Tai Kratos.3247

I got a new PC not too long ago that finally wasn't an outdated piece of junk. I was super bummed when I booted up GW2 and experienced similar graphical stuttering to what I had before on far inferior hardware. I don't know about all the technical ins and outs of the rendering pipeline, but I know that was both confusing and disappointing. So +1 here.

I know, I'm sure there are great guilds out there, I'm just not sure how to find them, especially when I have only a few hours every week. I'm definitely still open to it! I had left GW2 for a long while (along with family, hence the GW1 run) because of these kinds of issues. Since family has moved on to GW1, I was thinking about the possibility of finding some giant casual guild to use as an LFG board. But I'm not sure how viable it is to throw together a group to farm Bjora Marches in the two hours I have on a Wednesday, if that makes sense. I'm not making this post and not looking for solutions in game, I'm still actively trying different things. But this is just a concept that has been nagging at the back of my mind for a while every time I hit a wall in a lacking player count for certain content. A sort of, "Man, I wish I could do this, wouldn't it be nice if I could supplement with NPCs." I'll take a look around, thanks for posting. 🙂

Sorry, forgot to address that. My personal experiences with guilds hasn't been great, either with them attempting to make demands on my time (I'm more casual), demanding 100% representation at all times, toxic cultures, guilds falling apart / dying, etc. I suppose I could join a large impersonal guild to use as an LFG board, but that feels like a failing of the current LFG board, and maybe isn't what guilds were intended for. So I guess guilds just don't match the way I interact with the game, and I know that answer won't make you happy, haha. But that has been my experience.

It's something that's been brought up a few times, where some people want to skip sections, skip cutscene, stack, or make demands. (This can apply to any gamemode.) Not all players want to align to optimized modes of play, some just want to play.

My guild (which is comprised of family) only plays once a week, but I want to play more often. With LFG I might be able to find 2 other players for some content, but then I could fill out that party with 2 NPCs just to help a little bit / cut down on the wait time while looking for players. So it'd be more like I have 3 players, and I add in two NPCs to fill out the rest of the team. I imaging running a dungeon alone with just yourself and 4 NPCs would be difficult, so the incentive is still cooperation. Or for old LW content that has rewards tied behind group events where you can't muster a large enough group and nothing is active in LFG. And the reason that you might not want to add more players to a group is that we're basically having family game night in Tyria, so interacting with randoms isn't exactly ideal. Especially if you have some less-skilled players who want to read all the lore and watch every cutscene. As of right now, we just do map completion or story content (which is not the greatest, as another active thread on this forum is currently discussing).

I think maybe it was just a lack of clarity. It's about a lack of players for specific content / play styles. So your guild might be large enough to run certain guild content, but another guild might not be. Or for new LW maps there are tons of players, but for old LW maps or less fun maps that still have rewards people might seek there might be a lack of players. It's in about providing consistency between popular and less popular content or providing a net for certain play styles. So it's about both, I don't think anybody is trying to be deceptive. The edit is still about a lack of players for specific content and creating consistency between the highs and lows. EDIT: and to respond to your edit, yes my LFG is still dead. It's always seemed bizarre to me that, given the player count for this game, there is only ever maybe a single post in each dungeon LFG for maybe just the story path. Or for any given PoF map people rarely group up for bounties outside of a single bounty train.

Sorry about that, I updated the post with that comment after the discussion went off into the weeds with a "I can find people this specific way for this specific content, therefore everything is fine" comments, and I was trying to make the argument that for some content and for some play styles, some content becomes inaccessible due to design. I'll update the first post to make this more clear. My argument for heroes is to be a patch to cover specific instances where players are not available, or the culture around that content funnels players into a specific play style that is undesirable. I do not imagine them as a replacement for players, but more as a last resort. So when people are talking about NPCs being dumb as rocks, while it would be nice if any form of heroes were slightly more intelligent, it's not necessarily a bad thing that they don't live up to players even closely. I imagine them as a stopgap only.

I hear a lot of hate for Dry Top, but weirdly enough that's one of my favorite maps, haha. I really enjoyed exploring the nooks and crannies, reading documents, found the sandstorm even really immersive. I get why you and other people hate it, but I enjoyed the roleplaying aspect of it, not necessarily the mechanics of actually getting around. For the main discussion... oof yeah, the story makes it a hard sell. Have you gone back and replayed any of the old living world stuff? Also super rough. Icebrood was the first time I enjoyed the writing / voice acting. I think I finished the vanilla plot on one character at launch? Never again.

Yeah, and I can usually get a team pretty consistently for SE or AC or something like that. But TA? HotW? I really struggle to find groups for those in the time I have to search. I don't know if I'm doing it wrong or what, but I have a tough time. So I guess it's a consistency problem. Plus the limited time problem. If I have limited time and it takes 30 minutes just to find a full group at the time I want to play? And maybe we find no one and split up? I'd rather spend that time elsewhere, which bums me out. Edit: as a balance, you could even reduce gold find / magic find an amount for each hero. So the incentive is still to play with other players, and high-skill solo players are not punished for not having heroes. But I'd happily lose a little gold to be able to play some of the content I'm referring to. Edit 2: I also imagine this will help players experience content the way Anet intended them to. Did they intend for players to optimize stack locations in dungeons? They wrote them as stories and set-piece experiences. Did they intend for every player doing bounties to hop on the only active bounty train and zerg rush whatever bounty is next in the path of the mob? I think they probably meant for you to pick a bounty that sounded interesting from the board and tackle it with a group of players. Did they intend for obscure LW maps with group events to be abandoned? ...I'm actually not sure about that one. 🤔

Oof, I went three pages in and didn't find anything. Guess I did it wrong. 😣 EDIT: Reading a few of them, some of them emphasize that content is hard, and that's not what I'm trying to target. I'm more about content that is designed for group play where adequate player numbers are not consistent / style of play doesn't match. (e.g. inexperienced players wanting to experience content at their own pace and learn rather than being pressured to optimize.) Oh yeah, there totally are runs popping up! But often times they are for paths you might not want to run, or more often I just see story runs. I've actually never done a normal run of SE, because every group I've done it with cheeses it with specific stacking locations. I'd love to experience it at my own pace without the pressure to skip all dialogue. I have no idea what any of the plots of any dungeon is because of the pressure to skip it. Every group is looking for "exp" players to use exploits and stack locations. Nobody wants to sit through dialogue. EDIT: also, please don't tell me to just read the wiki for the plots. It's just not the same. EDIT 2: another thing to note is that I don't have a lot of time to play very often. I have time to play games in between life, and am very much at the whim of "what is available right now" in LFG. I'm more of a casual player. So if given the choice between GW2, where I don't know if I'll be able to do the content I'm interested in, or a different game, I'll play GW2 less, which is what has happened. (I still pay for Gem store stuff because I want them to succeed.)

It was the same in GW1, I don't think it's necessarily a bad thing for high-level content to require players. But it's up to the individual player to decide where that threshold is. This is already the case for a lot of content. If introducing it is acknowledgement that there are not enough players for some content, then the current response is just ignoring that fact. Or at least that has been my experience.

I agree it might, but is your view of LFG populated? Mine is almost always dead. Sometimes I find 2 or 3 players for some content, we sit in LFG for 20 minutes, then give up and split apart. I imagine this as a solve for that situation.

How do you find players for obscure content? There are certain dungeons I never find players for, LFG is empty, bounties are empty aside from a single zerg train that is active (sometimes), and old LW maps from years ago are usually empty. I guess for me I would find heroes very helpful, so I'm more curious about 1) how do you find groups consistently on obscure content or with inexperienced players and 2) how would someone else having access to this hurt your experience? That kind of sidesteps every issue I brought up. I'm trying to address lack of players with certain content and situations in which you want to stay within a particular group of players. I play PUGs and with zergs in new content, I'm referring to other specific instances.

Note about the discussion: Thank you for the lively discussion! I do want to clarify a few points about the point of this topic to avoid repetition in the ongoing conversation. This is not necessarily about whether it is possible to find players, or if you are able to find players for the content you personally enjoy. It's about providing consistent access to more content. Heroes cannot - and should not - replace players. Their AI does not have to match player skill, and having a party of players will make any content easier. I imagine the inclusion of heroes as a stopgap when players are not available for specific content, or when the culture of some content is undesirable to particular players. (e.g. dungeon stacking / cutscene skipping / required experience / zerg mobs on bounties and bosses) This is not about helping players overcome content that is difficult, but about allowing smaller groups of players to accomplish group content in lieu of a larger group. Points that have been brought up: It might harm the use of the LFG system. I think LFG is already underutilized by the player base, but this might bring it down even more. Coding AI is hard. For all the effort put in, would it be worthwhile for the player base? Who would use this? The inclusion of heroes might lead to a loss of community and cooperation Heroes being inherently inferior to human players and providing some kind of penalty per hero (e.g. gold find, magic find) would keep the incentive for cooperation while still letting you pick up a hero or two if there is no other option. This is more geared towards instanced content. People have called out the strain that minipets take on heavily populated maps, but I would imagine that if a map is heavily populated, nobody would be allowed to bring a hero. When there are enough players, cooperation still exists as it has. Heroes would only be present and helpful in maps that have little or not population working in them. I played GW1 a lot, been with GW2 from the start. Never been big on joining large guilds or anything, mostly playing solo or with friends / family and the occasional PUG. My family and I are actually returning back to GW1 (with my dad this time, which is cool!) and I'm remembering all the things I loved about that game. One thing that has made it difficult to play GW2 a lot for me is that fact that, most of the time, I'm playing solo. There are so many achievements, so much map content, and and so much instanced content that is inaccessible to me and my family because of a lack of players in specific areas. I would totally run dungeons, but I'd be lucky to find one or two players in LFG at any given time that want to do that, especially with the more obscure dungeons. There are four of us who play together in my family, sometimes 3, and we might not even find a full PUG together (and we might not want a PUG either). We have a guild of 4 people, so all that 10-player content is not feasible. (My dad isn't that great, and no serious group would want to bring him along if we tried. The internet is a mean place.) There are also a lot of maps that are kind of dead to me, especially with the disposability of LW maps. I want to get some of those achievements, but can't because it's locked behind group content with 0 population with no obvious way to find a more populated version of the map if there is one. (LFG is usually dead.) The other day I wanted to do a bounty, so I called out LFG and made a post. Someone advised me that they saw a train with an LFG post, so I joined them. Suddenly the bounty turns into a 50+ person zerg-particle disaster with 0 strategy, just another zerg boss. I would have loved it if there were maybe 5-10 people. All of this makes me think of heroes in GW1 and how I could do most of the content solo, or with maybe a handful of players in key roles padded out by heroes. (Heroes were NPCs that you could spec and have accompany you.) I saw someone on these forums say something to the affect of "the day Anet adds heroes is the day they give up on GW2", which makes me feel there are some strong opinions, haha. But I guess with limited application, I don't see how it can be anything but a plus. They could be primarily in instanced content only. So you can fill up a party with heroes in an instance lobby or something. (The pre dungeon path area? Fractals lobby? Something like that?) For dead maps with group content, couldn't you allow x number of heroes per player, with a fluctuating threshold based on population of the map? So in a completely empty map you can bring max number of heroes, and then there is a threshold at which point your heroes are slowly removed up to that point. Heroes would be inherently inferior to players, so there would still be an incentive to LFG. But if you can't find the players for that particular content - or don't want to - I guess the question is, is it better for that content to be dead to you? Or to bring a few NPCs and try anyways? BTW, not looking to get roasted. I've been burnt here before. 😬 I guess for the way I have interacted with GW1 and GW2, I can see nothing but positives and would engage much more with the game and with much more variety in content if I had NPC companions, so I'm curious what downsides other players might see in this. (Aside from the view of it as a white-flag from Anet / "git gud". Looking for constructive discussion.) I don't see it as a sign of giving up, because their business model with the Living World creates that disposability inherently, but they bake in the requirements for group play on those maps that will just be dead upon the next release. And I guess you could say "play it when it comes out", but A) I don't have the time as an adult to get everything when it comes out and B) they are still selling this content to people actively right now, content that is basically dead on arrival. So to me, allowing NPC companions would be in support of that business model, increasing its TTL beyond the next release. (Plus, wouldn't it be amazing if your NPC companions were your alts? Just a big ol' army of you marching around the map. I don't understand how that could not be cool as hell, haha.) Also yes, I know it's an MMO. I love MMOs, never like joining guilds / clans with strangers. I like to explore solo and interact / talk / quest with other players I meet in passing. If anything, having the same dedicated group of people you run all content with also takes away what is special from an MMO which is spontaneity. At least I think so.

I've long dreamt of getting a 3D printer and making my own 3D Catan board, so now I'm doing it! And I decided to make it GW2 themed. The idea is that the player gets their 5 settlements, 4 cities, but also 1 capital, which is like a super city. I am designing the capital pieces to be able to take a small cell battery and be lit up with hobby LEDs from the inside. I decided to start with the most difficult city first - The Black Citadel https://imgur.com/UZGmMJz (I can't figure out how to imbed images - please let me know how it's done so I don't have a janky external link!) It's designed with a hollow pipe from the base to wire the LEDs up, the front spheres are going to be transparent resin to allow them to glow (inserted via pegs), and the back plate is removable to give you access to positioning the LEDs before gluing things shut. It will be designed to print at about 1.5" wide and 2" tall when all is said and done. Not all of the detail work is complete on this first model. I intend to update this post as I make progress. Once I am done with the files, I want to make them available to anyone else for printing as well!

I'm stuck on the bounties / group events as well, and I can't seem to get past it. People make lots of suggestions, but few are helpful: Use the LFG - Nobody is making groups for bounties / Griffon collection events. I've made my own groups, and nobody joins.Join a Guild - I never joined a guild in GW1 and I haven't in this game. I think I should be able to play the game how I want. This isn't about being "antisocial" or playing the game solo, because I do play with people. But I just don't join guilds, and I don't think something as central as a flying mount should be barred behind joining an active guild.I tried asking people in a map for help, nobody responded. I even triggered an event right next to a commander tag on a populated map. People just ran around the event and ignored it. So I can't ask beforehand and get help to start the event, and I can't start the event and hope people join. Neither seems effective. If they like having major parts locked behind group events, they should at least offer some sort of long-winded second path to get the item. Like, charge me lots of gold for it or something. Sure, that's also a terrible solution, but at least I know I can reliably get it at some point.

I think PoF is a great return to form. I thought calling back to the GW1 mission format (main objective + optional) brings focus to the goal of each mission. The land is beautiful, but I spend most of my time staring at my map. The mounts feel great, but doesn't the griffon make the gliding obsolete? Also, the Charr looks dumb on every mount (too big). The HPs now feel fair and doable while still challenging for a solo player - HoT made them mostly unsoloable. All in all, a great step forward. Keep it up!