As far as xp gain goes, the most efficient way to gain it was personal story (in BWE , at least) Why youd want to rush to 80 is something that eludes me too. Gameplay is not going to change significantly after you hit level 30 and unlock your elite skill. You may get a wider selection of skills and traits to choose from, but thats about all.
Im gonna hook on caffeine IV, powerlevel myself 24/7 (while skipping 70% of content) till I get to 80 and then spend rest of a month whining about how the end game sucks!
I've been saying that Guild Wars 2 is only going to appeal to players with a certain mindset, but if players are forming a negative opinion of GW2 based entirely on the way the game directs the players through the zones, they're not the ones "doing it wrong."
Many valuable man hours were more than likely spent creating a large portion of the vast array of hidden nooks and crannies found all over the world of Guild Wars 2, but if Arenanet doesn't do anything at all to push players towards those areas, they're the ones that failed not the players. I too explored a bit in GW2 and found some interesting areas. Sometimes I happened upon a unique DE I hadn't seen before, but other times I just happened upon a whole heap of nothingness. It's not tunnel vision, because you can't expect players to go rummaging all over the map looking for content when the game itself directs players to certain areas. If exploring for little else than the sake of exploration itself isn't your thing, and if your the type of gamer that plays in order to see your character become progressively more powerful (ie you play to level up even if you're not exactly a powergamer), you probably will find GW2's PvE lacking. That is an issue.
I think that, more or less, the way the OP is encouraging people to play GW2 could be applied to any MMORPG on the market today. Rather than being entirely focused on hitting the level cap, if players simply played any of those games slowly without such a focus on maintaining a steady leveling pace and rather just ran off and explored and exhausted all the extraneous activities the game had to offer, I think just about any MMORPG released in the last 7 or so years would be seen in a markedly better light. In that respect, I don't really buy this as an adequate excuse for GW2's PvE content.
If the areas to which players are directed are what is giving players such a negative first impression, perhaps Anet needs to work on making those areas feel less repetitive and formulaic.
I've been saying that Guild Wars 2 is only going to appeal to players with a certain mindset, but if players are forming a negative opinion of GW2 based entirely on the way the game directs the players through the zones, they're not the ones "doing it wrong."
Many valuable man hours were more than likely spent creating a large portion of the vast array of hidden nooks and crannies found all over the world of Guild Wars 2, but if Arenanet doesn't do anything at all to push players towards those areas, they're the ones that failed not the players. I too explored a bit in GW2 and found some interesting areas. Sometimes I happened upon a unique DE I hadn't seen before, but other times I just happened upon a whole heap of nothingness. It's not tunnel vision, because you can't expect players to go rummaging all over the map looking for content when the game itself directs players to certain areas. If exploring for little else than the sake of exploration itself isn't your thing, and if your the type of gamer that plays in order to see your character become progressively more powerful (ie you play to level up even if you're not exactly a powergamer), you probably will find GW2's PvE lacking. That is an issue.
I think that, more or less, the way the OP is encouraging people to play GW2 could be applied to any MMORPG on the market today. Rather than being entirely focused on hitting the level cap, if players simply played any of those games slowly without such a focus on maintaining a steady leveling pace and rather just ran off and explored and exhausted all the extraneous activities the game had to offer, I think just about any MMORPG released in the last 7 or so years would be seen in a markedly better light. In that respect, I don't really buy this as an adequate excuse for GW2's PvE content.
If the areas to which players are directed are what is giving players such a negative first impression, perhaps Anet needs to work on making those areas feel less repetitive and formulaic.
I think that truer words have never been said in this forum...
I think there's a pretty easy way to solve the issues with people misunderstanding the way combat and content in general works in GW2.
They need to add a "new player" channel which is zone-wide or game-wide, and can be toggled on and off. They should also add zone-wide channels for every zone which can be toggled on and off.
This would allow the community to help out. New players could ask questions and express their concerns, and players who understand the game a bit better could point them in the right direction and help them understand the differences between this game and previous MMORPGs. A great side-benefit is that each time a new player is helped, it creates another positive impression of the game and community, and draws players in to the mindset of "we're all in this together".
Another aspect of MMORPGs that's been deeply ingrained into players is that it's totally solo... everything you need to know should be explained by a tutorial, or totally intuitive within the UI, because players should never have to talk or ask questions or get help from the in-game community. I'm all for having a good tutorial, but I think this game is a golden opportunity to refocus players on being part of a server community and contributing in a positive way.
Anyway, I just think it would help those players the OP is talking about a great deal to have a channel where they could ask questions and get things explained to them immediately, rather than waiting and complaining two days later on the message boards that there wasn't enough content.
"I did all the hearts in this zone, and I'm nowhere near high enough level for the next zone. What am I supposed to do?"
"Go exploring, and follow dynamic events as they unfold. Head over to XYZ right now, there's an event going on that will get you started!"
"Crap! This combat is WAY to hard! I keep dying."
"Try moving a bit more and using dodge and your abilities at the right moments, you'll get much better results. Start with a ranged weapon, you'll have more time to react."
Positive interactions like that create friendships, longevity for the game, and grow the community in a worthwhile way. And, they would put a stop to most of the people complaining about things they don't understand.
I just wrote a blog entry about pretty much this same topic, it's really interesting what they've done with core approach to the MMORPG concept. Most of the basic mechanics are same or little bit polished, but this approach and mentality is something truly innovative. As we've seen already it can be quite hard to understand why GW2 actually is innovative if you observe it as any standard MMO. My firm opinion is that ArenaNet is on the right path but they need to make people more aware of how the game flows rather than expect people to adjust to that. Lots of people coming from classical MMORPG's will find themselves underwhelmed if they approach the game like any other MMO.
I think that, more or less, the way the OP is encouraging people to play GW2 could be applied to any MMORPG on the market today. Rather than being entirely focused on hitting the level cap, if players simply played any of those games slowly without such a focus on maintaining a steady leveling pace and rather just ran off and explored and exhausted all the extraneous activities the game had to offer, I think just about any MMORPG released in the last 7 or so years would be seen in a markedly better light. In that respect, I don't really buy this as an adequate excuse for GW2's PvE content.
I think that truer words have never been said in this forum...
You are both missing the entire point of this thread. Not to mention you both seem rather clueless about this game as well.
How many MMOs do you know today that still reward exploration? Closest thing I can think of is a very weak example, and that would be SWTOR (in the form of holocrons / datacrons). Every other MMO tells you exactly where you need to go, and what you need to do.
GW2 isn't designed this way, and it's pretty obvious this is the case. Many players who are aware that they are used to the linear quest mindset have even admitted that they are completely lost in GW2, because they aren't used to having to figure out what to do on their own.
The main reason why this mindset is a detriment to GW2 specifically, is because GW2 is designed around exploration, discovery, and having to think for yourself. Most MMOs just aren't. There's an extreme amount of handholding that most games do, and GW2 is one of the few games that is trying to keep that to a minimum. It goes beyond burning through content to reach max lvl. The game has lots of hidden benefits all around the world. It would be like if you powered to max lvl in another MMO, only to realize that some of the coolest weapons & armor you had skipped, because you assumed they would all be in the max lvl dungeon. Not many games really do that. Especially not MMOs.
People who powerlvl in GW2 will not only be skipping a lot of content, they will be ignoring a lot of the progression the game offers in favor of the most shallow option. Lvling in GW2 really takes a side role to all the other forms of customization in the game. Skill challenges, gear, sigils / runes, having hte proper weapon sets. It's really amazing just how often this still needs to be spelled out for people.
Originally posted by pharazonic I noticed something during the BWE - in chat, or on the forums, some people asked or said things along the lines of, "What's the fastest way to 80?"
Now you're entitled to whichever playstyle you find the most fun, and if for you, that's hitting max level very fast, then so be it. That said, if you treat the sub-80 PvE in this game as a chore, fluff to blow through, or some silly sideshow that preceeds the true content, you're most certianly doing it wrong.
From all the people I have spoken too, and from my experience as well, found that simply doing stuff was a better experience than focusing on the Hearts progress bar or running from waypoint to waypoint judging from the map.
Perhaps most importantly, there are all sorts of events, NPCs and surprises in the game taht don't have a counter, or marker. So if you tunnel vision on the event counter, for example, you're bound to miss most of what this game has to offer.
Im realy not bother with this you will prolly have many players that come from other games and have this mindset, but bought GW2 and not even investigate how game works before buying it. Then come ingame and start complaining becouse its not what they thought it would be or not play like WoW for example.
So i realy don't bother with those who can't adept/adjust to this new kind of gameplay.
I come from sandbox called Darkfall but you won't hear me asking silly questions or saying it ain't what it thought it would be. Ive read or looked alot of videos before i desided to jump on the GW2 WAGON so im not gonne complain or whine becouse game is so much different from what im used to.
If people asking in a normal friendly way how things work ill help if they start screaming or whine i IGNORE:P
Hope to build full AMD system RYZEN/VEGA/AM4!!!
MB:Asus V De Luxe z77 CPU:Intell Icore7 3770k GPU: AMD Fury X(waiting for BIG VEGA 10 or 11 HBM2?(bit unclear now)) MEMORY:Corsair PLAT.DDR3 1866MHZ 16GB PSU:Corsair AX1200i OS:Windows 10 64bit
I think there's a pretty easy way to solve the issues with people misunderstanding the way combat and content in general works in GW2.
They need to add a "new player" channel which is zone-wide or game-wide, and can be toggled on and off. They should also add zone-wide channels for every zone which can be toggled on and off.
This would allow the community to help out. New players could ask questions and express their concerns, and players who understand the game a bit better could point them in the right direction and help them understand the differences between this game and previous MMORPGs. A great side-benefit is that each time a new player is helped, it creates another positive impression of the game and community, and draws players in to the mindset of "we're all in this together".
Not a bad idea.
To be honest though, the problem is not a lack of help from the community. Even in some of the videos posted about people livestreaming this game as if it were WoW2.0, you can hear people repeatedly telling them what they need to do. Sometimes they listen, sometimes they don't, and that's the problem. In one of the videos the guy is basically whinning for 10-15mins straight about how he can't tame any pets! and you can hear a guy telling him repeatedly 'you can only tame green, juvenile animals, there's some here, and here'. It's really quite annoying.
What I think the game needs is a basic tutorial event. IE a combat training event, with maybe certain segments pertaining to each of the class-specific mechanics.
It's kind of a tricky balance, because this game is good due to how challenging it can be. You don't want to make it too noob friendly, or people will never bother to learn the game, and instead it will just bring down the game as a whole (a lot of games make this mistake). They basically need to find a good starting guide that will lead people down the right path, without removing the need for players to actually think about what they are doing. This game really revolves around players thinking for themselves, unlike most MMOs.
Good luck to those who have the patience to help players who refuse adept/adjust or learn anything no matter how much you help them, believe many will enter game with irritating attitudes like that.
If people are friendly and i see there willing to learn and not demand help ill help but those who just whine and scream and to dumb to learn anything before buying i won't help hehe.
Hope to build full AMD system RYZEN/VEGA/AM4!!!
MB:Asus V De Luxe z77 CPU:Intell Icore7 3770k GPU: AMD Fury X(waiting for BIG VEGA 10 or 11 HBM2?(bit unclear now)) MEMORY:Corsair PLAT.DDR3 1866MHZ 16GB PSU:Corsair AX1200i OS:Windows 10 64bit
Yeah, I'm quite happy with the drastically reduced hand-holding and the focus on meaningful rewards for exploration. Allowing the bulk of the content to unfold naturally as a player discovers it on their own is almost like the ideal that these games have always been striving for...they've just been doing it in very artificial, contrived ways by setting up a linear path that is supposed to LOOK like the game unfolding as you explore.
Adding tutorials is fine, but I REALLY hope they don't dumb the game down and start hand-holding...it will ruin one of the biggest selling points of this game.
I disagree with the OP. WvW is much more fun as a max level character with all skills and full action bar unlocked
Er you know that skills aren't unlocked in WvW right? I was stuck with only the fire spells I unlocked on my Ele and WvW'd quite a lot. Yes you're scaled in level but not in gear, skills and traits. That's only done in sPvP and while inside the Heart of the Mist starter portal to PvP but not when in the actual WvW maps.
There appear to be some odd understandings about World vs World that need to be cleared up.
Structured PvP
This is the instanced/arena form of PvP in GW2. Similar to WoW battlegrounds, but with private match servers, casual matches, casual tournaments, formal tournaments that can be a day, a month or a quarter long. Leader boards may even determine the most skilled and accomplished teams and players for a full year.
In SPVP, you play an idealized doppleganger of your character. It has no ties to the PvE or WvW game, everyone is made a true level 80, with all skills, slots and traits unlocked and free access to max stat gear.
It's skill based, rather than gear progression based.
World vs World (vs. World)
This is the two week long warfare that takes place in four massive zones for each three server match up, with fortresses, towers, outposts, resource camps, resource caravans, PvE and PvP related Dynamic Events and objectives and so much more.
In WvW, Everyone is bolstered up to level 80, but they still retain their true level, which limits their access to skills, skill slots, traits and gear. You actually do level up while in WvW. Most of that XP comes from Dynamic Events, which along with events similar to those found in the PvE world, also include Events for attacking or defending various objectives in the WvW realm.
In the first Beta Weekend Event, the ability to earn additional skill points, beyond those awarded for leveling, was limited. The PvE world has over 250 skill point challanges through out, which characters can do to earn additional skill points. Arenanet are looking at a way to allow players to earn more skill points in WvW, but it's just not in yet.
So yes, you do progress your character in WvW, including loot, xp, crafting nodes and access to crafting stations, as well as weapon skill unlocking and leveling.
There was a mini-review by a couple who play together and it was mentioned that the Husband played WvW for three hours while the wife went back to do personal story and content in the PvE world. In their experience, they both earned about the same amount of XP over those three hours, but the xp in WvW came in less frequent, but larger chunks, almost entirely from Dynamic Events that were triggered by attacking or defending objectives.
Arenanet has said all along that their goal is for players to be able to level at the same pace in WvW as in PvE. However, all they can do is tune it so they average out about the same, since they can't control how individual players play the game and it's possible some will play in ways much more efficient for leveling than others.
(BTW, for weapon unlocks for the Elementalist, I think Water attunement opens up around level 3, but you still have to unlock the weapon skills for a given attunement the same way you unlock any weapon skills, by using them. So, once you unlock Water Attunement, you will only have the 1 slot skill unlocked for the water attunment for your weapons until you start getting kills with those weapons while in Water attunement, which will start to unlock the rest of the weapon skills.
Yes, it's a pain for Elementalist to unlock all their skills for all weapons and all attunments, but you do indeed unlock attunments and weapon skills via WvW).
I think that, more or less, the way the OP is encouraging people to play GW2 could be applied to any MMORPG on the market today. Rather than being entirely focused on hitting the level cap, if players simply played any of those games slowly without such a focus on maintaining a steady leveling pace and rather just ran off and explored and exhausted all the extraneous activities the game had to offer, I think just about any MMORPG released in the last 7 or so years would be seen in a markedly better light. In that respect, I don't really buy this as an adequate excuse for GW2's PvE content.
^That is entirely not true.
Go play AION or WOW and apply that logic. It won't work. Powerleveling in those games rewards you while you trudge through boring content.
And thats part of the point.... GW2 takes a different mindset. Power leveling or even trying to power level will not give you the same reward as typical mmos.
I've been saying that Guild Wars 2 is only going to appeal to players with a certain mindset, but if players are forming a negative opinion of GW2 based entirely on the way the game directs the players through the zones, they're not the ones "doing it wrong."
Many valuable man hours were more than likely spent creating a large portion of the vast array of hidden nooks and crannies found all over the world of Guild Wars 2, but if Arenanet doesn't do anything at all to push players towards those areas, they're the ones that failed not the players. I too explored a bit in GW2 and found some interesting areas. Sometimes I happened upon a unique DE I hadn't seen before, but other times I just happened upon a whole heap of nothingness. It's not tunnel vision, because you can't expect players to go rummaging all over the map looking for content when the game itself directs players to certain areas. If exploring for little else than the sake of exploration itself isn't your thing, and if your the type of gamer that plays in order to see your character become progressively more powerful (ie you play to level up even if you're not exactly a powergamer), you probably will find GW2's PvE lacking. That is an issue.
I think that, more or less, the way the OP is encouraging people to play GW2 could be applied to any MMORPG on the market today. Rather than being entirely focused on hitting the level cap, if players simply played any of those games slowly without such a focus on maintaining a steady leveling pace and rather just ran off and explored and exhausted all the extraneous activities the game had to offer, I think just about any MMORPG released in the last 7 or so years would be seen in a markedly better light. In that respect, I don't really buy this as an adequate excuse for GW2's PvE content.
If the areas to which players are directed are what is giving players such a negative first impression, perhaps Anet needs to work on making those areas feel less repetitive and formulaic.
I think this is absolutely true. Like it or not, in an MMORPG you're not bound only by how you play the game, but also by how others play the game. And if you're not, well, it means the game has done a really bad job of being an MMORPG.
Sure, in Skyrim, you can do the "don't like it, don't use it" thing. For one, I don't like teleporting to another, far away area on the map. So what do I do? I don't use map travel at all! It's OK, I have no real qualms about it, it's my choice. But when it's an MMORPG, you can't say "oh don't use map travel if you don't" like it; because just the fact that other players are using it affects you, as it should. The flow of the gameworld is different because of its very existence.
As for hearts and player story, yes, their existence constitutes a form of directing players through content. Many many players will use them, and it *will* affect your game experience, even if you don't find yourself competing with them to cap out of habit.
It's not that you have other means of progression. It's that their very existence will somewhat color overall gameplay (ie what the gameworld feels like). Because in the end, as SuperXero89 said, you can totally do "no hand-holding to cap" in other MMOs, too...
For instance, you can just grind on mobs in WOW if you don't like quests. Or even reach cap without doing a single quest and killing a single mob! As this player did: http://us.battle.net/wow/en/forum/topic/2353107047
I continue to be confused by people that say there wasn't enough content to level. All four characters I played in the BWE were continually being leveled down for content. I got an Elementalist to level 20 and only wnet to the 15-25 zone during the last two hours of the event, because I wanted to see an additional zone. I probably would have hit 20 in the level 1-15 zone if I had stayed there and continued to complete the zone.
The Hearts are worth doing for the vendor unlock, but regular Dynamic Events provide most of your XP. I always started with the Heart Tasks when I discovered one, then would go on to explore the area for Dynamic Events. I also did Personal Story.
There is more than enough content for people who actually explore the zones they are playing in. If someone insists on just doing Heart Quests, which I wouldn't understand, but if they did, it's extremely easy to visit the other race's zones and do the Heart Quests there.
Just grinding Mobs doesn't get you any where, unless they are part of a Task or DE. The kill XP is minimal.
The thing is that leveling speed really shouldn´t matter at all, if you only play the game to level you are missing the point with the game.
Of course that 2 of the starting zones weren´t even up at the BWE doesn´t help anyone who want to speed level without repeating the same content but it still really isn´t the point of the game.
If you only play to level up you will tire of the game in 4-6 weeks (or even earlier).
I personally didn´t even notice when I leveled and at times noticed that I locked up stuff a lot later.
I think that, more or less, the way the OP is encouraging people to play GW2 could be applied to any MMORPG on the market today. Rather than being entirely focused on hitting the level cap, if players simply played any of those games slowly without such a focus on maintaining a steady leveling pace and rather just ran off and explored and exhausted all the extraneous activities the game had to offer, I think just about any MMORPG released in the last 7 or so years would be seen in a markedly better light. In that respect, I don't really buy this as an adequate excuse for GW2's PvE content.
^That is entirely not true.
Go play AION or WOW and apply that logic. It won't work. Powerleveling in those games rewards you while you trudge through boring content.
And thats part of the point.... GW2 takes a different mindset. Power leveling or even trying to power level will not give you the same reward as typical mmos.
It is still somewhat true, you miss a lot in every game when you powerlevel. The difference here is that GW2 focused more on making the entire game fun isntead of just the endgame compared to many other games.
Well, it is true about AION and L2, but just because the insane amount of grind they have.
Still, you need a better goal in GW2 than to hit max level and gain the gear with best stats.
Although, one serious benefit of the level scaling system is that if you do choose to powerlevel and miss a ton of stuff on the way up, you can always go back and explore and complete content later. Instead of missing out on things permanently because you outleveled them and they are trivial, in this game you can choose to smell the roses on the way up, or get to max and then use the whole world as "endgame".
The genius of the design is probably going to take years for people to fully appreciate.
Those same kind of people who was asking about rushing to lvl80 were also following hearts, grinding mobs, going for personal story cause there werent enough hearts to level, and then when BWE ended, they got angry cause the game didnt delivered what ANet promised.
"GW2 leveling is nothing especial. There are hearts instead exclamation points and lots of grind." As lot of them said.
spot on.
***** Before hitting that reply button, please READ the WHOLE thread you're about to post in *****
I think there is a great gameplay decision made by Arenanet that is subtle: Because of the design of DE's you can't 'blow through' content as fast as you want, without having to grind. If you take your time you will level properly. If you rush you will miss something and have to grind. The videos I've seen about DE's show many are so subtle that only partial rewards are recieved because parts of the chains are missed. GW2 is about 'slow and steady', rather than 'run, rabbit, run'.
I continue to be confused by people that say there wasn't enough content to level. All four characters I played in the BWE were continually being leveled down for content. I got an Elementalist to level 20 and only wnet to the 15-25 zone during the last two hours of the event, because I wanted to see an additional zone. I probably would have hit 20 in the level 1-15 zone if I had stayed there and continued to complete the zone.
The Hearts are worth doing for the vendor unlock, but regular Dynamic Events provide most of your XP. I always started with the Heart Tasks when I discovered one, then would go on to explore the area for Dynamic Events. I also did Personal Story.
There is more than enough content for people who actually explore the zones they are playing in. If someone insists on just doing Heart Quests, which I wouldn't understand, but if they did, it's extremely easy to visit the other race's zones and do the Heart Quests there.
Just grinding Mobs doesn't get you any where, unless they are part of a Task or DE. The kill XP is minimal.
The thing is that leveling speed really shouldn´t matter at all, if you only play the game to level you are missing the point with the game.
Of course that 2 of the starting zones weren´t even up at the BWE doesn´t help anyone who want to speed level without repeating the same content but it still really isn´t the point of the game.
If you only play to level up you will tire of the game in 4-6 weeks (or even earlier).
I personally didn´t even notice when I leveled and at times noticed that I locked up stuff a lot later.
The thing I found during the BWE is that I stopped caring about my level so much. I didn't look down to see if I'd leveled, because it didn't matter. The only time I thought about it was when I checked to see if the game thought it was a good idea for me to tackle the next leg of my story. In the world, it didn't matter what level I was unless I got over my head. If I ended up in a level ten event of fighting level ten guys, I was put on a level with them so the fight was still as it should have been. So every fight was interesting and challenging; what level I actually was didn't matter to me.
"There are two great powers, and they've been fighting since time began. Every advance in human life, every scrap of knowledge and wisdom and decency we have has been torn by one side from the teeth of the other. Every little increase in human freedom has been fought over ferociously between those who want us to know more and be wiser and stronger, and those who want us to obey and be humble and submit."
John Parry, to his son Will; "The Subtle Knife," by Phillip Pullman
I think there is a great gameplay decision made by Arenanet that is subtle: Because of the design of DE's you can't 'blow through' content as fast as you want, without having to grind. If you take your time you will level properly. If you rush you will miss something and have to grind. The videos I've seen about DE's show many are so subtle that only partial rewards are recieved because parts of the chains are missed. GW2 is about 'slow and steady', rather than 'run, rabbit, run'.
I actually think that the reality is that GW2 lets you level in either style. It is definitely possible to rush through the game if that's what you want.
Think about it...people that thought there weren't enough hearts task to level obviously did not try going to the other race's starting zones via portal. With a few of my characters, I was able to easily level up primarily on hearts tasks and just random events I encountered by traveling to another race's starting area. And when GW2 goes live, there will be FIVE race starting areas.
Add onto this the fact that you will always be rewarded for completing a lower level heart because of level scaling, and all of a sudden you have PLENTY of content available for you if you just want to rush through the game.
Anyway...there's a lot of disdain on these forums for people that don't feel like smelling the daisies, and honestly I think that's silly. Sometimes I just feel like getting a new skill or whatever and I will do whatever will get me that skill the fastest. Other times I want to savor the game and not rush things.
I think both are valid playstyles, and I think it's great that GW2 fully supports both.
Comments
As far as xp gain goes, the most efficient way to gain it was personal story (in BWE , at least) Why youd want to rush to 80 is something that eludes me too. Gameplay is not going to change significantly after you hit level 30 and unlock your elite skill. You may get a wider selection of skills and traits to choose from, but thats about all.
So this game requires a specific mindset too? Does that come with the ce or ddl version?
Only cynical, jaded mmo'ers don't realise every mmo is enriched while actually playing the game they buy how is this any different to any other mmo.
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The person who is certain, and who claims divine warrant for his certainty, belongs now to the infancy of our species.
Im gonna hook on caffeine IV, powerlevel myself 24/7 (while skipping 70% of content) till I get to 80 and then spend rest of a month whining about how the end game sucks!
I've been saying that Guild Wars 2 is only going to appeal to players with a certain mindset, but if players are forming a negative opinion of GW2 based entirely on the way the game directs the players through the zones, they're not the ones "doing it wrong."
Many valuable man hours were more than likely spent creating a large portion of the vast array of hidden nooks and crannies found all over the world of Guild Wars 2, but if Arenanet doesn't do anything at all to push players towards those areas, they're the ones that failed not the players. I too explored a bit in GW2 and found some interesting areas. Sometimes I happened upon a unique DE I hadn't seen before, but other times I just happened upon a whole heap of nothingness. It's not tunnel vision, because you can't expect players to go rummaging all over the map looking for content when the game itself directs players to certain areas. If exploring for little else than the sake of exploration itself isn't your thing, and if your the type of gamer that plays in order to see your character become progressively more powerful (ie you play to level up even if you're not exactly a powergamer), you probably will find GW2's PvE lacking. That is an issue.
I think that, more or less, the way the OP is encouraging people to play GW2 could be applied to any MMORPG on the market today. Rather than being entirely focused on hitting the level cap, if players simply played any of those games slowly without such a focus on maintaining a steady leveling pace and rather just ran off and explored and exhausted all the extraneous activities the game had to offer, I think just about any MMORPG released in the last 7 or so years would be seen in a markedly better light. In that respect, I don't really buy this as an adequate excuse for GW2's PvE content.
If the areas to which players are directed are what is giving players such a negative first impression, perhaps Anet needs to work on making those areas feel less repetitive and formulaic.
I think that truer words have never been said in this forum...
I think there's a pretty easy way to solve the issues with people misunderstanding the way combat and content in general works in GW2.
They need to add a "new player" channel which is zone-wide or game-wide, and can be toggled on and off. They should also add zone-wide channels for every zone which can be toggled on and off.
This would allow the community to help out. New players could ask questions and express their concerns, and players who understand the game a bit better could point them in the right direction and help them understand the differences between this game and previous MMORPGs. A great side-benefit is that each time a new player is helped, it creates another positive impression of the game and community, and draws players in to the mindset of "we're all in this together".
Another aspect of MMORPGs that's been deeply ingrained into players is that it's totally solo... everything you need to know should be explained by a tutorial, or totally intuitive within the UI, because players should never have to talk or ask questions or get help from the in-game community. I'm all for having a good tutorial, but I think this game is a golden opportunity to refocus players on being part of a server community and contributing in a positive way.
Anyway, I just think it would help those players the OP is talking about a great deal to have a channel where they could ask questions and get things explained to them immediately, rather than waiting and complaining two days later on the message boards that there wasn't enough content.
"I did all the hearts in this zone, and I'm nowhere near high enough level for the next zone. What am I supposed to do?"
"Go exploring, and follow dynamic events as they unfold. Head over to XYZ right now, there's an event going on that will get you started!"
"Crap! This combat is WAY to hard! I keep dying."
"Try moving a bit more and using dodge and your abilities at the right moments, you'll get much better results. Start with a ranged weapon, you'll have more time to react."
Positive interactions like that create friendships, longevity for the game, and grow the community in a worthwhile way. And, they would put a stop to most of the people complaining about things they don't understand.
I just wrote a blog entry about pretty much this same topic, it's really interesting what they've done with core approach to the MMORPG concept. Most of the basic mechanics are same or little bit polished, but this approach and mentality is something truly innovative. As we've seen already it can be quite hard to understand why GW2 actually is innovative if you observe it as any standard MMO. My firm opinion is that ArenaNet is on the right path but they need to make people more aware of how the game flows rather than expect people to adjust to that. Lots of people coming from classical MMORPG's will find themselves underwhelmed if they approach the game like any other MMO.
My Guild Wars 2 blog. Read it. The bestestest and most TRUTHEST BLOG EVER!!
You are both missing the entire point of this thread. Not to mention you both seem rather clueless about this game as well.
How many MMOs do you know today that still reward exploration? Closest thing I can think of is a very weak example, and that would be SWTOR (in the form of holocrons / datacrons). Every other MMO tells you exactly where you need to go, and what you need to do.
GW2 isn't designed this way, and it's pretty obvious this is the case. Many players who are aware that they are used to the linear quest mindset have even admitted that they are completely lost in GW2, because they aren't used to having to figure out what to do on their own.
The main reason why this mindset is a detriment to GW2 specifically, is because GW2 is designed around exploration, discovery, and having to think for yourself. Most MMOs just aren't. There's an extreme amount of handholding that most games do, and GW2 is one of the few games that is trying to keep that to a minimum. It goes beyond burning through content to reach max lvl. The game has lots of hidden benefits all around the world. It would be like if you powered to max lvl in another MMO, only to realize that some of the coolest weapons & armor you had skipped, because you assumed they would all be in the max lvl dungeon. Not many games really do that. Especially not MMOs.
People who powerlvl in GW2 will not only be skipping a lot of content, they will be ignoring a lot of the progression the game offers in favor of the most shallow option. Lvling in GW2 really takes a side role to all the other forms of customization in the game. Skill challenges, gear, sigils / runes, having hte proper weapon sets. It's really amazing just how often this still needs to be spelled out for people.
I disagree that you had anything to disagree about.
Im realy not bother with this you will prolly have many players that come from other games and have this mindset, but bought GW2 and not even investigate how game works before buying it. Then come ingame and start complaining becouse its not what they thought it would be or not play like WoW for example.
So i realy don't bother with those who can't adept/adjust to this new kind of gameplay.
I come from sandbox called Darkfall but you won't hear me asking silly questions or saying it ain't what it thought it would be. Ive read or looked alot of videos before i desided to jump on the GW2 WAGON so im not gonne complain or whine becouse game is so much different from what im used to.
If people asking in a normal friendly way how things work ill help if they start screaming or whine i IGNORE:P
Hope to build full AMD system RYZEN/VEGA/AM4!!!
MB:Asus V De Luxe z77
CPU:Intell Icore7 3770k
GPU: AMD Fury X(waiting for BIG VEGA 10 or 11 HBM2?(bit unclear now))
MEMORY:Corsair PLAT.DDR3 1866MHZ 16GB
PSU:Corsair AX1200i
OS:Windows 10 64bit
Not a bad idea.
To be honest though, the problem is not a lack of help from the community. Even in some of the videos posted about people livestreaming this game as if it were WoW2.0, you can hear people repeatedly telling them what they need to do. Sometimes they listen, sometimes they don't, and that's the problem. In one of the videos the guy is basically whinning for 10-15mins straight about how he can't tame any pets! and you can hear a guy telling him repeatedly 'you can only tame green, juvenile animals, there's some here, and here'. It's really quite annoying.
What I think the game needs is a basic tutorial event. IE a combat training event, with maybe certain segments pertaining to each of the class-specific mechanics.
It's kind of a tricky balance, because this game is good due to how challenging it can be. You don't want to make it too noob friendly, or people will never bother to learn the game, and instead it will just bring down the game as a whole (a lot of games make this mistake). They basically need to find a good starting guide that will lead people down the right path, without removing the need for players to actually think about what they are doing. This game really revolves around players thinking for themselves, unlike most MMOs.
Good luck to those who have the patience to help players who refuse adept/adjust or learn anything no matter how much you help them, believe many will enter game with irritating attitudes like that.
If people are friendly and i see there willing to learn and not demand help ill help but those who just whine and scream and to dumb to learn anything before buying i won't help hehe.
Hope to build full AMD system RYZEN/VEGA/AM4!!!
MB:Asus V De Luxe z77
CPU:Intell Icore7 3770k
GPU: AMD Fury X(waiting for BIG VEGA 10 or 11 HBM2?(bit unclear now))
MEMORY:Corsair PLAT.DDR3 1866MHZ 16GB
PSU:Corsair AX1200i
OS:Windows 10 64bit
Yeah, I'm quite happy with the drastically reduced hand-holding and the focus on meaningful rewards for exploration. Allowing the bulk of the content to unfold naturally as a player discovers it on their own is almost like the ideal that these games have always been striving for...they've just been doing it in very artificial, contrived ways by setting up a linear path that is supposed to LOOK like the game unfolding as you explore.
Adding tutorials is fine, but I REALLY hope they don't dumb the game down and start hand-holding...it will ruin one of the biggest selling points of this game.
There appear to be some odd understandings about World vs World that need to be cleared up.
Structured PvP
This is the instanced/arena form of PvP in GW2. Similar to WoW battlegrounds, but with private match servers, casual matches, casual tournaments, formal tournaments that can be a day, a month or a quarter long. Leader boards may even determine the most skilled and accomplished teams and players for a full year.
In SPVP, you play an idealized doppleganger of your character. It has no ties to the PvE or WvW game, everyone is made a true level 80, with all skills, slots and traits unlocked and free access to max stat gear.
It's skill based, rather than gear progression based.
World vs World (vs. World)
This is the two week long warfare that takes place in four massive zones for each three server match up, with fortresses, towers, outposts, resource camps, resource caravans, PvE and PvP related Dynamic Events and objectives and so much more.
In WvW, Everyone is bolstered up to level 80, but they still retain their true level, which limits their access to skills, skill slots, traits and gear. You actually do level up while in WvW. Most of that XP comes from Dynamic Events, which along with events similar to those found in the PvE world, also include Events for attacking or defending various objectives in the WvW realm.
In the first Beta Weekend Event, the ability to earn additional skill points, beyond those awarded for leveling, was limited. The PvE world has over 250 skill point challanges through out, which characters can do to earn additional skill points. Arenanet are looking at a way to allow players to earn more skill points in WvW, but it's just not in yet.
So yes, you do progress your character in WvW, including loot, xp, crafting nodes and access to crafting stations, as well as weapon skill unlocking and leveling.
There was a mini-review by a couple who play together and it was mentioned that the Husband played WvW for three hours while the wife went back to do personal story and content in the PvE world. In their experience, they both earned about the same amount of XP over those three hours, but the xp in WvW came in less frequent, but larger chunks, almost entirely from Dynamic Events that were triggered by attacking or defending objectives.
Arenanet has said all along that their goal is for players to be able to level at the same pace in WvW as in PvE. However, all they can do is tune it so they average out about the same, since they can't control how individual players play the game and it's possible some will play in ways much more efficient for leveling than others.
(BTW, for weapon unlocks for the Elementalist, I think Water attunement opens up around level 3, but you still have to unlock the weapon skills for a given attunement the same way you unlock any weapon skills, by using them. So, once you unlock Water Attunement, you will only have the 1 slot skill unlocked for the water attunment for your weapons until you start getting kills with those weapons while in Water attunement, which will start to unlock the rest of the weapon skills.
Yes, it's a pain for Elementalist to unlock all their skills for all weapons and all attunments, but you do indeed unlock attunments and weapon skills via WvW).
Want to know more about GW2 and why there is so much buzz? Start here: Guild Wars 2 Mass Info for the Uninitiated
^That is entirely not true.
Go play AION or WOW and apply that logic. It won't work. Powerleveling in those games rewards you while you trudge through boring content.
And thats part of the point.... GW2 takes a different mindset. Power leveling or even trying to power level will not give you the same reward as typical mmos.
I think this is absolutely true. Like it or not, in an MMORPG you're not bound only by how you play the game, but also by how others play the game. And if you're not, well, it means the game has done a really bad job of being an MMORPG.
Sure, in Skyrim, you can do the "don't like it, don't use it" thing. For one, I don't like teleporting to another, far away area on the map. So what do I do? I don't use map travel at all! It's OK, I have no real qualms about it, it's my choice. But when it's an MMORPG, you can't say "oh don't use map travel if you don't" like it; because just the fact that other players are using it affects you, as it should. The flow of the gameworld is different because of its very existence.
As for hearts and player story, yes, their existence constitutes a form of directing players through content. Many many players will use them, and it *will* affect your game experience, even if you don't find yourself competing with them to cap out of habit.
It's not that you have other means of progression. It's that their very existence will somewhat color overall gameplay (ie what the gameworld feels like). Because in the end, as SuperXero89 said, you can totally do "no hand-holding to cap" in other MMOs, too...
For instance, you can just grind on mobs in WOW if you don't like quests. Or even reach cap without doing a single quest and killing a single mob! As this player did: http://us.battle.net/wow/en/forum/topic/2353107047
The thing is that leveling speed really shouldn´t matter at all, if you only play the game to level you are missing the point with the game.
Of course that 2 of the starting zones weren´t even up at the BWE doesn´t help anyone who want to speed level without repeating the same content but it still really isn´t the point of the game.
If you only play to level up you will tire of the game in 4-6 weeks (or even earlier).
I personally didn´t even notice when I leveled and at times noticed that I locked up stuff a lot later.
It is still somewhat true, you miss a lot in every game when you powerlevel. The difference here is that GW2 focused more on making the entire game fun isntead of just the endgame compared to many other games.
Well, it is true about AION and L2, but just because the insane amount of grind they have.
Still, you need a better goal in GW2 than to hit max level and gain the gear with best stats.
Although, one serious benefit of the level scaling system is that if you do choose to powerlevel and miss a ton of stuff on the way up, you can always go back and explore and complete content later. Instead of missing out on things permanently because you outleveled them and they are trivial, in this game you can choose to smell the roses on the way up, or get to max and then use the whole world as "endgame".
The genius of the design is probably going to take years for people to fully appreciate.
spot on.
***** Before hitting that reply button, please READ the WHOLE thread you're about to post in *****
Well, you guys did want your carrot so bad, so there you go, chase those skills!
I think there is a great gameplay decision made by Arenanet that is subtle: Because of the design of DE's you can't 'blow through' content as fast as you want, without having to grind. If you take your time you will level properly. If you rush you will miss something and have to grind. The videos I've seen about DE's show many are so subtle that only partial rewards are recieved because parts of the chains are missed. GW2 is about 'slow and steady', rather than 'run, rabbit, run'.
The thing I found during the BWE is that I stopped caring about my level so much. I didn't look down to see if I'd leveled, because it didn't matter. The only time I thought about it was when I checked to see if the game thought it was a good idea for me to tackle the next leg of my story. In the world, it didn't matter what level I was unless I got over my head. If I ended up in a level ten event of fighting level ten guys, I was put on a level with them so the fight was still as it should have been. So every fight was interesting and challenging; what level I actually was didn't matter to me.
"There are two great powers, and they've been fighting since time began. Every advance in human life, every scrap of knowledge and wisdom and decency we have has been torn by one side from the teeth of the other. Every little increase in human freedom has been fought over ferociously between those who want us to know more and be wiser and stronger, and those who want us to obey and be humble and submit."
John Parry, to his son Will; "The Subtle Knife," by Phillip Pullman
WvW isn't all there is to GW2.
Of course, you're entitled to feel that way but if you tunnel vision like that, you're missing out on much of what the game offers.
The beauty of GW2 is that you can rush to level cap and do WvW and only WvW and not be penalised for it.
"Never argue with a fool; onlookers may not be able to tell the difference."
I need to take this advice more.
I actually think that the reality is that GW2 lets you level in either style. It is definitely possible to rush through the game if that's what you want.
Think about it...people that thought there weren't enough hearts task to level obviously did not try going to the other race's starting zones via portal. With a few of my characters, I was able to easily level up primarily on hearts tasks and just random events I encountered by traveling to another race's starting area. And when GW2 goes live, there will be FIVE race starting areas.
Add onto this the fact that you will always be rewarded for completing a lower level heart because of level scaling, and all of a sudden you have PLENTY of content available for you if you just want to rush through the game.
Anyway...there's a lot of disdain on these forums for people that don't feel like smelling the daisies, and honestly I think that's silly. Sometimes I just feel like getting a new skill or whatever and I will do whatever will get me that skill the fastest. Other times I want to savor the game and not rush things.
I think both are valid playstyles, and I think it's great that GW2 fully supports both.
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