I haven't done any dungeons in GW2, because I fucking hate spamming "LFG Catacombs" for two hours. I refuse to do it. It's a waste of my play time. The dungeon finder led to less communication between teams sometimes, and a real, "let's rush through this and get it done, go go go go don't talk, don't slow down we'll kick you" mentality.
While I think the community that evolved form the LFD tool was terrible, it's still better than me just not doing any dungeons at all.
I haven't done any dungeons in GW2, because I fucking hate spamming "LFG Catacombs" for two hours. I refuse to do it. It's a waste of my play time. The dungeon finder led to less communication between teams sometimes, and a real, "let's rush through this and get it done, go go go go don't talk, don't slow down we'll kick you" mentality.
While I think the community that evolved form the LFD tool was terrible, it's still better than me just not doing any dungeons at all.
It's also not some great panacea that everyone flocks to and uses in every game.
When they implemented it in LOTRO most of the community decided to just not use it in favor of continuing to use the global chat channel so you'd sit in huge ques trying to use the thing, anyway.
Mostly just huntin' monsters.
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I liked WoW. Played in a top tier raiding guild in vanilla, and each expansion since I played a bit less. Cataclysm kind of killed what was left of the enjoyment for me. Each expansion introduced something I hated and took away from what made the game originally fun. Daily quests people loved but all I saw was a scheme to keep people subscribed longer to get those rep grinds done. People liked dungeon difficulty, but all I saw was the devs copy/pasting instances for the level cap so they wouldn't have to bother designing a new one. The dungeons themselves became linear tunnels with little more than loot pinatas spaced apart every few minutes. iLevels totally stripped away the illusion of item choice and diversity. Looking for dungeon/inter-server PVP killed any sense of community or rivalry that a server had (for example, how much more fun is it to bitch about the folks in GODS, or General Maximus D, or alternatively, know that if Don K Leaps is in WvW or Blankspace, we might have a good time. Another example is those sons of bitches at Tac Sym). So much was just pandering to the masses to make things easier and faster.
I think the point is, after having played GW2, I could never go back to WoW. It feels old and stale by comparison. WoW offers very little to me that GW2 doesn't do better. The one thing I would say GW2 suffers from (besides the very strong need for some balance patches) is the fact that by around level 40 or 50 you'll have access to almost every ability your class can use. There are still traits to be unlocked and used. And they're very important. But I've noticed I tend to start alts around that level once I have my 30 point elite skill. WoW does a very good job of dangling that carrot in front of you, GW2 tends to give you your carrots much earlier.
The LFD and LFR systems were so popular in wow because many people who play those games have weird schedules, limited playtimes, no desire to do progression raiding, etc., and putting those systems in means they can do dungeons without the hassle of looking for a group in chat channels, which is stupid and outdated as hell.
Arguing against them is like saying you think GW2 should make you form a party before you can jump in to SPvP or WvW. It would be idiotic, because an interface that lets you jump in and play with others but as a solo player is what they used, because that's the right way to do it.
I wish everybody who hates LFG tools had to go back and sit in Jeuno for hours looking for a party in FFXI and see how much fun they have.
The LFD tool only sucks because it was cross server. Also, by instantly teleporting you into the instance you missed a lot of the interesting introduction to the instance itself. The build up to the instance, the lead in quests, etc. Yes, LFD makes things easier, but finding groups for LBRS, or UBRS wasn't too hard in Vanilla, it only became hard in later expansions because people outleveled it and there was no reason to go there. GW2 gets around this by downscaling your level (so its always challenging) and upscaling the rewards to your level.
There is a very strong difference between playing with people, and playing with people you've seen around and you know/like/dislike.
LFD tools with queues only work well when they are cross server. You shouldn't punish people who are on lower population servers. Does it promote less social experiences where people are rude more often? Sure. But the benefits outweigh that. Teleporting you is just a convenience thing. If somebody wants to go explore the entrance to the dungeon they can do that on their own. Honestly, GW2's bigger obstacle for a LFG tool is that explorables are not designed for pick up and go pugs. As I mentioned before, their stated intent is that you will possibly need specific utility setups, trait setups, trial and error, etc. to succeed in explorables, and that simply does not lend itself to a pick up and go methodology of grouping.
I don't think we're ever going to see more than just a fleshed out LFG window where you can state what dungeon you're looking for, etc. A queue type system just doesn't fit, because then you're just going to get PUG groups that can't have a chance at finishing the dungeons anyway, because they're not coordinated enough.
LFG made dungeons actually a thing for me; before it, I did a couple, went "well, that was a thing" and ignored all the rest, because sitting around and trying to get a group going wasn't worth the effort. With the LFG tool I could just keep doing whatever, pop into an exciting dungeon, then, win or lose, continue having fun.
For my money, something of value is lost with LFD in WoW. It's convenient sure, but so is McDonald's, but I don't want to eat there, I like to cook. From a game standpoint, grouping with people you know is just more FUN. From a loot+exp per minute standpoint LFD is probably going to get better results, sure. I guess different people play games for different reasons.
For me, rolling through a ball-bustingly hard Cadecus' Manor with 5 NICE guys on team speak, is a lot more fun than face-rolling through a dumbed down Sunken Temple with 4 random people from different servers who I will never see again.
This part of the discussion is getting dangerously close to a 'WoW sucks, booooo' talk which is pretty far off what the OP was asking about, so this is the last I will post on the LFD subject.
How is LFG stopping anyone from playing with friends, exactly? :?
My last time in WoW was when Cata hit. Myself and 2 friends used LFG to dungeon run all the way to level cap. Without it, that would not have been possible, having to manually find 2 more people multiple times per dungeon just would not have been practical (I've managed it twice for GW2 and already feel like I'm done with dungeons when not in a full group of friends, too much hassle).
For my money, something of value is lost with LFD in WoW. It's convenient sure, but so is McDonald's, but I don't want to eat there, I like to cook. From a game standpoint, grouping with people you know is just more FUN. From a loot+exp per minute standpoint LFD is probably going to get better results, sure. I guess different people play games for different reasons.
For me, rolling through a ball-bustingly hard Cadecus' Manor with 5 NICE guys on team speak, is a lot more fun than face-rolling through a dumbed down Sunken Temple with 4 random people from different servers who I will never see again.
This part of the discussion is getting dangerously close to a 'WoW sucks, booooo' talk which is pretty far off what the OP was asking about, so this is the last I will post on the LFD subject.
I bolded the key part here. LFD tools are not there to help people who are in a guild with friends and get on vent or whatever and do dungeons together. That's how everybody wants to play the game. That's just not how everybody gets to play the game.
The tools are there to make the game more enjoyable for the one or maybe two people who like playing the game together but don't have a guild of people they know or other friends who play the game. They want to do dungeons as they level up, or even at max level to see the story, to get loot, whatever. Their convenience is what the tools are for, and they work wonderfully.
For my money, something of value is lost with LFD in WoW. It's convenient sure, but so is McDonald's, but I don't want to eat there, I like to cook. From a game standpoint, grouping with people you know is just more FUN. From a loot+exp per minute standpoint LFD is probably going to get better results, sure. I guess different people play games for different reasons.
For me, rolling through a ball-bustingly hard Cadecus' Manor with 5 NICE guys on team speak, is a lot more fun than face-rolling through a dumbed down Sunken Temple with 4 random people from different servers who I will never see again.
This part of the discussion is getting dangerously close to a 'WoW sucks, booooo' talk which is pretty far off what the OP was asking about, so this is the last I will post on the LFD subject.
I bolded the key part here. LFD tools are not there to help people who are in a guild with friends and get on vent or whatever and do dungeons together. That's how everybody wants to play the game. That's just not how everybody gets to play the game.
The tools are there to make the game more enjoyable for the one or maybe two people who like playing the game together but don't have a guild of people they know or other friends who play the game. They want to do dungeons as they level up, or even at max level to see the story, to get loot, whatever. Their convenience is what the tools are for, and they work wonderfully.
this is the nut of the 'problem.' In some prior gamespace with less-developed server integration, these people wind up becoming part of some guild or community by necessity. Writ large this is a good thing because community is pretty much the whole draw of these games; without it you just have a series of highly repetitive tasks. But for individual people it can be highly frustrating, because they're anti-social or have a weird schedule or their server has a low population or whatever.
In WoW's specific case I think this is an example of how being the only game in town has hurt them; they have way too many servers (and kept opening new ones long after it was needed), which has resulted in way too many underpopulated factions (to say nothing of the servers where they've allowed players to essentially self-select one faction out of existence.) They can "solve" this issue with LFD/R queues because nobody's really come along and forced them to do something else. SWTOR (and maybe GW2?) have to figure this shit out in short order or people stop playing, but WoW just kind of hurtles along under its own momentum (and periodic expansion surges.)
it was the smallest on the list but
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drunkenpandarenSlapping all the goblin hamIn the top laneRegistered Userregular
I really like WoW's LFD but I only really have a problem with people using it. Before LFD it was pretty easy to get a group, select the dungeon, queue up for it, hit up dailies and spam the LFG chat the tool dropped you in. People were way more helpful with you if it was the first time doing a dungeon, it took longer but I wasn't bothered by it, especially because the only thing I would queue up for would be just for the daily dungeon. Then LFD came along and made it easier. But I didn't really realize what was wrong with it until ZA was released and by that time I stopped playing. So on a scroll I hopped on my DK who was clearly over geared for doing the new Heroics from being MT for my guild, I just wanted to see them because nostalgia. Get in the dungeon and the first thing I say is that this is my first time here, is there anything I need to worry about. No one in the group says anything, so I figure things are just straight forward for mobs and bosses. Clear up to the first boss and I ask them again if there was anything that I needed to do or worry about for this boss. Still no one says anything. It wasn't until we wipe on the boss someone calls me out for being an under geared noob who has no idea what he was doing and I get kicked all the while I was digging through the monster manual for something to see what was going.
Like what the hell man.
But anyways, LFD tools are really not that big of an issue. There are plenty of MMOs that came out onto the market without one. I don't really know of one off the top of my head that had one right out of the box. And with fast food being an impulse buy to begin with, the LFD just makes doing dungeons an impulse thing. Where as cooking takes time and so does doing balls bustingly hard dungeons.
LFD automated tools are for games where dungeons are not meant to be a coordinated effort. That's why GW2 isn't going to get one for explorables, because they're never meant to be a jump in and don't talk to each other and do this dungeon fast type thing.
While finding groups for dungeons can be a bit of a problem, the emphasis on self reliance and making each profession stand well on its own goes a long way toward making groups easier to make. There's no looking for tank or healer...At least, there's no looking for X yet, anyways.
I've only done one dungeon in its easier form, the story mode. I had no problems making a PUG for it - grouping was effortless, just LFM > Tells > Group. The only problem was that the first group had a leave and disconnect, but those problems are player problems and not group formation problems. The second group I made got through it all. Maybe I was lucky.
To the original posts concerns, I haven't played WoW much (about half an hour on a free trial), so I'll just talk about GW2.
Self-sufficient professions means that the lack of players in any given zone isn't really a problem. At least, it isn't for me, but I don't really mind playing alone. I'd say that even as a 'single player' experience, the kind of exploration and adventuring I do is enough to help the game stand on its own. If you like playing with others, impromptu soft-grouping in the open world is effortless and often profitable thanks to the quality of life improvements mentioned earlier.
If you want, you can find a particular weaponset and skill bar and completely specialize in that. It's often a waste - I find it better to find a profession and then specializing in that profession. In other words, not just one single capability of the profession (like, say, a backstab glass cannon thief), but being able to play that profession in whatever style I want to play (like a blind-evade-tank thief, a ranged-kiting-debuffing thief, a melee-debuff-damage thief, and so on). Every profession plays differently, and different builds within professions play differently, and it's a lot of fun.
I play an awful lot of structured PvP. The PvP in this game is very good and almost e-sports worthy: it reminds me of MOBAs in their earlier states.
Also, Guild Wars 2 is a gated purchase MMO (pay once, play when you like), so it's not necessarily unfeasible to play both GW2 and WoW at the same time.
As someone who primarily plays support characters, GW2 hits all of the right buttons for me. I was apprehensive about not having support-specific classes going in, but the idea of most classes being able to support the group in some way leaves me open to play whatever class I choose. WoW turned me off in a severe fashion with the healing changes at the start of Cata, and as far as I can tell Pandaclysm didn't change things enough to make me want to jump back in. WoW tanking was fun so long as I could keep ahead of the iLevel curve, but fuck trying to tank pugs to get gear to tank pugs.
Life before LFD was not some magic storybook setting where groups were common and chatty love-ins.
I basically sat in the main hub and did chat spam while looking through the old LFG window. The group talked because I needed one or two guildies to fill things out.
Basically, your evidence is anecdotal and thus inherently flawed.
Did I make it out to be? No - there's some social aspect lost, but for the most part it means a hundred or so keystrokes saved per dungeon run. Is there still a problem? Fuck yes. Queues were still bullshit for loading up a dungeon. Up until what, 4.1? In Cataclysm, anyone who wasn't a tank bitched about never being able to make it into a fucking dungeon. Wanna know why those groups took so long to form? Why people were dropping group after 3 minutes of searching, or why people were unwilling to join groups?
Because to put it bluntly, tanking sucked and nobody wanted to be one. Healing to a lesser extent. They have to give out a fucking goodie bag now to make people not DPS in a WoW dungeon.
That's why I'm saying that LFD wasn't that big a deal. Quality of life improvement? Sure thing. But my anecdotal evidence says that wait times were averaged just as bad, except on busy days thanks to the instant teleport and removal of a hundred or so keystrokes.
And for making sure that Guild Wars 2 was better than WoW in every single way, shape and form, LFD is not something I would say is a priority. General overall dungeon improvements would make me give a thumbs up for GW2 end game over WoW's, until then enjoy the fact that it gives you the opportunity to say "fuck this" and pick up later.
I haven't tried GW2, but IMO, WoW is in quite good shape. Yes, there's some issues with it being impersonal, and yes, you're going to run into tards in the queue, but you know what? That's nothing compared to the sheer agony of joining 3 DPS and advertising indefinitely for a tank and healer. How do you make WoW fun? Roll a tank or a healer, and make a few friends. With 3 people, you can queue randoms, votekick all the derps, and otherwise have great fun.
Really, the big problem I have is that MMOs are shackled to the timesink model, and I don't have time to devote to it. I simply can't run 1 daily random, get 1 battleground victory, and do all my dailies every day, and then fit in raiding on the side. The game time-frames are tuned for a shut-in, not someone with a full time job and a life on the side.
I haven't tried GW2, but IMO, WoW is in quite good shape. Yes, there's some issues with it being impersonal, and yes, you're going to run into tards in the queue, but you know what? That's nothing compared to the sheer agony of joining 3 DPS and advertising indefinitely for a tank and healer. How do you make WoW fun? Roll a tank or a healer, and make a few friends. With 3 people, you can queue randoms, votekick all the derps, and otherwise have great fun.
Really, the big problem I have is that MMOs are shackled to the timesink model, and I don't have time to devote to it. I simply can't run 1 daily random, get 1 battleground victory, and do all my dailies every day, and then fit in raiding on the side. The game time-frames are tuned for a shut-in, not someone with a full time job and a life on the side.
You should try GW2 then it's much more friendly to small time chunks.
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Life before LFD was not some magic storybook setting where groups were common and chatty love-ins.
I basically sat in the main hub and did chat spam while looking through the old LFG window. The group talked because I needed one or two guildies to fill things out.
Basically, your evidence is anecdotal and thus inherently flawed.
Did I make it out to be? No - there's some social aspect lost, but for the most part it means a hundred or so keystrokes saved per dungeon run. Is there still a problem? Fuck yes. Queues were still bullshit for loading up a dungeon. Up until what, 4.1? In Cataclysm, anyone who wasn't a tank bitched about never being able to make it into a fucking dungeon. Wanna know why those groups took so long to form? Why people were dropping group after 3 minutes of searching, or why people were unwilling to join groups?
Because to put it bluntly, tanking sucked and nobody wanted to be one. Healing to a lesser extent. They have to give out a fucking goodie bag now to make people not DPS in a WoW dungeon.
That's why I'm saying that LFD wasn't that big a deal. Quality of life improvement? Sure thing. But my anecdotal evidence says that wait times were averaged just as bad, except on busy days thanks to the instant teleport and removal of a hundred or so keystrokes.
No, it removed having to waste that wait time standing around a city spamming chat, negotiating a group together and all that bullshit headache.
Wait times for DPS may not be instant, but you get to do whatever the fuck you want while you wait and the system handles everything for you and that's just an amazingly huge improvement to the game.
LFD automated tools are for games where dungeons are not meant to be a coordinated effort. That's why GW2 isn't going to get one for explorables, because they're never meant to be a jump in and don't talk to each other and do this dungeon fast type thing.
If you even accept this, then the game needs some other 5 man group content.
GW2 is never going to have a huge focus on casual PvE end game, IMO. Their focus going forward is going to be on making SPvP into an esport with spectator mode and more support, etc. I think they'll add more dungeons, but they've said explorables are meant for coordinated groups to do trial and error on. Basically explorables are like progression style content where they're not really designed for pugs, and if you like PvE but don't like that, then you just do dynamic events or play alts or whatever.
DEs, the big world bosses, etc. are the PvE content for more casual type players in GW2. I'm not saying it's right, it's just their design. I still think they're going to improve the LFG system, but I doubt it'll ever be more than a robust interface where you can list yourself as LFG, what your style of play is, etc. so people can find each other manually.
GW2 outdoor raiding is not near the same kind of experience.
Thankfully.
WoW Raiding was always such a boring experience for me and was always the reason I stopped playing WoW until the next expansion. I would spend a few months on raid content and then try to figure out why I was still playing when I wasn't having any fun.
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Overall there isn't really a comparable thing to WoW's raids. I think this is just due to the combat mechanics being balanced largely around 5 people (most buffs hit 5 people, AoE hit 5 targets, etc)
Explorable modes have skill requirement equal to or greater than a WoW raid, but lack the "epic scale".
Outdoor large scale events have a more epic scale than a WoW raid, but only have mild skill requirement.
Maybe in the future, with very careful design, they could do a 10-man dungeon by leveraging their dynamic event system knowledge. I don't think they are considering this at the moment though.
I don't think the game works well at a larger scale. Explorable modes seem pretty good for high level stuff, but there isn't anything below that skill level that is the same kind of group content. Except for Story modes which just aren't meant to be run more then once as far as I've figured out.
GW2 outdoor raiding is not near the same kind of experience.
Thankfully.
WoW Raiding was always such a boring experience for me and was always the reason I stopped playing WoW until the next expansion. I would spend a few months on raid content and then try to figure out why I was still playing when I wasn't having any fun.
Outdoor events in GW2 are pretty much empty. They all boil down to zerging whatever it is the game points you at until you win. Perhaps the one exception was one where you had to "hold" an area against Undead, which required some coordination because it was utterly stupid: enemies would spawn INSIDE the area you had to hold (halting progress while your time limit ticked down), requiring your group to spread out, while also spamming hordes of enemies down stairs which your group ALSO had to intercept (as in, get aggro, not like physically block them or anything, they were just regular enemies) before they cross an arbitrary line and halt you progress.
Maybe at some point they'll figure things out and have some compelling "raid" content, but it's honestly more boring than raiding in WoW ever was. At least WoW had the excitement of occasional catastrophic failure, even in Molten Core.
GW2 outdoor raiding is not near the same kind of experience.
Thankfully.
WoW Raiding was always such a boring experience for me and was always the reason I stopped playing WoW until the next expansion. I would spend a few months on raid content and then try to figure out why I was still playing when I wasn't having any fun.
Outdoor events in GW2 are pretty much empty. They all boil down to zerging whatever it is the game points you at until you win. Perhaps the one exception was one where you had to "hold" an area against Undead, which required some coordination because it was utterly stupid: enemies would spawn INSIDE the area you had to hold (halting progress while your time limit ticked down), requiring your group to spread out, while also spamming hordes of enemies down stairs which your group ALSO had to intercept (as in, get aggro, not like physically block them or anything, they were just regular enemies) before they cross an arbitrary line and halt you progress.
Maybe at some point they'll figure things out and have some compelling "raid" content, but it's honestly more boring than raiding in WoW ever was. At least WoW had the excitement of occasional catastrophic failure, even in Molten Core.
While I agree with your overall point, what you describe with the undead horde there is exactly what GW2 needs more of. Objectives that you can fail. And not just by everyone dying, but by making objectives that require a small amount of group coordination to succeed at.
... there ARE objectives you can fail. I've seen it happen and I've been a part of it. And it's not just "you didn't have enough dudes for the zerg" fail, but "Holy shit you jackasses, you can't just stand around killing dudes, you have to give eggs to the dude! STOP IT." or "OH MY GOD NO YOU MORON DEFEND THE SOUTH GATE"
Example: in the Charr starting zone, there's an event where you're supposed to defend a war camp from psychotic ghosts. If you just zerg that event, you WILL fail. I see it happen all the time. You need a coordinated defense of the tents otherwise they'll fall apart. This sets up a chain though, where one event happens if you fail, and a different one happens if you succeed.
... there ARE objectives you can fail. I've seen it happen and I've been a part of it. And it's not just "you didn't have enough dudes for the zerg" fail, but "Holy shit you jackasses, you can't just stand around killing dudes, you have to give eggs to the dude! STOP IT." or "OH MY GOD NO YOU MORON DEFEND THE SOUTH GATE"
Example: in the Charr starting zone, there's an event where you're supposed to defend a war camp from psychotic ghosts. If you just zerg that event, you WILL fail. I see it happen all the time. You need a coordinated defense of the tents otherwise they'll fall apart. This sets up a chain though, where one event happens if you fail, and a different one happens if you succeed.
Yes, and that Charr event is in the distinct minority.
Yeah, it's a veeery tiny minority of the events in GW2 that are anything more than spam aoe, tag guys, loot, get karma. It is what it is though. There isn't any good way to make them more challenging without alienating the majority of people who play your game.
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-Loki-Don't pee in my mouth and tell me it's raining.Registered Userregular
The thing with the content in GW 2 though, is that like GW 1, it's their attempt at a new type of game, with new types of mechanics. This shit will continue to evolve. Look at Nightfall and Eye of the North - they were both fantastic and far better structured.
GW 1 started with no endgame content outside of the Underworld and Fissure of Woe. Then it got Sorrows Furnace. Then it got Factions, and with it The Deep and Urgoz Forest. Then they redid the Tomb of Primeval Kings as a PvE dungeon. Then it got Nightfall and the Realm of Torment. The it got EotN and shitloads of dungeons.
GW 2 is the testbed for the new mechanics, and to see what people want.
The LFD and LFR systems were so popular in wow because many people who play those games have weird schedules, limited playtimes, no desire to do progression raiding, etc., and putting those systems in means they can do dungeons without the hassle of looking for a group in chat channels, which is stupid and outdated as hell.
Arguing against them is like saying you think GW2 should make you form a party before you can jump in to SPvP or WvW. It would be idiotic, because an interface that lets you jump in and play with others but as a solo player is what they used, because that's the right way to do it.
I wish everybody who hates LFG tools had to go back and sit in Jeuno for hours looking for a party in FFXI and see how much fun they have.
Oh my god this. I had a blast in FFXI until I had to, and I do mean had to, start grouping.
Then, after a few play sessions that consisted solely of spending 6-8 hours trying to find a god damn group that lasted longer than 15 minutes, I uninstalled the game.
Oh my god this. I had a blast in FFXI until I had to, and I do mean had to, start grouping.
Then, after a few play sessions that consisted solely of spending 6-8 hours trying to find a god damn group that lasted longer than 15 minutes, I uninstalled the game.
Ugh, I'm frustrated just thinking about that.
I'm playing through TERA and this is annoying for me too. The story quests that require a 5 man group are really frustrating due to a lack of players. Thankfully, our lovely guild has helped me out most of the time (<3), but a couple of quests had me waiting for over an hour just to get enough people. On the bright side, I'm almost max level, so yeah. I'm sure it's cool at launch with lots of people but after a while the lower population really makes it a pain.
... I haven't played GW2 or MoP so I'll take my leave.
I've found there's little to do in GW2 once you're at cap unless you really just want to do WvW or sPvP all the time. That's okay with me since it's not a sub game and you can just take a break until the next expansion/DLC happens without worrying about monies. But it does not feel like a game I personally can play for a very long time. I also think the Dynamic Event system gets pretty dull throughout leveling a lot of the time, mostly because most of the events are simply not interesting or get zerged instantly
I do look forward to what Arenanet does with the game in the future though
I love the dynamic events, I just don't like the, well, the dynamic portion of them. "You never know when they'll start! It's fresh!" is fine, until you finish a zone underleveled because you only ever got 2 events that entire time and the curve is designed with events in mind.
I wish I could just enter an area and push a big red MAKE EVENTS GO button if there are none going on.
Personally I hope that ANet continues to add events to current zones so that they become more densely packed. They have suggested they may do something like that.
I've found there's little to do in GW2 once you're at cap unless you really just want to do WvW or sPvP all the time.
PvP probably has the most potential to keep someone playing for long stretches of time, but there are definitely other things to do. Dungeons/dynamic events, getting exotic gear sets together (to optimize your build), world exploration and longer-term goals such as legendary weapons. There will be more content, non-combat activities and seasonal stuff coming down the line also.
CyrondinI bring the sick beats on you, brotherChicago, ILRegistered Userregular
edited October 2012
Question? why is this thread not close? this seem like a gamefaqs thread.
EDIT: i ment the subject seem like something this forum will never have.
also back on that dumb subject of LFD, i don't mind LFD, LFR on the other hand pretty mush broke my guild since our goal was be a casual raiding guild that wasn't really doing hard modes. when LFR came out we got boned since most casual raiders now just did LFR, so unless we went full hardcore which we can't due to time and people, we are pretty mush shit out of luck.
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While I think the community that evolved form the LFD tool was terrible, it's still better than me just not doing any dungeons at all.
It's also not some great panacea that everyone flocks to and uses in every game.
When they implemented it in LOTRO most of the community decided to just not use it in favor of continuing to use the global chat channel so you'd sit in huge ques trying to use the thing, anyway.
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I think the point is, after having played GW2, I could never go back to WoW. It feels old and stale by comparison. WoW offers very little to me that GW2 doesn't do better. The one thing I would say GW2 suffers from (besides the very strong need for some balance patches) is the fact that by around level 40 or 50 you'll have access to almost every ability your class can use. There are still traits to be unlocked and used. And they're very important. But I've noticed I tend to start alts around that level once I have my 30 point elite skill. WoW does a very good job of dangling that carrot in front of you, GW2 tends to give you your carrots much earlier.
Arguing against them is like saying you think GW2 should make you form a party before you can jump in to SPvP or WvW. It would be idiotic, because an interface that lets you jump in and play with others but as a solo player is what they used, because that's the right way to do it.
I wish everybody who hates LFG tools had to go back and sit in Jeuno for hours looking for a party in FFXI and see how much fun they have.
There is a very strong difference between playing with people, and playing with people you've seen around and you know/like/dislike.
I don't think we're ever going to see more than just a fleshed out LFG window where you can state what dungeon you're looking for, etc. A queue type system just doesn't fit, because then you're just going to get PUG groups that can't have a chance at finishing the dungeons anyway, because they're not coordinated enough.
For me, rolling through a ball-bustingly hard Cadecus' Manor with 5 NICE guys on team speak, is a lot more fun than face-rolling through a dumbed down Sunken Temple with 4 random people from different servers who I will never see again.
This part of the discussion is getting dangerously close to a 'WoW sucks, booooo' talk which is pretty far off what the OP was asking about, so this is the last I will post on the LFD subject.
My last time in WoW was when Cata hit. Myself and 2 friends used LFG to dungeon run all the way to level cap. Without it, that would not have been possible, having to manually find 2 more people multiple times per dungeon just would not have been practical (I've managed it twice for GW2 and already feel like I'm done with dungeons when not in a full group of friends, too much hassle).
I bolded the key part here. LFD tools are not there to help people who are in a guild with friends and get on vent or whatever and do dungeons together. That's how everybody wants to play the game. That's just not how everybody gets to play the game.
The tools are there to make the game more enjoyable for the one or maybe two people who like playing the game together but don't have a guild of people they know or other friends who play the game. They want to do dungeons as they level up, or even at max level to see the story, to get loot, whatever. Their convenience is what the tools are for, and they work wonderfully.
this is the nut of the 'problem.' In some prior gamespace with less-developed server integration, these people wind up becoming part of some guild or community by necessity. Writ large this is a good thing because community is pretty much the whole draw of these games; without it you just have a series of highly repetitive tasks. But for individual people it can be highly frustrating, because they're anti-social or have a weird schedule or their server has a low population or whatever.
In WoW's specific case I think this is an example of how being the only game in town has hurt them; they have way too many servers (and kept opening new ones long after it was needed), which has resulted in way too many underpopulated factions (to say nothing of the servers where they've allowed players to essentially self-select one faction out of existence.) They can "solve" this issue with LFD/R queues because nobody's really come along and forced them to do something else. SWTOR (and maybe GW2?) have to figure this shit out in short order or people stop playing, but WoW just kind of hurtles along under its own momentum (and periodic expansion surges.)
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Like what the hell man.
But anyways, LFD tools are really not that big of an issue. There are plenty of MMOs that came out onto the market without one. I don't really know of one off the top of my head that had one right out of the box. And with fast food being an impulse buy to begin with, the LFD just makes doing dungeons an impulse thing. Where as cooking takes time and so does doing balls bustingly hard dungeons.
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I've only done one dungeon in its easier form, the story mode. I had no problems making a PUG for it - grouping was effortless, just LFM > Tells > Group. The only problem was that the first group had a leave and disconnect, but those problems are player problems and not group formation problems. The second group I made got through it all. Maybe I was lucky.
To the original posts concerns, I haven't played WoW much (about half an hour on a free trial), so I'll just talk about GW2.
Self-sufficient professions means that the lack of players in any given zone isn't really a problem. At least, it isn't for me, but I don't really mind playing alone. I'd say that even as a 'single player' experience, the kind of exploration and adventuring I do is enough to help the game stand on its own. If you like playing with others, impromptu soft-grouping in the open world is effortless and often profitable thanks to the quality of life improvements mentioned earlier.
If you want, you can find a particular weaponset and skill bar and completely specialize in that. It's often a waste - I find it better to find a profession and then specializing in that profession. In other words, not just one single capability of the profession (like, say, a backstab glass cannon thief), but being able to play that profession in whatever style I want to play (like a blind-evade-tank thief, a ranged-kiting-debuffing thief, a melee-debuff-damage thief, and so on). Every profession plays differently, and different builds within professions play differently, and it's a lot of fun.
I play an awful lot of structured PvP. The PvP in this game is very good and almost e-sports worthy: it reminds me of MOBAs in their earlier states.
Also, Guild Wars 2 is a gated purchase MMO (pay once, play when you like), so it's not necessarily unfeasible to play both GW2 and WoW at the same time.
Did I make it out to be? No - there's some social aspect lost, but for the most part it means a hundred or so keystrokes saved per dungeon run. Is there still a problem? Fuck yes. Queues were still bullshit for loading up a dungeon. Up until what, 4.1? In Cataclysm, anyone who wasn't a tank bitched about never being able to make it into a fucking dungeon. Wanna know why those groups took so long to form? Why people were dropping group after 3 minutes of searching, or why people were unwilling to join groups?
Because to put it bluntly, tanking sucked and nobody wanted to be one. Healing to a lesser extent. They have to give out a fucking goodie bag now to make people not DPS in a WoW dungeon.
That's why I'm saying that LFD wasn't that big a deal. Quality of life improvement? Sure thing. But my anecdotal evidence says that wait times were averaged just as bad, except on busy days thanks to the instant teleport and removal of a hundred or so keystrokes.
And for making sure that Guild Wars 2 was better than WoW in every single way, shape and form, LFD is not something I would say is a priority. General overall dungeon improvements would make me give a thumbs up for GW2 end game over WoW's, until then enjoy the fact that it gives you the opportunity to say "fuck this" and pick up later.
Really, the big problem I have is that MMOs are shackled to the timesink model, and I don't have time to devote to it. I simply can't run 1 daily random, get 1 battleground victory, and do all my dailies every day, and then fit in raiding on the side. The game time-frames are tuned for a shut-in, not someone with a full time job and a life on the side.
You should try GW2 then it's much more friendly to small time chunks.
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No, it removed having to waste that wait time standing around a city spamming chat, negotiating a group together and all that bullshit headache.
Wait times for DPS may not be instant, but you get to do whatever the fuck you want while you wait and the system handles everything for you and that's just an amazingly huge improvement to the game.
If you even accept this, then the game needs some other 5 man group content.
DEs, the big world bosses, etc. are the PvE content for more casual type players in GW2. I'm not saying it's right, it's just their design. I still think they're going to improve the LFG system, but I doubt it'll ever be more than a robust interface where you can list yourself as LFG, what your style of play is, etc. so people can find each other manually.
GW2 "raiding" is open world events that require 5-?? people.
With GW2 it is all still there, you just have to look a little deeper for it. It's just not the same forumla that WoW uses.
Thankfully.
WoW Raiding was always such a boring experience for me and was always the reason I stopped playing WoW until the next expansion. I would spend a few months on raid content and then try to figure out why I was still playing when I wasn't having any fun.
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Explorable modes have skill requirement equal to or greater than a WoW raid, but lack the "epic scale".
Outdoor large scale events have a more epic scale than a WoW raid, but only have mild skill requirement.
Maybe in the future, with very careful design, they could do a 10-man dungeon by leveraging their dynamic event system knowledge. I don't think they are considering this at the moment though.
Steam (Ansatz) || GW2 officer (Ansatz.6498)
Outdoor events in GW2 are pretty much empty. They all boil down to zerging whatever it is the game points you at until you win. Perhaps the one exception was one where you had to "hold" an area against Undead, which required some coordination because it was utterly stupid: enemies would spawn INSIDE the area you had to hold (halting progress while your time limit ticked down), requiring your group to spread out, while also spamming hordes of enemies down stairs which your group ALSO had to intercept (as in, get aggro, not like physically block them or anything, they were just regular enemies) before they cross an arbitrary line and halt you progress.
Maybe at some point they'll figure things out and have some compelling "raid" content, but it's honestly more boring than raiding in WoW ever was. At least WoW had the excitement of occasional catastrophic failure, even in Molten Core.
While I agree with your overall point, what you describe with the undead horde there is exactly what GW2 needs more of. Objectives that you can fail. And not just by everyone dying, but by making objectives that require a small amount of group coordination to succeed at.
Example: in the Charr starting zone, there's an event where you're supposed to defend a war camp from psychotic ghosts. If you just zerg that event, you WILL fail. I see it happen all the time. You need a coordinated defense of the tents otherwise they'll fall apart. This sets up a chain though, where one event happens if you fail, and a different one happens if you succeed.
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Yes, and that Charr event is in the distinct minority.
GW 1 started with no endgame content outside of the Underworld and Fissure of Woe. Then it got Sorrows Furnace. Then it got Factions, and with it The Deep and Urgoz Forest. Then they redid the Tomb of Primeval Kings as a PvE dungeon. Then it got Nightfall and the Realm of Torment. The it got EotN and shitloads of dungeons.
GW 2 is the testbed for the new mechanics, and to see what people want.
Steam (Ansatz) || GW2 officer (Ansatz.6498)
Oh my god this. I had a blast in FFXI until I had to, and I do mean had to, start grouping.
Then, after a few play sessions that consisted solely of spending 6-8 hours trying to find a god damn group that lasted longer than 15 minutes, I uninstalled the game.
Ugh, I'm frustrated just thinking about that.
I'm playing through TERA and this is annoying for me too. The story quests that require a 5 man group are really frustrating due to a lack of players. Thankfully, our lovely guild has helped me out most of the time (<3), but a couple of quests had me waiting for over an hour just to get enough people. On the bright side, I'm almost max level, so yeah. I'm sure it's cool at launch with lots of people but after a while the lower population really makes it a pain.
... I haven't played GW2 or MoP so I'll take my leave.
I do look forward to what Arenanet does with the game in the future though
I wish I could just enter an area and push a big red MAKE EVENTS GO button if there are none going on.
PvP probably has the most potential to keep someone playing for long stretches of time, but there are definitely other things to do. Dungeons/dynamic events, getting exotic gear sets together (to optimize your build), world exploration and longer-term goals such as legendary weapons. There will be more content, non-combat activities and seasonal stuff coming down the line also.
Steam (Ansatz) || GW2 officer (Ansatz.6498)
EDIT: i ment the subject seem like something this forum will never have.
also back on that dumb subject of LFD, i don't mind LFD, LFR on the other hand pretty mush broke my guild since our goal was be a casual raiding guild that wasn't really doing hard modes. when LFR came out we got boned since most casual raiders now just did LFR, so unless we went full hardcore which we can't due to time and people, we are pretty mush shit out of luck.