CriticKitten said:
Have you actually played the game?
I have, up to level 53 (iirc, might have been 52 or 54 ... but somewhere in that range). That was when the slog became too sloggy for me
For example, you're essentially pretending that dynamic questing doesn't exist, trying to pretend that the Hearts are the primary form of questing in the game (they're not, and they don't exist in Orr at all).
I ran into a few of those. Like the crafting I mentioned, a step in the right direction but a baby step at best. There was no way to find them except accidentally stumbling upon them, and there was ZERO hints as to where the level appropriate ones might be. I especially loved the dynamic quests that started at a certain level, with follow-ons 3 or 4 levels higher. There was one I remember that ended with me in Skrittsburg, 5 levels lower than any mobs around. And there were a few really annoying ones like the giant fire Ele in the Asura starting area. Though I think most of that annoyance was from terrible players who stood in fire, then waited around to get rezzed.
Also in the "baby-step in the right direction" category : downleveling. Good concept, keep all the content viable for everyone, no high level people stomping all over everything ... but it requires things be properly tuned for that level. Like the fire ele, mentioned above, there were a few quests in my personal storyline that just weren't possible at the assigned level. Maybe these are bugs that will be fixed down the road, but seems like basic problems that should have been fixed in early beta, if not internal alpha testing.
Second, are we really trying to pretend that Hearts have less "story progression" than normal kill 10 bandits quests? If you want to live in that delusion, be my guest, but I'm not inclined to. They're identical in almost every respect. Both are "grinds" of a sort with almost no story to them, except that one of them results in faster leveling than the other. Guess which one is faster (hint: it's not the one you're defending). If you're looking for story, you SHOULD be playing the dynamic events, yet your statements make it sound like you've never done a single dynamic event in the entire game. And I'm pretty sure that's impossible, because I couldn't go more than a few steps in the game without running into dynamic events almost by accident, even. So you'd have to be actively trying to avoid them to claim that they don't exist. >_>
And you accuse ME of bogging down legitimate points in too much opinionated garbage.
Back on track, yes they're different. Vastly so, observe : My low level Charr Engi does the dynamic heart quest thing to clean up a lake. Once I've killed 25 tar-slimes and clicked 25 sparkly crab traps, it's done. The lake is clean. Wrapped up and complete. Does an NPC say "and now we need to track down the source of these slime monsters ... go talk to my friend, Bob?" Nope. No follow up, no story progression. Repeat the above scenario for literally EVERY heart or dynamic quest in the game. Juicing frogs to expose stealthed poachers ... pissing off rock dogs to sabotage the centaurs ... collecting robot parts or raptor eggs or shiny things for the skritt.
Of course, not every "kill 10 bandits" quest will evolve into some epic quest chain, but the possibility is there. Dynamic quests have no attachment or relevance on the world, outside their very small envelope.
It's nice that you've got your own opinion, but it sounds an awful lot like you're trying to pretend that your opinion is objective fact, which it's obviously not. There are some points we'd probably agree on, like personal story being stretched too thin, but it's bogged down in so much opinionated garbage that there's no discussion value here.
I don't think my opinion is the end all be all and thats-that... but I'd like to believe that my slight-hyperbole-laced opinion is at least based in facts.
And I'm pretty sure I've already listed them off, but hey, you apparently want to claim that WoW currently offers XP for all of the following tasks: quest completion, map completion and exploration, kills, daily/monthly achievement completion, reviving fallen NPCs and players, crafting and gathering materials, all forms of PvP (including WvW), dungeon completion, and so on. Now my experience of WoW is limited but I'm fairly sure it doesn't offer XP for all of these things, and I know for a fact that it doesn't offer as much XP for these things as GW2 does, either. I've already proven as much numerically in this thread and others. GW2 offers no less than double the ratio of XP-to-level compared to WoW in almost every task they have in common. I do wish people would stop attacking this stance with their subjective opinions and try to pretend that their opinions override numerical fact, because I have news for you: they don't.
Yes to all of them except reviving fallen allies and possibly achievements. Rezzing would be difficult as not all classes in WoW can do that. I don't know about the achi thing, as I haven't played WoW in a few years. Might've been added, might not. I'm pretty sure they didn't have the daily/monthly achis like GW when I left, so there's one.
As for the numerics of it all, I actually agreed with you in my post. Leveling is much faster in GW than WoW. But I found it more boring. I will demonstrate this with math and real numbers. We'll use Metrica Province (the Asura starting area) in this example. A level 1-15 zone.
Metrica has 16 hearts, 16 waypoints, 23 PoI, 8 Skill Challenges, 9 Vistas and 36 dynamic events.
Completion of these gives a static % of XP. Respective to the above list: 8 ; 2.5 ; 1.5 ; 4 ; 1.5 ; 7 (assuming Gold)
16*8 + 16*2.5 + 23*1.5 + 8*4 + 9*1.5 + 36*7 =
128 + 40 + 34.5 + 32 + 13.5 + 252 = 500%
What all that means is this... If you do EVERYTHING in Metrica province, and score gold on every event, you'll earn enough XP for 5 levels. Personal Storyline quests are worth a whopping 25% per quest... but there are only 7 of them in the 1-15 range, good for 1.75 levels. 100% map completion itself is worth another 10% of a level.
That brings our total to 6.85 levels for 100% completion leaving 8.15 levels to be earned via grinding (some of which will occur naturally while you complete the hearts, events, etc) or crafting (1% per item crafted) or gathering (0.15% per swing ... just under half a percent for a 3-swing tree or ore)
When over half of your XP has to be earned via Grinding (45/55 split) I consider that a slog.
See, here's another statement you make that makes me think you don't actually play the game, or you haven't played long enough to know what you're talking about. Jumping puzzles are not required for 100% map completion. Nor are dungeons for that matter.
Did I say Dungeons? Did I say jumping puzzles? I said Hearts, Vistas and Points of Interest. All of which are required for 100% completion.
Yeah, here's another statement that makes me think you've not been playing long or just haven't played the game at all. I've played an elementalist and there's very clearly a difference between a water staff Ele and a fire staff Ele, and so on. >_>
They all serve significantly different roles in combat. You're obviously too busy looking only at the damage YOU deal to realize this fact, because it's actually made extremely clear what each of them do in the skill descriptions. And once you've dedicated some traits to certain preferred elements, the differences between each element only become more apparent.
A fire staff Ele is focused primary on dealing lots of damage and stacking up Burning. By comparison, a water staff Ele is basically a healer, in that their skills focus on healing allies in melee and nearby. Air staff Eles are primarily focused on creating and maintaining distance from targets while dealing plenty of damage. And an earth staff Ele focuses on defense, using skills that weaken the foe's incoming damage or block it altogether. All you're looking at is "how much damage did I do" and that isn't your only concern in combat....unless you're trying to run the entire game solo, in which case you're doing it wrong. Anyone who has played the Ele for long enough would have realized this, because it's really made rather obvious if you actually look at the skills you're given.
You apparently missed the point. I mentioned the healing/debuffing of water/earth in my post. I know what they do. I just don't care. They're dead weight for 90% of the leveling experience. Choosing between a healing set or debuffing set or DPS set is something *I* would like to chose. Not have thrust upon me. And it's something every other class can chose for themselves.
In a group setting or dungeon, switching between DPS and Heals could be useful. While solo, it's worthless. Actually, worthless implies zero worth, which gives earth way too much credit. Using earth powers while solo is an active detriment to your progress. Below worthless, negative worth.
Even in group settings, the heals and debuffs are suspect at best. Every class can heal themselves, and shouldn't be taking too much damage anyway. In a coordinated team that knows wtf they're doing, the lower damage from water isn't worth the light heals. In an uncoordinated team where people are getting owned left and right (i.e. every dynamic event group ever) the splash heals just aren't going to help much, compared to the brute force method of "JUST KILL IT" employed by fire.
huh ... this turned out a lot longer than I'd anticipated. C'est la vie. Hope it was a good read
