What's GW2 like nowadays?

[Valeron]

Finally, is crafting still RNG based or have they improved the success rates?

you must be confusing crafting with something else or a different game. There is no RNG involved with crafting

[Djuntas]

From what I gather one turns bored by GW2 fast. Haven't tried it myself, but a couple off IRL's friends tried it some time ago, and barely saw them sticking to it. Just like now with wow, that they wanted to play for some pvp thing...

MMO players needs something that aint wow for a fresh new exsperience, but still got the MMO themepark over it. Rift does this well I guess, but its still to similar to wow.

[Fencers]

you must be confusing crafting with something else or a different game. There is no RNG involved with crafting

I suspect the user probably meant collecting the vials of blood, fangs, etc. Perhaps incorrectly applying that mechanic to crafting. They are related, but as you said the play mechanics of crafting itself are not RNG based.

[Arlee]

I suspect the user probably meant collecting the vials of blood, fangs, etc. Perhaps incorrectly applying that mechanic to crafting. They are related, but as you said the play mechanics of crafting itself are not RNG based.

Ah, I was figuring he was referring to making things in the Mystic forge because that does have RNG to it. But the RNG of getting mats can also be frustrating.

[Fencers]

If you look at some of their early pitch stuff, there was verbiage like, "Unlike other games, you don't have to get to max level to see the epic encounters in GW2!"

But you don't. Large scale encounters are present in all zones throughout the 1-79 process. The statement is true absolutely.

"Epic" as personal interpretation of challenge & coordination [both of which too loose to even care about] are up to the reader.

Instead it was the exact opposite, there really aren't any encounters that are comparable to the "epic encounters" in other games at all.

That is personal opinion. And not one we can or should ever care about either.

"This game is so epic!"
"This game isn't epic at all!"

Worthless.

[Valeron]

Ah, I was figuring he was referring to making things in the Mystic forge because that does have RNG to it. But the RNG of getting mats can also be frustrating.

Actually the mystic forge recipes are set. Now the one part of it that is RNG is when you put in weapons, or armor to get another one created. I don't really consider that crafting though.

[Fencers]

Kinda silly how you quoted every part of my post but one, and then made another post just to say what I said in the part that was left out. Silly Fency.

users don't actually have to quote an entire post. In fact, we advise in our guidelines not to as it makes formatting quite an eyesore.

In modern message boarding, a quote that includes either a link or specific poster name in the header implies one is addressing the post in total. Especially when the quoited text is solely posted. Despite the contents of the actual quote box too.

Whereas quoting without the poster name or link back implies one is addressing a more general idea- which may or may not be related to the quoted text specifically. Not including a name or link back, would be addressing what is specifically quoted within but not the user or source.

Posting in-line, that is to say as a proceeding post but with no specific quote, is addressing a theme or conversation in-line with the thread.

So we can just isolate text to speak to a point(s) as such:

I love Farcry 3 Blood dragon! STUFFSTUFFSTUFF.

Me too, Billy! Such a great aesthetic. Blahblahblah.

Farcry 3 Blood Dragon is the quintessential FPS!

Well, I agree it is quite good. However, I feel other games in the genre... yaddayaddayadda.

I am fairly good at message boarding. I am after all an admin of an entire meta message board about message boarding culture; message boarding connoisseurs club [MBCC for short]. I do take the medium rather seriously.

In any case, my point remains. There was a VERY strong implication of "Level 1 is just like Level 80 (in other games)!" rather than "Level 80 is just like Level 1!" The point can be made just fine without defining "epic" at all. (Which is why I said what I said about epic in my post in the first place.)

"Epic" isn't the sole qualifier here. Challenge and coordination are just as dubious.

Large encounters occur throughout the game. The reference of "the whole game is endgame" is one of contrast from bimodal, vertical scaling MMOs. One which Anet were always keen to contrast themselves from philosophically through the whole of the GW series. Including GW1, yes.

[Arlee]

Actually the mystic forge recipes are set. Now the one part of it that is RNG is when you put in weapons, or armor to get another one created. I don't really consider that crafting though.

Recipes are set, what you get back isn't always what you want though. Like with the Mystic clovers. And when you put in weapons you have a chance to get a "better" one but you don't always.

And no I don't think of it as crafting either, but I was just trying to think of what he might be thinking of when talking about RNG and that was the first thing which occurred to me.

[Fencers]

That wasn't the point at all, and you know it.

No, I don't know it. You seemed to be suggesting [and still are] that I did not address or left out some important part of your post via quote snipping. When I did address your entire post and am doing so now.

There is no definite value to things like "epic", challenge or coordination in the context of games that are played by a vast array of players. What one reader considers epic or challenging might differ from another reader &/or from Arena.net's interpretation of those values.

It might be Arena.net do consider that content epic, challenging, etc, etc. Personal barometer of what is or isn't challenging, epic, mind blowing, demanding, whatetc is not really useful.

How can one even design for millions of desperate player personal values of challenge?

Again, wrong.

I know. I mistyped. I did correct it in the post. Meant to say, "isn't".

The problem with that is that they made a point of referencing the content in other games. Had they NOT done that, then your whole "philosophy" and "1=80 is the same as 80=1" stuff would be closer to the truth, but they did do that so it's moot.

They made a very specific point of referencing end game content in other MMO's when discussing this topic. They brought it up, pointed at it, and said, "In GW2, you don't have to be max level to experience that content!" so yes, by doing that they created an expectation that "Level 1 in GW2 will have content like Level 80 in other MMO's!" and not, "Level 80 in GW2 will be just like Level 1 in any MMO!"

The "whole game is endgame" tagline is true of GW2. There is no bimodal endgame, large events occur throughout the whole game before level cap and there is no direct gating to their open world content. Even in contrast to other MMOs.

Like for example, you can't do events in Ashora in Rift at any level. One can't even hit the mobs until a level and gear threshold is reached. The reward structure itself is even split- one isn't even on the same tract of progression in Eastern Holdings/Kingsward as they would be in Steppes/Dendrome, etc, etc.

This is also true in Warhammer's events- where content is gated by level and damage differentials. The reward structure of the later zone PQs do not scale either.

Games with a bimodal endgame & instanced raiding often use of a post-level cap progression cycle. Where character progression is relative to the next instance or tier. By the nature of post-cap advancement these typically occur after a level cap [natch] is reached. Or in tiered systems [such as EQ] still require a given threshold of level &/or acquisition. Logically, level 1=80/80=1 can't exist in these systems as it does in GW2. That is a major design difference.

In GW2, large scale events happen form level 1 through 80. Those events are not directly blocked off or prohibitive by gear or level. There is no explicit vertical reward progression through such either. No bimodal endgame.

Describing Anet's development approach [I am not even sure Anet used the tagline directly either] in contrast to other games as "the whole game is endgame" is accurate to how GW2 is played and designed. And also how the entire series was created, advertised and contextualized.

[Fkiolaris]

Ah, I was figuring he was referring to making things in the Mystic forge because that does have RNG to it. But the RNG of getting mats can also be frustrating.

I was actually referring to the Mystic Forge.

Thanks again for all the responses (including from Fencers) and all the best

[draykorinee]

So much RNG in actually getting to craft stuff, then the mystic forge..RNG central imo, proffesions are still bloated, I really thought they we're going to make life easier, I found it far more taxing than others. I had to skip the bovine fencers thing, seemed way too pedantic.

[Svifnymr]

In any case, my point remains. There was a VERY strong implication of "Level 1 is just like Level 80 (in other games)!" rather than "Level 80 is just like Level 1!" The point can be made just fine without defining "epic" at all. (Which is why I said what I said about epic in my post in the first place.)

While there are things that they didn't deliver on, I think this is something they did deliver. They said you'd get large scale encounters with more mechanics to them, and you do, even in the level 1 starter pre-areas. The difficulty/ intricacy of the encounters does increase as you level, and a lot of the mechanics are just ignored due to the Zerg Effect, but from the start in GW2 there's meaningful encounters rather than collecting rat tails or boar entrails or something.

[Karizee]

While there are things that they didn't deliver on, I think this is something they did deliver. They said you'd get large scale encounters with more mechanics to them, and you do, even in the level 1 starter pre-areas. The difficulty/ intricacy of the encounters does increase as you level, and a lot of the mechanics are just ignored due to the Zerg Effect, but from the start in GW2 there's meaningful encounters rather than collecting rat tails or boar entrails or something.

Shadow Behemoth - lvl 15 boss blowing new player's minds since launch -3

[Meledelion]

Good word for it. Fencers and I seem to always clash like that, she talks around the issues and deals in technicalities like a politician whereas I try to just approach things as they really, functionally are. She'd be a better lawyer than me, I suppose.

Depends on what you exactly do. Some courts it's better to speak "commonly" so jurors connect others it's more about technicalities. The most succesful lawyers sadly are the ones who can do both and rally a crowd which will always impact others, even judges who are supposed to be objective.

[Orkwuzhere]

Shadow Behemoth - lvl 15 boss blowing new player's minds since launch -3

Did they ever fix the fire shaman in the Charr starter zone? That guy could take 30+ down at 10% or less, and the mobs respawning quickly made that event even worse. The Charr starter zone* and the convoluted crafting system made me quit that game (most of the starter zones that weren't the human zones sucked).

*Good luck getting anything done there. That place was a ghost town within 2 weeks of release.

[Svifnymr]

I guess this is where the issue of "feel" versus how the encounter actually works comes into play.

Yes, Shadow Behemoth is a big bunch of pixels. As are all the "starter instance" boss mobs and stuff like The Shatterer. But that's all they are, big masses of pixels. No real substance in the encounters. Which I know a lot of people think is fun, so I guess there's some issues of personal taste there, but as for me I find it hard to be impressed by an enemy that's basically just a picture that you stare at for 45 seconds and then get loot.

But yes, I know some people place a tremendous amount of value on things just being pretty, being big, involving lots of people, so on and so forth, and they really couldn't care less about the "game" aspect. So the PvE is great for them. It's just hard for me to look at it and take ANet seriously, especially when they compared it to the endgame of other MMO's.

That's sort of my point though, the issue with the encounters is the Zerg, not the encounter itself. (Except of course for the scaling system)

Shadow Behemoth is meh, but Frozen Maw/ Fire Elemental/ Wurm, they don't just fall over dead when there's only 10 players nearby. The sheer number of players at the encounters negate most of the encounter mechanics. So yeah, I think there's a scaling problem with the encounters but I don't think the encounters aren't there. Like Jormag, half the people at the encounter don't understand how it works...

An open-world raid boss is not the same difficulty/ style as an instanced one, but they're still similar encounters.

[Meledelion]

I'm quite good at poker actually and that 2% chance is infuriating but the people I play with always get a laugh out of it so I'm not fussed. I only play with money that I don't mind losing so I'm not really bothered when it happens. (I've been on a streak of 5 wins now )

[Fencers]

Good word for it. Fencers and I seem to always clash like that, she talks around the issues and deals in technicalities like a politician whereas I try to just approach things as they really, functionally are. She'd be a better lawyer than me, I suppose.

I did speak about things exactly as they are; If you look at some of their early pitch stuff, there was verbiage like, "Unlike other games, you don't have to get to max level to see the epic encounters in GW2!"

That actually happens. And as I said several times- issues of how challenging, epic or demanding or whatever are of no object value to anyone but you. Which is fine. It's cool if the shadow behemoth doesn't impress you much, but that encounter is accessible and triggered early on in the game all the same.

Just as stated here: They made a very specific point of referencing end game content in other MMO's when discussing this topic. They brought it up, pointed at it, and said, "In GW2, you don't have to be max level to experience that content!" so yes, by doing that they created an expectation that "Level 1 in GW2 will have content like Level 80 in other MMO's!" and not, "Level 80 in GW2 will be just like Level 1 in any MMO!"


You don't wait till max level to engage in that type of content in GW2. That type of content is meaningful at level 1 as 80.

There is no inaccuracy or disingenuous pitch other than perhaps Johnny doesn't think the Shatterer is epic enough. As originally stated; merely reader ignorance &/or misunderstanding.

[Sousoulsu]

I wonder what their sub numbers even are these days?

Subs are rock-bottom.
Does anybody even subscribe to GW2 these days? I can't imagine why anybody would.
Last I heard, they were under 10 subscribers. I don't know how they're keeping the game alive.

Jokes aside - go ahead and read this. https://www.guildwars2.com/en/news/l...ars-2-in-2013/
GW2 is a lot better than it was on launch. I started playing again after a 2-3 month break - and it's much nicer. Players are rewarded for doing varied things in the world and dungeons (appropriately) - and soon Champions will get a change that makes them guarenteed to drop something neat and unique to them for unique skins.

A big problem is all the temporary content. Every 2 weeks, ANet is putting in content that lasts until the next temp. content.
it'd be better if, for a new player who just finished the story and asks "So what now?", you could say "Ever since then, here's ALL OF THIS CONTENT!" But you can't. You just point them towards the current 2-week period's content.

It is that way because, by pushing people to come on bi-weekly, ANet is maximizing profit from the gem store with temporary gem-store items.
That sucks - and they've acknowledged in their recent blog that they're going to add more permanent content.

[Lora]

It's gotten pretty solid.