(GW) What's the Problem?
Not to be game bashing by any means, but I was asked a couple weeks back what my problem with the game was. It's actually a little bit difficult to explain.
There are several things I don't like about the game because I've seen them done better (read: closer to my expectations and desires) elsewhere. I don't really like the instancing, the death penalty, or the boss fights. But none of that is really bad. They make it less a game that I might want to play, but not one I want to avoid.
My biggest problem with it is not a design choice. It's not a gameplay issue. It's something more ethereal. Sometimes, I swear it feels like the game is out to get me.
This first came up, I believe, when I was looking at builds and decided I wanted a specific faction-based skill for a character. So I went and did a bunch of quests to build up faction, I pushed through zones and missions to get to where I needed to be. Then, after what felt like an annoying grind, I went over and... found out I needed to not only get the 10k to complete a quest, but also needed ten times that many points to get the faction level required to buy the skill. I was so frustrated I gave it up and didn't come back for those skills until we did it as a guild, and another character of mine.
Now, that's not technically the game's fault. It is what it is. If I'd dug deeper into the information on the Wiki, I surely would have understood the requirements better and my expectations wouldn't have been blown out of the water like that. But... it sort of seems like this happens unusually often.
The elite armor wasn't that bad. Though of the two ritualist sets I like, one is hideously expensive and the other requires going through the end mission of Factions to get to the vendor. The latter being enough of a pain that we paid someone to run us through it.
"Let's get black moa chicks!" sounds simple enough. Then I find out it's basically a cross-campaign scavenger hunt. Okay, so that'll take some time and doing. Collecting materials is a minor hassle. Farming some items takes a little time, but isn't a big deal. But then you have to be able to access cities fairly deep in the campaigns all with one character. Ugh. So because I did Prophecies with a different character, I'm going to have to go through about half of that campaign again before I complete this goal.
Yesterday, I was advised to try a couple of the Halloween quests. How bad can that be, right? I'll knock one out before lunch maybe! Well, of course my current "main" hasn't been through much past Lion's Arch, so there's some cross-country running through mid-levels zones involved for the first quest I pick up. Then, I find myself running into high-level Peacekeepers that make going difficult. Then deadly. Making painfully slow progress, I inquire with another guildmate about it and find it's because the character has finished Eye of the North, all these guys are here for the War in Kryta event. And there's zip I can do about it until the quest line is done. So after maybe an hour of running around, dying, and getting increasingly frustrated, I'm no closer to finishing a holiday quest. Perhaps predictably, I blew that one off, had lunch, and tried a different quest.
I would note, said guildmate did offer to help get me through the area when they had time later, but I was trying to do something casual at my own pace.
Even one of the later ones I picked up ended up being more complicated than it should have been. Go find a ghost? Check. Be charged by ghost to kill three mobs? Check. After two, I was having trouble finding a third. There weren't any map markings like usual, and no hostiles on the minimap, so I ducked through a zone portal that was right there. That didn't help, so I popped back, looked the quest up on the Wiki to find mob locations and ran around a bit before I relized switching zones reset the quest and I had to start over.
So a lot of the time, I find things more difficult than intended, more lengthy than expected, or otherwise just worse than they should be. And the game isn't switching things up on me, really, but I have to go outside the game to figure out what I'm doing and if my research is anything short of thorough, it bites me in the ass later. So I end up as annoyed at myself as the game. And that just simply is not fun.
The best way I've found to avoid that is to with the guild (one person especially). Then, I often feel like I'm scrambling around accomplishing things I don't even understand half the time, but at least I'm not banging my head against a wall. Maybe I'm spoiled in some fashion, but I feel like there should be things I can do on my own time, at my own pace, even in a (sorta) MMORPG. Yet it feels like (even if it's not strictly true) anytime I set my foot on a path, the goal suddenly stretches out of view.
There are several things I don't like about the game because I've seen them done better (read: closer to my expectations and desires) elsewhere. I don't really like the instancing, the death penalty, or the boss fights. But none of that is really bad. They make it less a game that I might want to play, but not one I want to avoid.
My biggest problem with it is not a design choice. It's not a gameplay issue. It's something more ethereal. Sometimes, I swear it feels like the game is out to get me.
This first came up, I believe, when I was looking at builds and decided I wanted a specific faction-based skill for a character. So I went and did a bunch of quests to build up faction, I pushed through zones and missions to get to where I needed to be. Then, after what felt like an annoying grind, I went over and... found out I needed to not only get the 10k to complete a quest, but also needed ten times that many points to get the faction level required to buy the skill. I was so frustrated I gave it up and didn't come back for those skills until we did it as a guild, and another character of mine.
Now, that's not technically the game's fault. It is what it is. If I'd dug deeper into the information on the Wiki, I surely would have understood the requirements better and my expectations wouldn't have been blown out of the water like that. But... it sort of seems like this happens unusually often.
The elite armor wasn't that bad. Though of the two ritualist sets I like, one is hideously expensive and the other requires going through the end mission of Factions to get to the vendor. The latter being enough of a pain that we paid someone to run us through it.
"Let's get black moa chicks!" sounds simple enough. Then I find out it's basically a cross-campaign scavenger hunt. Okay, so that'll take some time and doing. Collecting materials is a minor hassle. Farming some items takes a little time, but isn't a big deal. But then you have to be able to access cities fairly deep in the campaigns all with one character. Ugh. So because I did Prophecies with a different character, I'm going to have to go through about half of that campaign again before I complete this goal.
Yesterday, I was advised to try a couple of the Halloween quests. How bad can that be, right? I'll knock one out before lunch maybe! Well, of course my current "main" hasn't been through much past Lion's Arch, so there's some cross-country running through mid-levels zones involved for the first quest I pick up. Then, I find myself running into high-level Peacekeepers that make going difficult. Then deadly. Making painfully slow progress, I inquire with another guildmate about it and find it's because the character has finished Eye of the North, all these guys are here for the War in Kryta event. And there's zip I can do about it until the quest line is done. So after maybe an hour of running around, dying, and getting increasingly frustrated, I'm no closer to finishing a holiday quest. Perhaps predictably, I blew that one off, had lunch, and tried a different quest.
I would note, said guildmate did offer to help get me through the area when they had time later, but I was trying to do something casual at my own pace.
Even one of the later ones I picked up ended up being more complicated than it should have been. Go find a ghost? Check. Be charged by ghost to kill three mobs? Check. After two, I was having trouble finding a third. There weren't any map markings like usual, and no hostiles on the minimap, so I ducked through a zone portal that was right there. That didn't help, so I popped back, looked the quest up on the Wiki to find mob locations and ran around a bit before I relized switching zones reset the quest and I had to start over.
So a lot of the time, I find things more difficult than intended, more lengthy than expected, or otherwise just worse than they should be. And the game isn't switching things up on me, really, but I have to go outside the game to figure out what I'm doing and if my research is anything short of thorough, it bites me in the ass later. So I end up as annoyed at myself as the game. And that just simply is not fun.
The best way I've found to avoid that is to with the guild (one person especially). Then, I often feel like I'm scrambling around accomplishing things I don't even understand half the time, but at least I'm not banging my head against a wall. Maybe I'm spoiled in some fashion, but I feel like there should be things I can do on my own time, at my own pace, even in a (sorta) MMORPG. Yet it feels like (even if it's not strictly true) anytime I set my foot on a path, the goal suddenly stretches out of view.
I did most of Prophesies solo, and didn't have access to a wiki to even get there. I had help with some of the missions, but overall, getting from point A to point B was mostly trying to explore the region and figure out where I needed to go. For some things it was easier than others, since Missions puts you generally where you have to be. I think part of the reason I can handle it is because I'm willing to just accept that the journey is 'there' and the goal is nice. If I think there'll be too much work, I usually just let it slide unless the guild is with me, and do the more simpler things by myself. Accomplishments in Guild Wars are just that -- they're accomplishments. In most cases, the end result (elite armour, black moa chick, destroyer weapons, etc) are a symbol to others of the work you put in to get them, and less about the item itself. If you see a black moa chick, you know someone's wandered through three campaigns to get it. If you see someone in Canthan Armour, you know they've finished Factions. Etc, etc. I wanted the chick because it's so kyoote! ;) The mission for it was fun, too.
ReplyDeleteWell, I did most of Nightfall solo and enjoyed it well enough as typical RPG fare. So it's not that I can't do anything by myself in the game. But somehow little things like "Hey, you should try out these holiday quests!" turn into monumental tasks with disturbing regularity. o.o;
ReplyDeleteHmm. Expectations of what you'll get and being disappointed versus the actual. I worry about SW:tOR then.
ReplyDeleteI worry about every hyped upcoming game. ;)
ReplyDeletePretty much my experience with GW. Whirlwinding through areas when i got help and much frustration when I didn't, as well as playability issues that I had that got to the point that I just totally lost interest and didn't care much for the game.
ReplyDeleteYou exist! But yeah, "helping" a friend level up fast really does a disservice to most games. It's great on later play-throughs, but for an introduction it just takes things out of the experience.
ReplyDelete