When will the Devs wake up to under utilsed zones???

[Sobx.1758]

1 minute ago, Teratus.2859 said:

Not just E-specs and mounts no.. a lot of general updates, balancing, trait and skill improvements to the base classes over time.
Core classes are a lot stronger than they used to be.. so the powercreed does effect them as well, not just the e-specs.

I'll need some definite proof for that to accept it as a general, meaningful fact, seeing how a lot of the patches consist mainly of nerfs.

 

1 minute ago, Teratus.2859 said:

You have the luxury of hindsight here 😛 

I was wondering if "hindsight" means something other than what I previously thought, but apparently not [understanding of a situation or event only after it has happened or developed], so... um... No, not really. Re-read what I wrote there, hindsight has nothing to do with it. 🙂

1 minute ago, Teratus.2859 said:

First time through HoT you won't know about certain masteries being required for story progression unless you randomly look it up or someone tells you about it.
If there is a disclaimer on them now it's not something I'm aware of since I did them years ago after I already went though the "crap I have to level this mastery up twice to progress the story" problem.. and i'm pretty sure the only time you were notified that a mastery was required for a story mission was literally when you got to the mission and it said "complete X mastery to unlock next mission" which was annoying if X mastery required tons of exp grinding (which it did back in the early HoT days) and a bunch of mastery points that you had to go and find because you just spent the last of the ones you had on a different mastery.

The first time you play through hot (which was exactly the situation I was talking about, seeing how I don't need to unlock the same masteries during other playthroughs) -ESPECIALLY when you start on the story, which in this situation you [or someone hypothetical] do, considering you were talking about being mainly interesting in the story- you don't magically dump tons of xp and mastery points before you need them on the story. So you learn about that need rather sooner than later. Doesn't seem like a good excuse to me, but you sure are trying 😛

So no, from my experience -as someone who also starts from the story for any new realised content- absolutely not true. And again, if someone goes out of their way to dump tons of points and xp into masteries before going through the story, despite claiming they don't want to farm and are more interested in the story then... Well, something definitely doesn't add up here.

1 minute ago, Teratus.2859 said:

For new players who just want to play the story and find the open world HoT stuff too hard I can see that still being a problem that forces them into grinding exp in content they find frustratingly difficult.

 

Literally what I wrote above: if they're mainly interested in the story then they don't have tons of xp and points to dump into masteries before they need them for the story.

 

1 minute ago, Teratus.2859 said:

It's easy for us to tell them they just need to learn how to play when they've already hit the wall so to speak but that's basically just the same thing as telling them to "Get good" really.
The HoT wall wouldn't be an issue in the first place if the game prepared players better for it. 🙂

Again, I was speaking based on my literal first playthrough of the HoT content on its release. So no, stop trying to tell me "it's easy when you know" or "it's all hindsight" -it's not. And if I'll have to repeat it another 20 times then I will, but I'll probably stop responding to anything else until I make sure you understand what I wrote here, because otherwise what's the point 😉

Not hindsight. Literally first playthrough. Literally on HoT release. Literally no guides. Literally no problem.

 

1 minute ago, Teratus.2859 said:

I think some people jump on the Gw2 action MMO thing too hard though, lot of the meta culture for example who want things to be harder and more like other MMO's where their super ultra DPS meta's can be the be all and end all of the game but Gw2 just isn't that kind of game.
Ultimately it's the casuals that dominate this game not the hardcore MMO player.

Not sure I understand. It IS action mmorpg, so I wouldn't say anyone is jumping on anything. The fact the game has varying levels of difficulty and overally varies in types of content doesn't really change that imo. If you jump into any action mmorpgo, you can still just keep presing "1" on other players, that doesn't make said game less of an action mmorpg just the player decided not to use its potential.

1 minute ago, Teratus.2859 said:

If only it were that easy eh 😄

But it IS that easy. Show people Break bar, tell them it has positive effects for the players or negative for the target like increased received damage, tell them they need to use crowd control skills, which include this, that and those aaaaaaaaaaand... Yup, that's all. Pretty fast and easy explanation. Not sure why you've decided to pretend it's not 😉

 

1 minute ago, Teratus.2859 said:

Open world tutorials are too chaotic.. and popups are too easy to miss or ignore when your attention is elsewhere.
 

Nah, they're not. And again if you ignore a popup it's not the game's fault. Easy to miss? Not really, not sure where that claim even came from? It's either right in the middle of your screen or glowing while pointing on a specific icon/part of ui. Far from being "easy to miss".

 

1 minute ago, Teratus.2859 said:

Perhaps it would be a benefit to improve descriptions though..

Yes, getting more detailed/accurate skill/trait descriptions is something I agree with, but that seems irrelevant for this thread or what was said before (and these posts already get a bit long), so... skipped! 😛

1 minute ago, Teratus.2859 said:

My presence in Gw2 predates that entire leveling system upgrade so i've never actually read them myself.
Was already an experienced player when that got implemented lol
Good if it is there though but much like I say when it comes to easy mode raids discussions.. learning through doing is a significantly better teacher than just reading or being told how to do something.

Mine too, but the fact remains that it's there.

And you can "learn by doing" after "having it explained to you", which is how it currently works and is perfectly fine if someone actually wants to get to know most of the needed mechanics.

1 minute ago, Teratus.2859 said:

I don't think core world Gw2 provides a good environment for that though.. at least for certain mechanics like CC's and breakbars.

But you've JUST said you didn't go through that in a long time, and didn't even (yup 😛 ) know about the existance of those pop-up guides/hints/introductory messages on the way to level 80, so... not sure how you're suddenly able to make these claims. Seems pretty baseless to me.

[Teratus.2859]

On 5/18/2021 at 11:54 PM, Sobx.1758 said:

I'll need some definite proof for that to accept it as a general, meaningful fact, seeing how a lot of the patches consist mainly of nerfs.

Well the 3 whole trait line thing is probably the easiest one I can give.. that if I recall right came in just before the release of HoT.. before that we were using a point based trait system I think, which would only allow for 2 whole lines to be equipped.
Think we also had to unlock traits by completing specific content around the core world as well.. I actually miss that feature, it was a lot of fun but I think most people hated it.
Be nice to have that back as an optional choice for core world content.
 

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 I was wondering if "hindsight" means something other than what I previously thought, but apparently not [understanding of a situation or event only after it has happened or developed], so... um... No, not really. Re-read what I wrote there, hindsight has nothing to do with it. 🙂 
 

Again, I was speaking based on my literal first playthrough of the HoT content on its release. So no, stop trying to tell me "it's easy when you know" or "it's all hindsight" -it's not. And if I'll have to repeat it another 20 times then I will, but I'll probably stop responding to anything else until I make sure you understand what I wrote here, because otherwise what's the point 😉

Not hindsight. Literally first playthrough. Literally on HoT release. Literally no guides. Literally no problem.

The first time you play through hot (which was exactly the situation I was talking about, seeing how I don't need to unlock the same masteries during other playthroughs) -ESPECIALLY when you start on the story, which in this situation you [or someone hypothetical] do, considering you were talking about being mainly interesting in the story- you don't magically dump tons of xp and mastery points before you need them on the story. So you learn about that need rather sooner than later. Doesn't seem like a good excuse to me, but you sure are trying 😛

So no, from my experience -as someone who also starts from the story for any new realised content- absolutely not true. And again, if someone goes out of their way to dump tons of points and xp into masteries before going through the story, despite claiming they don't want to farm and are more interested in the story then... Well, something definitely doesn't add up here.

Literally what I wrote above: if they're mainly interested in the story then they don't have tons of xp and points to dump into masteries before they need them for the story.

Grouping a few up for single response (I agree we need to cut these down a bit lol)

What I meant by hindsight was that you can look back at your first time HoT playthrough and recognise you made good choices when it came to masteries which is different from my experience 🙂
 I look back on my choices at the time and think yeah I shouldn't have invested everything into the gliding gimmick so early lol
At the time though I didn't know certain masteries would lock me out of the story nor had any cause to think that would happen either.. it was a whole new system and we'd had nothing in Gw2 like masteries before.
Thankfully HoT wasn't that hard to me so it wasn't "difficult" to get my mastery's done it was just tedious due to the exp grind, even with boosters etc it was too much originally.

For a newer player repeating the same mistake I did and not enjoying the HoT open world I can sympathise with how they'd feel even if the content is easier today and the exp caps are significantly lower, it can still be annoying to grind against that wall.
 

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 Not sure I understand. It IS action mmorpg, so I wouldn't say anyone is jumping on anything. The fact the game has varying levels of difficulty and overally varies in types of content doesn't really change that imo. If you jump into any action mmorpgo, you can still just keep presing "1" on other players, that doesn't make said game less of an action mmorpg just the player decided not to use its potential.

What I meant was that some people think that because Gw2 is an Action MMO that it should be difficult and challenging, have all sorts of complex mechanics like what you typically see in other action MMO's.
This is partly what leads to certain attitudes like people thinking that meta builds are not the "optimal" way to play Gw2 but rather that they are the "only" or "right" way to play Gw2.
Actions game's don't have to be hard, or complex or even open and free.. they can be easy and linear and cater to a more casual base which is more in line with what Gw2 does.
Basically what i'm saying is The Hardcore action MMO player is the minority in Gw2.. which is better defined as an action MMO for more casual gamers.
 

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 But it IS that easy. Show people Break bar, tell them it has positive effects for the players or negative for the target like increased received damage, tell them they need to use crowd control skills, which include this, that and those aaaaaaaaaaand... Yup, that's all. Pretty fast and easy explanation. Not sure why you've decided to pretend it's not 😉

What I meant was that you can tell them what to do but you can't make them do it 😛 
People are far less likely to do something if it feels irrelevant like Breakbars in the core world kinda are.
More so if they can just sit back and let other people do it for them which is often the case in large group events etc.
Once players get used to not using CC's and dodging etc and get really comfortable using their characters a certain way it becomes a chore to change those habits.
Back when I first started playing as a LB Ranger in Gw2 I rarely needed to dodge so I just didn't.
When I started soloing stuff I found learning how to dodge with double taps and V extremely difficult and awkward as hell so I know how easy it is for people to get into those bad habits.. used to be one of them back in the day lol.
 

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Nah, they're not. And again if you ignore a popup it's not the game's fault. Easy to miss? Not really, not sure where that claim even came from? It's either right in the middle of your screen or glowing while pointing on a specific icon/part of ui. Far from being "easy to miss".

Mostly speaking from my own experience.. I have exceptionally poor multi tasking skills like a lot of people and I get easily distracted so it's really easy for me to miss things like that.
I often have to read the chat log for NPC dialogue multiple times too because I'll forget what they said almost instantly after they stop talking xD
Annoying issues but i'm not the only one who has them.
 

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But you've JUST said you didn't go through that in a long time, and didn't even (yup 😛 ) know about the existance of those pop-up guides/hints/introductory messages on the way to level 80, so... not sure how you're suddenly able to make these claims. Seems pretty baseless to me.

 

I know about the existence of the level up tips but i've never sat down and read them properly since they came in long after I graduated from noob player lol.

I still stand by what I said there though, I don't think the core world does a good enough job of teaching these mechanics.
Maybe I should reword that instead to "Core world could do a better job of teaching those mechanics"..
You did say you agreed on the better descriptions for skills and stuff, so that's one way I would consider the core game doing a better job of teaching those mechanics 🙂 

Edited May 19, 2021 by Teratus.2859