Originally posted by tiglie

By more in depth, are you referring to the bigger zerg of people needed to roll their face across the keyboard?  

The PvE content and mechanics in this game are beyond horrid.  Yes, I'm 80, yes I've done a good bit of the dungeons, yes it's god awful.  Generally speaking you overload on ranged, maybe.......just maybe, do some condition cleaning (even though it's easier to just let it run it's course and rez up after the downed state), and mash away.  Very dull, very dumb.  

I mean the final boss in story mode Arah.......the climatic end boss in the game..............lands on a fing building, you take control of a cannon, and spam the number 2 button for 5 minutes.  That's it.  Honestly???

 Been actually way smaller groups from my experience since people are more spread out due to so many DEs occurring throughout the zones at higher levels

Don't even get me started on dungeons. They're an all around huge disappointment.

Originally posted by Nikkita

It is the same old MMO problem where you have to tell players 'hey things will get better past lvl X..keep playing'. 

This, this, this!!!  I have been playing with my wife and desperately trying to keep her interested in the game.  I keep telling her, trust me, it will get better.  Her response makes sense.  She says, but if it's not fun for me now, there is little incentive for me to keep pushing forward in the hopes that it will get better eventually.

Games need to be fun and engaging right off the bat or they risk losing people before they even get to the really "fun" part. 

Originally posted by Nikkita

Originally posted by Pouf

Yes downscaling works, But sincerely i'm 80 and I love to downscale to my GF's level and play with her. It is still less rewarding for me than level 80events tho. And This is almost another debate, since if the reward would be equal and downscaling perfect, there wouldnt even be a reason or an advantage to be level 80. And without this vertical progression, I wouldnt play a game a lot.. 

When i do not want to feel the progression difference between 2 characters, I'm not aiming at MMO, and I hope it wont change . IMHO

All i am saying is that if you want to keep downscaling mechanic to make sure that lower level content is not obsolete make them as deep and dynamic as higher level zones. So that new players don't have to wait till X level to really understand that there is lot more depth to it.

 

Actually I think thats something they have in mind for the future. They have said they  ill be adding new DEs in regularly, and most likely we will see those new ones spread across the various zones and level ranges.

I remember reading a long time ago in one of the interviews about them starting off the lower level ones as more "simplistic" to sort of break people into doing them who are used to playing games a different way. Thats also 1 of the reasons for the hearts being the way they are, and as you get into higher zones there are less and less hearts to guide you.

It kind of makes sense for them to do it this way at launch, with everyone being new to the game. But down the road we will likely see more dynamic stuff put into the "newbie" areas since you wont have many actual newbies, but more a mix of new players and veterans going back to help them out.

Also keep in mind, take some of the higher level events. Put them in a starter zone. Then repeat those same types of events throughout the game. WHat would have happened. People would have been like "Yeah this is awesome" at the start, then later int he game been like "This is so lame, we're doing the same stuff as before". They have to kind of ramp it up to more of a climax somehow, and not have the entire game be the climax, or else it kind of becomes an anti-climax.

Its like in WoW, if Raids werent mid-end game stuff and you were just doing raids from level 1. Everyone would be like "This is so stupid. Why do we have to raid the entire game. Why cant we do something else thats cooler later on?" Of course some would prefer it that way, but im just speaking in general player terms, not the hardcore raiders.

Originally posted by Grimlock426

Originally posted by Nikkita

It is the same old MMO problem where you have to tell players 'hey things will get better past lvl X..keep playing'. 

This, this, this!!!  I have been playing with my wife and desperately trying to keep her interested in the game.  I keep telling her, trust me, it will get better.  Her response makes sense.  She says, but if it's not fun for me now, there is little incentive for me to keep pushing forward in the hopes that it will get better eventually.

Games need to be fun and engaging right off the bat or they risk losing people before they even get to the really "fun" part. 

Trust me i also don't get it really. And this problem is kind of universal. A MMO should be fun from get go and i don't think a situation should arise where you have to tell players that keep playing because things will get better past level X.

Originally posted by CyclopsSlay

First off, for the most part I am enjoying GW2, rather surprised at that.  A few minor issues here and there, but the one that is makig me gag is unfortunately one of their core mechanics; Dynamic Events.

 

First off, anything you can nearly set your watch by, has a known trigger point, no divergence in followup events, well that is NOT worthy of the name Dynamic.

Take the Caledon Forest newbie Mosquito event, the Kessex Hills 'Fire Fissure' event, these happen about every 10 minutes, day in, day out. There are known event 'chains' where people just go from one to the next, to the next, back to the first, endlessly. XP, Coin, Karma coming out of their ears, lacking skill points and map completion true, but in the best of the Karma gear and staging for Dungeons and WvW the easy way.

 

Secondly, there could be a tiny bit of variation! A set map area has one event and one only it seems, there might be closely adjacent events. But a Fort for example will only ever spawn 1 event, not 1 of a series, or one of a set, 1 event and 1 only.

As well, follow on events always follow a set chain, A>B>C>D, never A>C>D>B or heaven forbid A>B>G>T. If the path is going to be fixed, just make it one long single event.

 

Lastly, Completion rewards. They have got work on this system. DPS is all that matters in a kill event, support means next to nothing. 

As well, what were they thinking.. I have more than once gotten a medal for no reason at all. Just a bit ago I waypointed to an area, started running towards an event just as it ended, fought nothing, collected nothing, turned in nothing, did NOTHING, and yet the event saw fit to award me a GOLD completion? Someone dropped a line or two of code there...

 

I still do all the events as I come across them.

Your issue with the "10 minute" window is largely due to the fact it is driven by the amount of ppl in that area, I'm currently in that area and it was busy this morning and the event happened on a regular basis, then it slacked off about lunchtime, for about 40 mins no giant mosquito, mainly because no one responded to the npc that runs around asking for help in killing the beast.

Originally posted by AwDiddums

 

Your issue with the "10 minute" window is largely due to the fact it is driven by the amount of ppl in that area, I'm currently in that area and it was busy this morning and the event happened on a regular basis, then it slacked off about lunchtime, for about 40 mins no giant mosquito, mainly because no one responded to the npc that runs around asking for help in killing the beast.

 

Not sure if that is how it works everytime? in Diessa plateau we were just 3 people and 3 events in close vicinity kept triggering every 15 minutes. After a while lot of players joined us to kill the giant because 3 of us were getting smacked and we really pleaded for help in chat. But after 3 times repeating same event people stopped bothering because it took lot of time to kill the giant.

And, regarding the DEs, so far they seem far from dynamic, and largely uninteresting.  I do feel somewhat misled by the hype.

First of all, the majority of them are not much different or better than standard quest hubs in other MMOs.

Here's how they go for me most of the time.  I'm running along and suddenly I get a message flashing across my screen - Dynamic Event happening !  So, I open my map and see where it's conveniently marked.  I then run to where it is and mindlessly start shooting away at whatever it is.  This is much less organic then what I was led to believe.  I was led to believe I'd be running along and organically I'd have someone say  "The Centaurs are coming" then I'd see the centaurs, etc.

While that happens once in awhile, far more often I'm directed by the game where to go, just like in a central quest hub MMO.

The other part that is not fun is that most of the DEs fall into one of 4 types:

Escort

Defend

Kill

Protect

They all end up just requiring a group to just zerg the crap out of whatever it is that keeps assaulting the group.  Most of the time I have no clue why I'm guarding something or escorting something.  I do it because my screen told me where to go and because I know that's the best way to get experience.

Consider me quite underwhelmed by the DEs.  I know this will be blasphamy to some, but at this point in WoW's evolution I think they have many more creative, and fun quests then GW2 has.   Yes, WoW still has the run of the mill, go here, kill X number of creatures, etc.  But now days WoW has other types of quests that involve flying, cut scenes, humor and fun, and quests that I dare say are much more enjoyable than what I've found in GW2 so far.

Before you call me a GW2 hater, please understand I cancelled my WoW account and bought not 1, but 2 GW2 copies, one for me and one for my wife.  I desperately WANT GW2 to be awesome.  Sadly, so far it just hasn't been.

Originally posted by Nikkita

 

But content in GW2 works in different way since everything downscales to your level. That is why i feel odd that devs didn't put same amount of depth in lower level dynamic events. In other MMOS i understand but GW2 is not like other MMOS where lower level content becoms obsolete once you hit level cap.

 

The problem they ran into beta was the average MMO player was completely lost.   They had to be trained.   These low level single-event/short-chain DEs, despite the complaints and criticisms, are training tools to teach people who have never done anything like this before.  

So, sure, you've been through 3 BWEs, 5 stress tests and two weeks of more-hours-than-you-will-admit play time and you 'get it' and, naturally,  you see these as 'simple.'   Or, even if you didn't go early-purchase, you've played the heck out of the game the past two weeks so now they're challenge is clearly not up to your current understanding of the game.

But they're still, primarily, a training tool.   And the MMO, popular as it is today, is only a fraction of the player population expected to pass through this MMO.    GW1 sold millions and millions of accounts.   Even after they stopped all campaign and XPAC development, they sold over 1.2 million copies.

Honestly, I think the complaints miss the mark.   They are not considering that people, probably millions more, will be coming into this game.  And they, like the vast majority of the people who are in the game now, will need to be trained.  

Originally posted by ironhelix

Yeah, they should have just called them "quest hubs", because that's what they are. You just don't have to click on the guy with a question mark over his head.

Full disclosure: I am loving the game anyway, but it's not the MMO revolution it's being sold as.

I think the DEs a great, ya sure they may be quest hubs,so to speak...but players are/can work together,and do so more often, now that you cant kill still, ninja node,etc so on and so forth.

Originally posted by Pouf

Yea this is true, but this is also the community fault.

 

Try to find a way to explain how YOU would do something more DYNAMIC in term of event. 

1. Longer respawn : This would be crap for a lot of players who plays casually, they would miss a lot of the event
2. Bigger event chain that last longer : Give the game time, they will certainly expand in that direction or they will crash

I know what you mean, i do event loops in Orr and yes it's not dynamic at all, but as a programmer i understand what problems they are facing and it's kinda hard to make something dynamic in a MMO where thousands of players logs at different times where some plays for an hour a day MAX and some 12... 

 

I personally play a lot and loops are boring, My gf is level 40, she still played quite some, and isnt even aware of that yet because she does hearts and events that spawns near her..

 

 

SWTOR was a fail, and the last planet with the pvp ( cant remember the name ) had a great concept, but then again players found a way to bypass it...  

 

If you want we can try to find a way to create something "DYNAMIC" that would work for everyone. And Even GW2 would probably listen to that.

The only way to make a truely dynamic system is to basically make it so players can't experience all the events since as they occure they make "Real" and "Permanate" Changes to to world. Say you build a player city and some of your rabble town folk pissed off the orcs in a near by cave and while you were out they raided and destored your city, now you have to rebuild and do some orc ass kicking to boot, but palyers who come along after will never experience that exact event. However if a company wanted to pump enough money into replicating some dynamic things via storage and software, you could have a "Record" or "Memory" event that can be played at will. This "Memory" event will basically allow players to relive events that have occured in a servers history if they so choosed. Alas this would be a royal pain to implemnt, as you would need some pretty ingenious AI (unless you steal some of the Military war seniro AI :P) to do what people would call a truly "Dynamic" event and world.

Originally posted by HorrorScope
I do wonder what their long term plans are with DE's. Perhaps in time they will become more varied and random. Something they can continue to work on and improve. I think if their #'s stay strong there is a chance.

if you read their dev blogs on them that has always been their plan

Originally posted by CyclopsSlay

started running towards an event just as it ended, fought nothing, collected nothing, turned in nothing, did NOTHING, and yet the event saw fit to award me a GOLD completion? Someone dropped a line or two of code there...

working as intended. Kids today want rewards for doing nothing and absolute minimum effort. This is the game for the young generation ya know.

Or perhaps you fed a cow and didn´t notice?

Originally posted by sonoggi
Guys, De's are the most complex and innovative pave mechanic ever developed for an mmo. Fact. Cut them some slack (yes I said it) because the scaling and bugs will get ironed out, and most importantly the subsequent De's done by the live team and in xpacs will just get more and more epic.

De's with all their flaws are still the best pve I've ever played in an mmo. De's are also ages ahead of skyrim's system which is good enough one would hope.

I can cut some slack, I can be understanding, sure, I can intellectually think "Ok, this is someof the most advanced game AI ever incorporated into a mainstream game." But SWTOR was the most expensive. That fact alone, doesn't mean it was worth the investment. Sure, they got some mileage out of it, but honestly, I don't think they got enough to really make it worth the effort. All that work and investment to produce something that's not really much better than what's already out there.

Originally posted by Aerowyn

Originally posted by HorrorScope
I do wonder what their long term plans are with DE's. Perhaps in time they will become more varied and random. Something they can continue to work on and improve. I think if their #'s stay strong there is a chance.

if you read their dev blogs on them that has always been their plan

Yeah, but we have to have some usefullness for these here forums. Thanks for the info though!