Anet doesn't care about PvE?

If you are going to quote someone quote them correctly. Jeff said there will be elite missions that can be accessed by alliances holding a town. He did not say that it would be denied to everyone else. There have been other reports saying that anyone friendly with the controlling faction will have access. I'm thinking these details haven't been finalized, but Anet should really provide a detailed explanation about how that will work.

Charles, thanks for engaging in the rant I've been wanting to have.

I said it was a "paraphrase" not a "quote". Here is the Quote (emphasis mine):

Here's the link where I read the quote: http://www.computerandvideogames.com....php?id=133721 (It's on page three.)

He therefore, did say that it would be denied to everyone else. I'm sure this may all change, especially with as much feedback on it as they are surely receiving. But, per Mr. Strain, the only ones who may enter a particular Elite Mission are members of the guild alliance that controls the town where the portal to that Elite Mission resides.

As a minor digression,

Sadly, that quote also says that these missions (which I will probably never see because I'm not the type to grind for Faction points) will produce "a correspondingly high-level of loot!" -- loot that will therefore only be available for purchase from aspiring individuals here in the High-End forums who are in the Guild Alliances which can grind enough Faction points to control these missions. They will be able to, naturally, set whatever price they like.

anet might care about pve as an addon that makes them money by tempting new gamers but they dont care about pve players or builds.
anets real concern is pvp and if anything messes with pvp it gets nerfed including killing off builds in pve that people have spent many hours building up

anet love pvp

end of

Ok, I am under the impression that since Febuary 3rd(date of quoted article) a variety of things have been said about access by Gaile, Jeff and the rumor mill. There are other threads on this topic to which we can refer.

Anet balances skills to keep PvP competitive, they balance monsters and areas to keep PvE competitive. The game is designed to be flexible and most everything needed to alter a pve character is readily avaible (except for a few ruins and perfect weapons). Really, nothing takes hours to build up in guild wars PvE.

PvE was rather lame in Prophecies, but I would argue there is notable improvement in factions which tells me that Anet does care. It would be a shame if people were locked out of elite content (although some restrictions makes things interesting).

I totally agreeI totally agree!Of this, I am positive - I agree 100%.I completely agreeAbsolutely not. (hehe, you knew that was coming!)

Only if the playing field were level, would restrictions on content be fair or interesting. Vis a Vis PvP-only characters, who are able to generate fully equipped characters at a moments notice; this was done to level the playing field so that PvP competition would be more available to all. I don't mind competing as long as I have a fair shot! I don't believe that there is any way that content restriction which directly relates to the amount of time you spend farming Faction points (by using any of the available methods of Faction point farming) could ever be fair, balanced, or in line with Arena.net's "Skill, not time played" dogma. I honestly don't think that a level playing field can be created; not with the "ingenuity" or "craftiness" of some of the more hardcore farmers out there.

Fair content restriction: Your party has to go through three different zones, which hold extremely different challenges. You must survive and meet the mini-objectives contained within these "trials", in order to reach the outpost where the Elite portal lies. There, you may adjust your skillbars, but you may not leave the outpost. You enter the Elite portal with the same group of 8 that you fought through the trials with, and it is up to your skill as players to build a team that can withstand not only the trials, but the Elite mission itself.

Unfair content restriction: A global, organized farming competition where the content is available only to those who can farm the most Faction, the fastest, and the most efficiently.

(Anyhow, sorry, I'm getting off topic. I'll toss in my "omg anet doesn't care more about pvp than it does pve" line with the rest of you. Gaile said that it's easy to think that way, when you see the giant cash prizes that pvp has to offer sometimes, but she emphatically told me that it is not true at all. They love "grind monkeys" like me just as much as they love "frag monkeys" like Ensign. The new PvE content in factions, as Thom said, looks like it's going to be an enormous improvement over Prophecies, tons of new skins for weapons and armor, new monsters, and gorgeous environments... how can that all just be a bunch of BS to feed us in order to somehow trick us into playing PvP? Pshht.)

I don't think ANet cares as much about PvE as PvP. Every time a post like this comes up, a ton of PvE'ers chime in and voice their concerns, and a ton of PvP'ers start defending ANet.

You do get some PvE'ers sticking up for the game, as is the case here. But all-in-all, being able to get to the level cap in 1 day (as well as being able to equip the best items, etc.) speaks for itself.

Like who?

Umm, do most companies charge $50 for their expansions? I'm not complaining--the price on GW is the only reason I'm still playing. But if the expansion is going to cost as much as the original, it should be expected to have a lot of content. I sure as hell wouldn't purchase it if it only had 2 new professions...unless I was another one of these PvP fanboys whose jock ANet is all over.

Ensign: Thanks for answering and being honest. I really don't mean to come across that way, and I always try to disclaim myself as "this is my opinion" or "what I have seen".

Re-reading my posts I did ask where those repeatable quests were at. I seriously never noticed them, not sure how I missed them, but I did. Those alone would have made a huge impact on my play. I played ALL day Friday and Saturday. Gave up Sunday as none of my guild was on as they were more miffed about it than I was.

I actually went into Factions with hopes on disclaiming what was left of my concerns on the game. Like I had said, what I did find didn't help any. Though I didn't like the Assassin (I thought I would love it) I did like the Ritualist and because of the FPE I finally got to play a Monk. Also enjoyed that class quite a bit.

What I meant by my PvP experience was a nightmare, was the people I got stuck with were terrible. They screamed, yelled, cursed acted like 3 year olds. I never said anything in those groups but "Hi" and "good luck to you" just before I dropped out.
If I hadn't had an open mind about it, I wouldn't have even tried it.

I also don't mean that all content should be PvE only. What I was trying to say is, there could have been so much more added to the PvE side, but so much work was spent on these "new" mission types and then all the effort spent on "not calling them what they are". PvP. Players vs player doesn't just mean players killing players to me (Note: I said to me). If I'm competing for points, score, holding areas, or anything, I'm playing a PvP, which is as others will agree, a more rushed type game style.

With all the time spent on those game styles, all there is left is, as you said, Fed EX style games. Time could have been spent on multi-team coop missions. Example might be: Team one goes east and fights their way to the back of a gate house to open the gate for the other team. All the while, Team two fights towards the front. Missions like that could have been put in.
Even multi-team defend ala THK. Several teams hold off an assault while a thrid team tries to take out some sort of boss mob outside of the defended area. A 12 (3 teams of 4) player co-op.

Instead of Co-op missions like those above, we got "competitive missions", "Challenge missions" all PvP mini games for score or points (I'm not the only one that feels this way towards these game types either). You might be able to understand the feeling that this threads subject line indicates by looking at it that way. The upgrades to the game and the additions via Mission types are based off of competition. PvEers are not in the game to compete, rather to co-op, and there has been little or no emphasis on this so far (at least from what we've been told or seen). You could say that co-op is in the Factions, and you would be right, but from nothing new from what was in Chapter one. One might even say that co-op is involved with the "competitive missions", but so is PvP and so many people, myself included are not going to enjoy those. Why? Because of the playstyle, the "feel" of the game. It's rushed, hurried and not laid back and not typically enjoyable. PvEers would like some new game types as well, that aren't PvP based or competition based.

There are so many upgrades to PvE that haven't been put in, that we as PvEers have been asking for... and nothing so far. Factions is great for what it is, I've never knocked it. I've called it near perfect many times. Just look at it. I also said it wasn't for me (Note: "me"). Unfortunatly, my entire guild seems to be opting out of playing Factions too, instead they seem to be working towards buying drops out of there rather than playing through it.

Just to clarify my standing with Factions:

From what I saw and found - loved the Kurzick forest areas. Awesome looking. Jade Sea was not bad. Enjoyed the "scouting missions" the most. Loved the Ritualist class and finally got to play a Monk which I also enjoyed. Tried the Jade Quarry mission a total of three times. First two times I got stuck with complete jerks, so rather than hear the abusive screaming and tantrum throwing of fellow group members, I and many others in the group dropped. Third try, whole group got ganked ("griefed" is the term I would use in other games, but since it was a PvP mission, it doesn't apply here) and within seconds, most of my group drops. So one hour for two groups and finally another 40 minutes or so with nothing to show for it, not even a good time or fun was had. - hence the "PvP was an utter nightmare" comment.
Wish I had seen or seriously even notice the repeatable missions. I do know the mission you are talking about too, I just didn't notice it was repeatable... /smackhead

All you need to do is spend your faction with one alliance and everyone from both sides talks to you again, and you can always enter outposts from another faction. I don't think you are that bound to one alliance. Besides, Alliance Battles are pretty PvE player friendly.

I don't see why you are so religiously bound to PvE that you don't want to do PvP at all. They are the same game. Most people do both

And its not like you are forced to play in them either. its not like the Kurzick/Luxons captured by the enemy forces are suddenly going to ally themselves with them.

Did you acutually read what I said, or do you just feel like bashing people? I'm not talking about grinding to create an Uber toon, I'm talking about playing the game through. If you have multiple guys and actually play through the game it takes 100s of hours. I had over 100 hours on my very GW toon as I explored every corner of the map, did every mission. And then I did it with 2 other classes. It's not called grinding, it's called playing. In all that time I still haven't found some mods that a PvP toon can just call up. Right or Wrong that is where a lot of the distaste comes from.. And people like you just pop in and start quoting random things that don't pertain. It IS about time spent of you a PvEer for the simple fact that this game takes a long TIME to play if you don't get run. And if you actually read (again Grimm, it helps )my original reference said exactly what you are saying about Wow.. just without the sad attempts at attacking anyone. And No, I didn't call him ignorant, I said his thread that calls PvEer whining Carebears was the most ignorant post. Big difference.

"It is an irreconcilable problem"

Pretty much, barring not allowing toons to cross over which would do more harm then good. And while it might be irreconcilable, it's not a big problem. It is after all only a game. I could care less what PvPer have access to. Hell, if Anet wants to add a Super Juicy Axe of Pet Slaying for thinning out IWAY teams that's only available in PvP that’s fine with me.

I agree completely. My understanding is that control of cities was only recently added - perhaps it will be updated before release. But as is, you're right, only the biggest and most dedicated grinding guilds will have control of cities - the little guy is never going to even sniff that content.


Oh I think it's perfectly possible, depending on what their goals are. If they're looking to give some sort of reward to the biggest and most dedicated PvE alliances then what they have is fine. Those alliances will maintain the highest levels of faction reputation, and will control the largest cities constantly because of it. It's not a system that's remotely fair to the casual gamer, but (hopefully) it wasn't designed to be.

An alternative system that would spread access around more would involve alliances 'buying' control of a city or outpost. Alliance reputation would have to be spent, and control would be granted for a certain period of time before another alliance could buy it away again. This sort of system is a timeshare - instead of the top alliances holding cities all the time, each city will be held by alliances in rough proportion to how much reputation they're earning. Big alliances would have regular access to city control - smaller alliances would be able to buy control on occasion and experience the content. It's a completely different model though - sometimes a relatively unknown alliance would control a major city, and I don't know if that's something they want in the game.


I've said it before, but the biggest reason for that perception is the number of changes and tweaks for each group, and how they are recieved. Specifically, that rebalancing and skill tweaks are generally well recieved and encouraged by the PvP community, but are demonized by PvE.

Just look at the most recent major patch. A whole bunch of skills were rebalanced, revitalizing the PvP environement. At the same time only a single rebalance was made to PvE, a (rather creative) change to a grossly over-farmed and over-botted section of a single map, and people were up in arms, threatening to quit the game and demonizing A.Net for 'hating PvE.'


Yes, it does. Perhaps what it says the loudest, is that the specific type of PvE content that a large segment of the gaming world wants, is not what A.Net is offering.

PvE in this game is far from perfect, no doubt about it - but if you're going to try and slam it for a lack of a leveling treadmill the people who get it are going to rightfully laugh in your face.


Well it isn't like those quests had a giant, neon 'THIS QUEST IS REPEATABLE' marker at the top of the description. You'd only notice them if you did the quest, then went back to the same part of the zone *again*, talked to the NPC with the !, and had a case of deja-vu. There was enough content in this event that you probably didn't spend much time re-entering the same zone over and over, especially if you were re-rolling. I only noticed that one quest was repeatable because that Fern zone was so huge and a lot of things were going on there, I passed by that NPC several times.

It would have been more clear that certain quests were repeatable if the NPCs that gave them were in towns. Those you'd pass by often enough to notice that something was up. I think those would be a good addition, NPCs in major towns with simple, repeatable quests that PvE players could work into their regular gameplay. Done right, those could give people some incentive to play PvE 'normally', instead of just power-farming whatever mob is easiest.


I do think that it was a mistake to make the new, 'featured' content on the PvE side Asperwood and the Jade Quarry. As you said, those maps are really PvP in a clown suit. More specifically, it's random arena in a clown suit that only people with PvE characters could play. It was, in short, a recipe for disaster, a very niche map that was advertised as being much, much more.

I thought the gametypes were interesting myself, and they certainly did involve more killing of bots than other players, but it distinctly was a PvP experience.

After thinking about it a bit I'm pretty sure that those two maps really exist for the segment of the population that really enjoys random arena. They can take their W/Mo in there and run around killing NPCs and dueling people and all that. Actually I wouldn't be surprised at all if that crowd loved those maps. The problem, then, is marketing. The Jade Quarry was advertised as awesome new PvE content, not as the newest incarnation of random arena.

In any case that content certainly wasn't for either of us.


Do those gametypes explicitly need two teams, though? Or could you just form up your own 8 man squad and split it up yourself? What this sounds like is that there's a desire for PvE missions that aren't the same old linear monster-bashes, and I agree fully with that.

I'm just wary of my success in a mission being dependent upon some idiot with henchies managing to pull off his part without wiping.

I believe there were only two actual missions in the preview, and I only got to play one of them. I'll have to see what else they add before making judgments on whether PvE has evolved or not. Though I do have the caveat that anything more involved that a linear bash with henchies is likely going to be time sensitive (either through waves of enemies, or otherwise managing to keep busy while waiting for another squad to do their job), and thus something you wouldn't enjoy terribly...

Peace,
-CxE

adding to my comment before hand. There is alot of people who didnot even under stand the first GW. for example here is link with some who even read the story. there is still alot of lose ends in the game.

http://gw.gamewikis.org/wiki/Storyline(Ch1)

I also recomend to the game degsiners checking out games from boiware. I think that should be a measring tool for Anet as far as rpg in pve goes. they should try the games I sugjested.

I think the problem as usual is that some people expect to PvE or PvP exclusively without missing out on anything. If you want to experience everything the game has to offer you are going to have to do both. If you only PvP, you will miss out on stuff intended for PvE, and vice-versa.

Take it as what it is folks, a PvE and PvP game, all rolled up into one.

Oh, ok then...

The following is a direct quote from Gaile Gray, taken in the Marketplace D1 on 3/24 of the FPE:

"No, you cannot do quests in an area controlled by another faction. That is why you want to help to gain that control."

Here's the link to the original: http://www.guildwarsguru.com/forum/s...d.php?t=142804
It's in the first screen capture, toward the bottom.

(Should be interesting to watch what spin gets put on this one...)

What people say and what actually happened ingame are quite often different; in the FPE's case, you were free to do whatever quests you wanted. I know that as a fervent Kurzick supporter in a Kurzick-aligned guild who had earned quite a bit of Kurzick faction, I could walk into Cavalon quite easily (very easily, despite there being a war going on) and pick up quests to support the valiant Luxon side. (Merchants and various other NPCs refused to talk.) Whether or not this will remain the case when Factions comes out is yet to be seen, though. As has been stated before, there will be benefits to the Faction/Alliance that controls an outpost.

Since Gaile works for Anet, it seems pretty clear that our ability to do quests in the opposing territory was for the FPE event only. But yeah, there's a chance, albeit a slim one, that Anet will change their minds before release.

And I must reiterate the obvious benefits to PvE based guilds being in an Alliance with PvP based guilds, since accessibility to basic PvE content is dependent upon how much territory their Faction owns - which is entirely dependent upon PvP style play.

Now regarding the other way around...

Anet continually refers to the important role of the cooperative player in this new chapter. Gaile also hinted at the new Elite Co-op missions being extremely challenging. Hopefully we'll learn more about what they mean in the near future.

Fwiw, there is an art to good Co-op play, just like with good PvP play. No serious PvP player would expect much from someone who only does Random Arena casually, just as no serious Co-op player would expect much from one who PvEs simply to farm and grind.

First, I didn't know you were emo, Savio. I hope you liked all that poetry and bad music the Kurzicks used to brainwash you.

Second and seriously, there were a few quests I could pick-up without a problem but was not able to complete depending on where the faction line was located.

the game is all about PvE ffs

Do they need them? Much in the same way we needed 12vs12 and Alliance battles. It's an addition and a new mechanic to the game play.

Much in the same way many pure PvEers are seeing the high end Elite content access dependant on PvP border fighting? Success for many PvEers is gaing that elite drop, not purchasing it from someone. The success of that player is (as has been said per Jeff Strain and quoted in this thread already and the link here) dependant upon other people. Yes, you contribute, but you would also contribute in the above game play example.
As for the issue on wiping out in this mission; there's always issues that come up with a new mechanic. A few can be found here:

Co-op Missions

Anything at all added to PvE besides more quests we've seen before would be nice. As long as it wasn't racing to and from or competition based game play. For me anyway.
If I were in a mission with another Co-op group, holding a line of mobs back so they could do something else, that would be interesting as it would have a meaning and a purpose. We have yet to see this in PvE yet. Holding off wave of wave of mobs just for the sake of it gets old. But in supporting another group seperate from your own, while they struggle with their part of the same mission would be fun.
The dynamic we have seen in place thus far is all about groups with groups vs groups with groups. Too rushed for me and other players also don't drop anything (do they?), so hours of fighting with nothing gained but points.
However, groups with groups vs more and tougher mobs would bring in some interesting missions.

I Was under the impression that ANET said something like..

"Alliances who have both PvE AND PvP Players will be the most strongest"

Fort Aspen and the Jade Quarry are very clearly PvP contests... NOT PvE,

So I would be interested to know why they think that PvE Players would be strong in an Alliance.. is it because they would gain faction points from those repeatable missions?