the skills I will use so the amount they give me is fine.

Lack of Build Variety/Skill imbalances:
Anet is just afraid of pissing a lot of people off by fixing skills that are obviously broken. So they should just set up a monthly ladder. Every month or so, they could reset guild rankings (though they could also have an overall guild ranking board that doesn’t reset) and make any skill changes they want. That way people would be prepared. They could even add 1 skill per class every month. That would make things interesting.

Economy:
There really is only one thing needed. An auction house. There could be one in every major town. There could be two options, either a trading house or auction house. In the trading house, you would submit an item with your price. In the auction house, you would submit an item which people could bid on etc. The buyer would go to either place and search for an item, and see all the items from the lowest price first for the trading house and soonest ending for the auction.

This system would lower prices but wont lower them to rediculous prices. It will make healthy competition between people.

Yes this would take some coding. But it’s absolutely necessary, both to remove the horrors of player to player trading and npc trader insanity.

Runners:
Ahhh the big argument. Some love them, some hate them. But you have to think about why they even exist. It is because the game is boring to many people. Fix the bore (see below) and the runners will decrease.

PvE Bore:
PvE gets super boring after the third or fourth time around. There really is no solution to this for the first chapter. However, I can give some suggestions for the second chapter. Anet needs to figure out a way to make players feel like they are gaining something and advancing every moment they play. Right now GuildWars for the repeat player is just grinding for a goal. There should be more class specific quests so that there is incentive to play new characters. Right now all the quests are like “go kill this monster” or “talk to this guy.” Its fun for cookie cutter classes like Ele/Warrior but they really don’t suit mesmer. PvE is supposed to teach you’re your class right? Then make it so it actually does that.

Items are a huge part of any RPG. Obviously Anet is dead set on creating any unbalanced items so what can they do to make their pitiful array of items better? More variety. Add a huge amount of new mods that are available for upgrades. Have the upgrades visible when you add them. Add more sets of armor with different stats. Yes this would take coding time, and yes they are doing it for “free” but in the end, I can guarantee they will have a game that lasts with people buying new chapters because it will be FUN.

Anet wants people to get items from playing the game normally. Too bad playing the game normally is like chopping wood. It might be fun the first time you chop it but the subsequent times are boring. That is why people farm. They farm because they want to attain a goal with the least amount of pain possible. I say leave the farmers alone, they are part of any online game and they help stimulate the economy. With auction houses, the economy will be fine.

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Thanks for reading and I await your opinions.

Epinephrine · Aug 12, 2005, 08:06 PM // 20:06

Quote:

Originally Posted by Dyeeo

Skill Points:
Many people complain about the lack of skill points. Frankly, I don’t see the problem with the amount a person gets. I can see how it could be a problem for those that want to unlock ALL their skills. I just want to unlock the skills I will use so the amount they give me is fine.

Have you switched secondary ever? You end up with a pretty crappy selection of skills after a switch, and if you try out a new secondary and don't like it after a bit of investment, and go to a third you are probably flat out of points, even if you didn't splurge. Pick up half the elites for your primary class and haalf for your secondary, get a few of the useful skills not yet available by questing and switch class a few times and you'll see that skill points are a huge issue.

Quote:

Originally Posted by Dyeeo

Economy:
There really is only one thing needed. An auction house. There could be one in every major town. There could be two options, either a trading house or auction house. In the trading house, you would submit an item with your price. In the auction house, you would submit an item which people could bid on etc. The buyer would go to either place and search for an item, and see all the items from the lowest price first for the trading house and soonest ending for the auction.

This system would lower prices but wont lower them to rediculous prices. It will make healthy competition between people.

Yes this would take some coding. But it’s absolutely necessary, both to remove the horrors of player to player trading and npc trader insanity.

Or you could simply fix prices, by not tying the availability of things like runes and dyes and such to the in game item drops, simply have high yet reasonable prices to buy them in shops.

BigRedsFro · Nov 25, 2005, 04:43 AM // 04:43

Quote:

Add a huge amount of new mods that are available for upgrades. Have the upgrades visible when you add them. Add more sets of armor with different stats.

Okay the problem I have here is the word "huge". If you had ever played diablo 2, or diabo 1 for that matter, you would realise that having a huge array of items is not a good thing. The reason here is there is no way to balance all the items. Sure adding a few new item times and armor would make things more interesting, but when you start adding massive amounts of new stuff, an inbalance starts. There is really no way to balance every item, so what ends up happening is there is a few superior items and many inferior ones, which will not have any point whatsoever. Think about it, if you had a chance to craft armor that was better than another, would you choose the inferior? (take fissure armor out of this equation). Maybe I'm wrong, but I do NOT want to see this game go in the direction of diablo.

So yes, it would be cool to add a few new items of every type, just dont go overboard.

actionjack · Nov 25, 2005, 05:23 AM // 05:23

Agree on some.

On Economy. Auction house will help drive down the price of some of the items, but still won't help with the overall economy, espcially the old player vs new player. It need some more serious fix if it hope to keep some new player still in the game.

Need more constant update and add on of contents. More randomize factor would also help to make PvE more enjoyible.