Guild Wars 2: The One Thread

[Barrowmore]

1 more question : how long does it take to level ? if any 1 saw a vid/ played demos can u tell me how long did it take to get a few lvls ? ( Hope its not tht fast to be able to experince the game fully)

Edit: few typos

Leveling will only take a few minutes per level up until a low threshold, perhaps level 10 or lower, then ~90 minutes per level until max level.

[sacrypheyes]

I know it may sound odd but I enjoy wiping. Bosses are mental puzzles, you figure out how best to beat them, how to minimise your incoming damage and maximise your outgoing damage. Wiping just means that the puzzle was even more challenging than you originally thought and will give an even greater sense of accomplishment once you beat the encounter.

If a five man dungeon could do that, it would be great, although I would find that less satisfying. In a raid you have 25 people and their abilities to use as tools to solve the puzzle, in a dungeon there are just five. It's like going from a 25 piece puzzle to a 5 piece puzzle, in a sense.

You say that GW2 will give me the option to do what I want and it will be challenging, I say that without instancing that will likely not happen. For there to be a real challenge you need to instance the event, limit the number of participants and those participants need to be people that you chose to go in with because you can count on them. If it's just a massive zerg, well, let me repeat what I just posted:

Zerging is always an issue for open world content where anyone can participate, Devs tend to build encounters based on a minimum player standard, ie a player will have at least x amount of gear, skill, experience. But when you have a lot of players many of those players have more than the required minimum and so it becomes a zerg. This is why instancing works so well, you can limit the number of participants and you can create tiers of content and keep increasing the minimum requirements for each successive tier to keep it challenging and not a zerg.

I agree about the point that most players these days are casual and don't care for raids, and that's fair enough, it just doesn't appeal to me. I am not a casual player, I will get bored if there isn't a real challenge.

so far, we know that for the least, dungeons exploration modes should provide some challenge. that would be the instanced part, as for the non-instanced world, we can't really judge of the difficulty from bosses which were specifically tuned for demonstration purposes but i could guess not all those events will be that easy.

also, as players are able to "rez" each other, it's something they can include into their spreadsheets, and make fights tougher because of that.

[StationaryHawk]

Honestly, can no one tell me where the challenge is in this game?

As people have said many times over in this thread, the 5-man dungeons in exploration mode in PvE, and PvP in general. Don't bash the game because it uses different numbers of players and gameplay types, especially since we haven't even played it yet, except for in demos at conventions.

[SintorXI]

I'm not saying that it's the only idea, I was kinda hoping that ArenaNet had some cool new system, but there are always limits.

You say that GW2 is about exploration, well sorry but there is a limit to how much you can see. Large scale events that anyone can take part in sounds cool but that is exactly what Rift does, although admittedly it does sound as though GW2 will do it better, but even so they aren't that ground breaking and you will get bored of them, trust me.

Honestly, can no one tell me where the challenge is in this game?

EDIT: Perhaps you are right and GW2 will be too casual for me, which is a shame

So here is the challenge the game presents to hardcore raiders like you and I.

When you first do a dungeon you complete it's story mode. After completing Story Mode you unlock an additional mode called explorable mode.

Explorable mode has 3 completely different paths you can take through the dungeon, with the bosses being different in each path. Even the final boss will be a different fight. To Spice things up a bit, there will be dynamic events added into the dungeon that are random and make it to where you don't feel like your doing the same thing over and over again.

Now, the challenge is in the explorable modes. Some people from For the Horde or some guild like that went and played both the story and explorable modes of a high level dungeon and said that while story mode was a cakewalk for experienced players, explorable was truly a challenge comparable to wow's heroic raids. This was exciting for me because as a hardcore raider, I also want a challenge worthy of my skill that will test me fittingly.

The next PvE challenge is in the max level (80) events. It has been stated that Orr, one of the 4 regions of the game, is dedicated to max level content, and considered an "elite" zone with multitudes of Elite Events, things like dragon fights and such, and will truly be a challenge for players to band together and defeat. Orr sounds like one of the most impressive areas of the game in this aspect, and personally I can't wait to see how it goes.

The thing is, you complained that you thought the Event bosses would be scripted to be easy, but the bosses they've shown off so far have used raid mechanics, and the amount of challenge they offer is certainly comparable to wow's raids. Just look at The Shatterer fight... and then realize that The Shatterer is a level 40 dynamic event. If something that epic can be at that level, what is going to be at max?

Trust me, there will be challenge in Guild Wars 2.

[Deleted]

^ good post, good post.

[Koshun]

I like you people. If this is how the majority of GW2 will behave (crossing my fingers), I will be content.

Just enough critisism to challenge each other's ideas, and the response isn't angry. Intelligent, interesting concepts and discussions. And a sprinkle of snarkiness/sarcasm to satisfy me :P

Next, I demand that the world bow to my feet, for I am almighty.

[Barrowmore]

I thought they said 40 mins?

I dunno, maybe one of us remembers something from an outdated source?

The most recent info I can find on leveling times is from an interview in Nov 2010, which says 90 mins.

[Blznsmri]

Mouse can be omitted since that has to be bought for a laptop too anyways, no one sane plays with a touchpad.

I'm sane and I cleared (nearly) all Wrath Content and Cata 4.1 content with a touchpad. Tanking. Was the second best geared tankadin on the realm (after my GM).

[KieraDK]

I recall an article that was released a while back where Anet let a few reporters play hard mode dungeons and that they could not complete it.
I may just have imagined it all but I'm pretty sure it's real...

I for one like this, I work evenings so can play midday/ past midnight. Finding 4 other people to do something challenging and fun at 1am GMT seems a lot easier than 9/24

[aej]

I think on fan day only 1 group managed to beat explorable mode and that took a few hours itself..

[Blznsmri]

Honestly, can no one tell me where the challenge is in this game?

Explorable modes of dungeons are significantly harder than the Story modes, and are being designed with the hardcore players in mind. The only thing that's truly difficult about 10, 20, 25 and 40 person raids is that you have 9, 19, 24, and 39 other people there that can fuck it up (aside from a few gimicky mechanics... That's right atramedes, I'm looking at you.)

[Ronyx]

Often people who come to this thread to ask about what's 'challenging' or where the 'end game' is are basically trying to find a substitute for raids without specifically saying 'Where is the raid content?'.

Raids in GW2 do not exist in the same sense that they exist in WoW. You have huge world events which many have already said prove that they implement a number of mechanics you'd expect from a 'raid' type boss. Similarly, we've yet to see what some of the boss fights in the 'heroic' dungeons will look like, but once again from bits of information here and there we can also conclude that they are absolutely not easy and do involve mechanics typical of a raid boss. The only real difference here is scale.

Some people really like locking themselves with 9 other people in an instance for a night of smashing bosses and collecting loot. GW2 WILL cater for your needs if you are one of those people, but on a smaller more flexible scale. Instead of being with 9 others you will be with 4 others. This can change the 'feel' of the encounters as there are not as many players there doing them, which is why they've added large scale bosses into world DEs. If you're looking for an epic encounter on a large scale, then this will address that need, given the game turns out to have a large committed player base (fingers crossed).

Now if this STILL doesn't satisfy you, then clearly all you're after is RAIDS. You need to let go of the idea that raids are the only way to play a game at high level, and look at some of these offered options with a clean slate, rather then repeatedly asking where the challenging content is. It's already been pointed out a number of times, just not in the form you wanted it in. But hey, maybe a little innovation is what you're really looking for given that you're browsing this thread and checking out this game.

P.S. It's also time to give PvP a look-see even if you consider yourself a commited PvEer. Many players got turned off by PvP in WoW after TBC, due to the loss of large scale, continual, persistent world PvP scenes (old school AV anyone? :P) which is where WvWvW comes in. This should help bring more 'scale' to PvP in MMOs as well as offer rewards to guilds who set out on WvWvW as if it were a raid (splitting up to capture objectives, coordinating quick assaults on key points, spreading their combatants appropriately accross all necessary areas) in the form of Keeps. Hopefully we'll have alot more discussion on this once we have more info released about it, but even with this small preview I already see it as something Raiding guilds will look to when downgrading from raiding 25mans in WoW (for 10mans its relatively easy to make the switch to 2 5mans, but 25mans will lose their large scale feel if they split up into 5 5mans)

Just some food for thought

[sacrypheyes]

I recall an article that was released a while back where Anet let a few reporters play hard mode dungeons and that they could not complete it.
I may just have imagined it all but I'm pretty sure it's real...

I for one like this, I work evenings so can play midday/ past midnight. Finding 4 other people to do something challenging and fun at 1am GMT seems a lot easier than 9/24

don't forget that with the holy trinity gone, there will be no more "oh we miss <insert number> <insert role>, sry no raid tonite. ". as long as you got enough people to go, just enjoy.

[Grognard]

Honestly, can no one tell me where the challenge is in this game?

Honestly, no. No one can answer this question for you - and certainly not until we actually play the game.

My advice, stuff your argumentative "prove to me why I should play this game even though it's not out, not all information is available, and very few people have even gotten hands on a demo" until you can check it out for yourself.

[Mif]

It's sad to see Wow players so brainwashed that they can't fathom the idea of not grinding away on the same raid bosses for 16hrs a week, for 6 months, until the carrot on the gear treadmill is moved yet again.

[Royaltru]

I'm pretty sure the challenge of this game is small-scale PvP, no?

[Supertao The Pro]

When are they releasing the mesmer?

[Blznsmri]

When are they releasing the mesmer?

"When it's ready." TM.

[Wyrmrider]

I'm pretty sure the challenge of this game is small-scale PvP, no?

No no no, it's impossible for other people to create a challenge. The only real challenge is the consumable content created by developers, who aren't really people anyway.

(just in case: /sarcasm)

---------- Post added 2011-09-19 at 10:11 PM ----------

Also, in the interests of further snark:

I'm sane and I cleared (nearly) all Wrath Content and Cata 4.1 content with a touchpad. Tanking. Was the second best geared tankadin on the realm (after my GM).

I humbly submit that you're still completely insane, but now it's in a good way.

[Borzo]

i understaned from the vids tht gw2 depends ALOT on positioning for spells/abilities ie: elementalist fire breath thingy is in a cone infront of u

now tht is AWESOME on paper but .. i played wow with 100-250 ms so will tht kill pvp for me in gw2 ? assuming GW1 servers r with GW2 servers where r they located ?

One of the dev talks I watched talked about private servers for PVP (like in BFBC2, TF2, etc). If that is the case, you should be able to find servers closer to you with less latency.