DMO.4158

It's all obnoxiously cringe stuff. I hammer the skip button whenever possible. If I wanted a deep story or character development, I'll read a book or watch a movie or play a single player game. I was actually pleasantly surprised the next episode will come without the bad dialogue. I can enjoy the new map for a short time without immediately being yanked from my MMO immersion by a bunch of teenage NPC REEEEEEE.

Is to turn off all sources of chat and just go. Pretend everyones an NPC. Who cares about the meta and everyone's REEEEEEEEEEEE? Nothing about any of it is encouraging or helpful for new players. I'll figure out my own way to learn since Anet refuses to provide any kind of balanced learning environment. You're just tossed to the wolves and hope matchmaking doesn't RNG you. If you're trying to REEEEEEEEEEEEE me in chat. I can't hear you. You're just an NPC. A super unhelpful NPC. Every entitled, toxic brat that's ever had anything clever to say in chat is part of the reason many wont pvp. Give yourselves a pat on the back.Both the gate keeping veterans and the developer that caters to them. Congrats for chasing off another customer.

Same boat. And no. It's exactly the same as its always been. -Combat still revolves around micromanaging ultra-short duration particle effects.-It's still the same game mode from 2012 which is singlehandedly responsible for most of the modes balance issues.-matchmaking is still broken resulting in incredibly lopsided snowballs. Every single time.-chatbox is pure covid. I'm already in the process of looking for another game.

None of the effort put into fractals and raids amount to much without a proper automated grouping system. The difficulty and mechanics were never the deterrent. It was navigating through and wasting precious play time on other people's b.s. It's the human element i have no interest in. An automated dungeon/fractal/raid finder would allow the game to be in charge. Not some sweat raid leader thats eventually going to chase off your customers. A lot of us just want to play. We don't have time for an interview and and a background check. I need to be pulling in the next 3 minutes or I can't go. We don't have time for Johnny to walk his dog, and Jenny has to check on her baby, so and so has to pee every 5 minutes, Joe needs a cigarette after every pull, yada yada NOPE.

Bill Nye the science guy putting way too much thought into it. ^ Bottom line the game is 8 years old and hasn't achieved any semblance of balance. In 8 years they havnt settled into a 1.0 state. I come back every couple years and they're still messing around with class identities. It isn't rocket science. Other companies are managing fine. I just don't think this dev team gets it. I mean how many more years do they need to get PvP to a 1.0 state where the class identities are locked in and people can finally learn the game and meta? It shouldn't be in this much flux 8 years in. Wall of text science doesn't prove anything. All you need to do is take a step back and look at the populations and financials of other competing games. All of which are bigger and more successful than GW2. There's no secret sauce. They just don't have the manpower or money to finish PvP. So they poke at it with % changes and hope for the best. You're giving them far too much credit with the complexity argument. No. This is a company thats on maintenance mode with a small team working on LW episodes. This is a team that has seen tons of layoffs and simply doesn't have the resources or desire to finish the game mode. Whatever roadblocks you think they need to over come are entirely self imposed through bad design decisions. I think it's pretty telling what kind of budget the skeleton PvP team is working with when after 8 years, we're still playing the same tired game mode and maps. This alone tells me they had no intentions of ever taking it seriously. I also won't subscribe to the complexity argument because they allocated resources to create raids across 2 expansions. That's a massive brunt of your budget being allocated to an extremely niche game mode.They were willing to gamble on raids despite promoting their game as an alternative to raid-centric mmos back in 2012. But PvP still feels like it's in early alpha..... It's poor management and resource allocation not some complex hierarchy of code and systems. They placed a higher value on chasing an entirely new demographic through raids than they have on an existing game mode that had an existing player base. Blinded fanboy or not, any intelligent consumer had to have realized there was going to be a massive shift in development focus back when they hired a raid designer from blizzard. That's where all your potential PvP development money went. It isn't being lost in some next gen level coding. There's no magic in games. It's just money and their willingness to spend it.

I love how there's this magical threshold that one must overcome before the game becomes fun and balanced. I always see the same argument brought forth about "higher rank" play and it's irrelevant to normal players. Vast majority of people will never stick with it long enough to get there. Totally moot point. Do you balance around the 1%ers that show up in some obscure twitch stream from Europe or do you balance it around the brunt of the population looking for a fair match? This game doesn't have the market pull nor the population to sustain a 1%er focus. E-sports was a wipe. Twitch viewership is abysmal compared to other MMOs. This game isn't even part of the conversation or consciousness in the grand scheme of things. 8 years of catering to the top end and all its done is create a small niche of players trying to gatekeep so 1%ers can have a good time at everyone else's expense. Catering to the pros didn't bring in players. It didn't cause a twitch explosion. Leagues dumped it. It barely made any kind of tangible dent in wow's population. Everything they tried to do has failed. Maybe it's time to sacrifice the small number of gatekeepers for the greater good of the player base and long term health of the mode.

All of the nonsense, the stigma, the drama etc could easily be addressed. Every single game with group content goes through this. It isn't new, it isn't exclusive to guildwars 2. The same patterns emerge in every genre/game. It has very little to do with game design and everything to do with human nature that is compounded by players being given too much control over game systems and accessibility. Mostly through abusing a text based LFG tool. All you need to do is figure out the commonalities between various systems. What's the one singular thing that each group based game has in common? Answer: the power is given to a small niche of players. These players set the rules and pace and ultimately get to gatekeep an entire chunk of content. The solution: take the power and control away from the players and bake it into every raid. Treat raids like open world events. Allow the game to lead the raid and dictate pacing. Whether through a disembodied Voice or an actual NPC raid leader. Allow the game to teach mechanics in an organic manner rather than a 14 yo screaming over discord. Keep the existing hard mode for tryhard sweats. They can all enjoy each others company in their own private groups. The developers should be in control of group content. It should have an automated matchmaking system too. Half the battle is farting around building a group. That time sink and deterrent could be eliminated. I walked into the fractal lobby for the first time yesterday and was met with me zoning into an instance alone.....why isn't the game matchmaking me into a group? I don't have time to foster relationships and beg people in chat. It's 2020 for god sakes. This content is mostly going to waste without a proper automated grouping system. And if it can't be completed by an automated pug in a reasonable time frame, it's over tuned for the largest demographic of the game. Simple. Otherwise you end up with a business model like world of Warcraft. Where millions of players are financing content for a small portion of raid guilds. And those guilds gatekeep the content through various methods and shut out the very people that are paying for THEIR fun.

I dont mind the challenge or the gimmicky enemies. I just cant stand the terrible confusing vertical layout and the sheer lack of guidance in this zone. The map is virtually useless as a navigation tool. I have a hard time justifying the HoT mastery gimmicks though because that investment doesn't benefit me once I abandon the zone. Path of fire was easily a better experience. NOT only were maps better designed but the mastery point gimmicks weren't locked inside a terrible zone I never want to play again. My investment into the mounts gets to come with me. A large part of the 'new player' difficulty problem stems from the game doing a counterproductive job of distributing proper rewards and thus, teaching the player what stats are beneficial. I find it astonishing that by the time you hit level 80 you're wearing a hodge podge of ridiculous gear with a stat spread that makes no sense. And this is by design. Fresh level 80 necromancer for example, and the game gives me toughness and condition gear??? No wonder I can't kill anything. The player doesn't actually get to learn what stats are beneficial until they learn it from an external source. The game can't even keep up with it's own meta.

All of them are bad. Conquest is a poorly conceived game mode. PvP in this game might actually be fun if it didn't revolve around conquest snowballing and +1'ing. The maps are terribly designed and every gimmick is used to compound a snowball. They offer zero counterplay or come back opportunities for the losing team. The map gimmicks should have been a way for the losing team to catch back up NOT for the winning team to snowball. There should have been a 4th node. Its far too easy to snowball if you secure mid at the start. 90% of games are entirely decided by which team wins mid first.And it shows because your team will immediately throw. Take a look at every other PvP MMO(that is more successful than gw2 with greater population); lets use wow as a prime example. There are no 3 node maps. Why do you think that is? arathi basin has 5 nodes.battle of the eye has 4 nodes and a flag to run.It's a better design because it gives the losing team counterplay options.AndThe winning team has to make a strategic decision on how to allocate players between the nodes. They don't just get to camp mid and spawn trap. Better design. More people playing it. Period. If a team can't win those big team fights they aren't going to win the match. It's already been decided - which is why so many people quit and throw. It's too predictable with 3 nodes. There needs to be an objective based way to overcome that. It's not like your team of pugs are suddenly going to click when its 400-100. Either end the game right then and there after the first team wipes on midOrGive the losing team other options. Because right now every time I reinstall this game and come back to PvP, it's always the same. 90% of my matches are toxic snowballs with no way out. And I immediately remember why I uninstalled in the first place. It's not even competitive. It's just luck. Roll of the dice. Will my team win mid? Hope so because 90% chance of a torturous frustrating snowball otherwise. If anyone wants to know why the PvP population is as low as it is, this is the crux of the issue. Thousands of people like me come back every couple years and this is what were met with. This toxic snowball where veteran players just farm the crap out of you. It's garbage and I'm about 2 more snowball away from uninstalling again.

I wouldn't hold much hope. I come back every couple years and just roll my eyes at the lack of progress in PvP. And yet they've taken the time to shoehorn raiding into the game and spend untold resources on fully voiced single player stories that are 1 and done. 8 years in and still; 3 node snowball matches with zero counterplay opportunities built into the maps. All the map gimmicks benefit the winning team with map control, further compounding the snowball.no other new game modes in 8 years? Other than "moba-lite"? A lot of balancing woes are directly related to this single game mode. Change it up. an over reliance on a goofy buff/debuff system that uses insanely short timers and and all happens way too fast for any kind of skilled counterplay. You cant parse where a certain form of burning came from, it all stacks and refreshes. If you think its a chaotic mess as a player to parse 100 flasing tiny icons, imagine what it's like to watch on twitch.....yikes.an over reliance on passive abilities, traits and procs. Half of our kits just happen in the background via RNG etc. Low skill ceiling, less player interaction etc.an over reliance on instant cast abilities with no readable animations or telegraphing to promote counter play and skillshots rather than particle spam.an over reliance on stats via amulets/sigils despite being promoted as a normalized, gear-less, competitive environment.ttk feels wildly different from class to class. While it may be "balanced" on paper or in relation to conquest specifically, it doesn't "feel" right to a new player. Especially after 80 levels of being taught a completely different combat pace. There are too many "I used all buttons on my toolbar and they still have full hp, now what?" Moments. Very frustrating not to have the expected result from pressing the buttons the game taught you. matchmaking is still poorly structured. Still can't believe this hasn't been fixed all these years. Regardless of ranked or unranked, there absolutely needs to be a split between solo and premades. I havnt had a chance to try tournaments yet but they seem like a cesspool of premade snowballs. This one point alone, regardless of the underlying game, is a major deterrent for most people. I've heard the arguments before in every other game about population sizes and que times. It never pans out. It's better to have 1 fair match per day than 10 snowballs. Getting farmed by more experienced players while trying to learn is a guaranteed population loss for everyone in the longrun. no way for the losing team to concede. Still? When your matchmaker goes wild and I'm getting farmed and down 200+. Just end the game. Give me my "lootbox of how many icons does this game need?" And re-que me.Instead of the bizarre paper rock scissors style combat, they should have focused more on direct damage skill shots. Everyone should be going toe-to-toe instead of the musical chairs +1 nonsense. It's more about micromanaging passive buffs/debuffs and outnumbering than it is any kind of PvP. A skilled player should ideally be able to 1 vs 3 if need be. Right now it's just a numbers game built into the player consciousness. It's too predictable. If it's 4 vs 2 it's over. You're done. You're team knows it before it even happens and they've already thrown.At the very least......a new game mode could change that up.

I've had the game since release day but have never been able to get into it for more than a month at a time. Not for lack of trying but none of my friends ever liked the game either. Of all the MMO out there though, I always come back to this one. I have fun, get back into the combat but I always hit the same wall. Every single time I return, I'm soon reminded why I left. I enjoy the world and the expansions but as soon as i hit level 80 and clear all the maps......it loses me. I finally figured it out all these years later.The games "endgame" content is not only extremely non-accessible but all modes are at odds with how the game is presented and taught for the first 80 levels. For 80 levels you're taught to faceroll as you race from icon to icon. And then once you're expected to participate in endgame, none of that works. For 80 levels you're given a hodge podge of gear which you will find out (through external sources) has really stupid stats and needs to be replaced.The gear rewards make zero sense and thus teach the player nothing. Dungeons are taught to be avoided almost instantly. Instead of experiencing a low level dungeon, you're met with an antiquated, text based LFG tool that is ripped directly from 1999.Which leads to Dungeon content being unnecessarily gated by other players. For 80 levels you're taught this wonderful, hassle free, organically cooperative loop in the world. Then suddenly all that is handed over to a small handful of fractal/raid/wvw players to gatekeep. SPvP is a mess every time I return. It's such a jarring shift from PvE to PvP. For 80 levels you're taught what works and what doesn't, you're taught a very specific pacing and time to kill. Then all of that is tossed out when you enter PvP. It's too different of a game. WvW is probably the biggest offender for accessibility. Apply everything from above plus; a confusing map that makes very little sense and provides zero direction. not a single effort made by the game to teach a new player anything or direct them to the action.a deep skill tree that seemingly puts a new player at a disadvantage and immediately deters participation due to the long grind to "catch up"gear matters thus destroying any semblance of balance that was trying to be achieved in conquest. Also deters new players due to too long of an investment to "catch up".dependency on high level, consumable item buffs. These last 2 alone are a big reason people won't ever play WvW. Basically each game mode is too different from the core game that is taught for 80 levels. In order to progress to another game mode, you have to start over and unlearn all the things the game incorrectly taught you. That is an exhausting amount of energy to put into a single game imho. Arenanet had some really great ideas for gw2. But to have such an immense disconnect between all the modes, isn't one of them. Not complaining just had an epiphany about my love/hate relationship with this game. Lol