Guild Wars 2

No.

You can improve the game by adding new content on top of the old existing content.
If you add new content that’s more challenging and rewarding people who dislike it still haven’t lost anything ( since the old content is still there) and those who do like it have something to do now.

I think you successfully managed to convey a positive outlook on straight adding things. The part that comes across as a bit of a grey area is when you alter or destroy something in an effort to create improvement, because that encompasses alot of things.

Harper.4173:

If you add new content that’s more challenging and rewarding people who dislike it still haven’t lost anything ( since the old content is still there) and those who do like it have something to do now.

How would you make it more rewarding?

Easy – new rewards in the form of – wait for it – new and exclusive skins.
Preferably the account bound variety that you could obtain through a token system.
Preferably for a lot of tokens so that the skins have bragging rights value.

Think FOTM weapons skins but without the RNG requiring let’s say 150 or 200 pristine fractal relics to obtain.

Or unique rewards such as the ability to craft certain boosts like food and other consumables only after said content is complete. And again this should be non tradeable.

Last but not least you could add in materials, a bit of gold and unique tonics to create a very rewarding experience.

It would give a reason for players who are good to try the more challenging content.
It would give incentive to players who are not so good or new to improve their game.

Harper.4173:

Easy – new rewards in the form of – wait for it – new and exclusive skins.
Preferably the account bound variety that you could obtain through a token system.
Preferably for a lot of tokens so that the skins have bragging rights value.

Think FOTM weapons skins but without the RNG requiring let’s say 150 or 200 pristine fractal relics to obtain.

Well, for dungeons that ought to work well IMO. It’s exactly how the existent dungeon armour and weapons work. So yeah, more of that.

That being said, I hope you realize that apart from the “more”-factor, there’s nothing extra-rewarding over the old (easier) dungeons here. They also have their unique skins. It’d work, but it’d not really reward the difficulty specifically.

One way to revitalize existing dungeons would be to add new skins progressively. Endgame progression works in other games because by the time a bunch of people have the current rewards, the developer is ready with the next step. Some people had their GW2 dungeon looks by October of 2012. ANet revitalized FoW and UW rewards by adding new skins when they added the completion chests. Something like that would be welcome in GW2 — at least for some people.

Yeah, overall they just need to add more in-game achieved skins, though I’d like new skills more than that tbh, simply because it also adds something for the very PvP-centric crowd in that case.

And really, they don’t patch balance much. So I don’t see a problem adding more unbalanced abilities. If it has to be the GW1 shotgun-style of balancing, so be it. :P

Hi all again, WARNING massive multiply posts in coming.

Okay I feel I’ve focused enough on the players direct game play input into offensive & what I’m now calling non offensive for the moment, as I want to look at the other side of the equation. I’ve still got some more ideas regarding boons, conditions, control & traits but I’ll leave roles, builds & gear alone for a bit.

As the other half of the equation is encounters & content design and if any thing it’s this that is truly the problem child for me in PvE. Why do I say it’s the problem child? Well this is because you can already find these non offensive game play styles wanted & desired at high level play in both WvW & sPvP as I’ve mentioned before. So in a way GW2’s combat design does work and my discussions so far can be taken as some of my ideas for improving & expanding the existing builds & combat options which not everyone will agree with.

So why doesn’t this work in PvE and it all comes down to offensive focused game play?

For me it comes down to the encounters & content design.

1. PvP encounters are unscripted – You might know standard skill combos and when players should or could use them (which you can learn) but in truth there is no order to there activation as players actively respond to counter your plays and change due to skill use.
2. PvE encounters are scripted – Mobs generally don’t actively respond and counter players to the same level but follow almost fixed skill rotations. They also generally don’t cancel skills or combos & have very little interaction with the boon, condition, control counter game play (responding to these effects).

A quick look at mobs and engagements in PvE
So many are 1v1 or can almost be engaged in a 1v1 situation with most hard mob groups in dungeon (which are generally skipped) or fractals. They also typically attack alot slower then players and this is one of the largest advantages offensive focus play styles have in PvE. As Ezeriel mentioned in their example. In PvE most mobs damage comes from large damaging attacks (single skill or small combo) which happens at slow intervals. I feel there are very few mobs designed around constant sustained damage, combine this with the above, massive health & that general the heavy damaging attack are so large that it doesn’t matter if your bunker or glass if you get hit and your best option is offensive as the risk of playing offensive focused is vastly less then extended engagements and letting the mob(s) have time to actual attack and use skills. So for further discussion other then answering above;

• What are some AI improvements we the players can come up with?
• What are some more mob designs that could be added? Some of my ideas regarding different mob types.

So this is a starter with maybe a further look into mob design & interactions for further discussion but what I really wanted to talk about was content / encounter design with a look at dungeons and maybe adding high end PvE game play options for non offensive focused roles & builds.

To begin I first agree GW2 existing dungeons are now old and players have now mastered them to fine art. But regarding GW2 dungeons and dungeon design I think there was a design flaw before we the players even got access to play them.

To start players want their rewards & they want it now, but we also want a challenge and the reward to actual matter for the level of challenge it takes.

So I mention GW2’s dungeons have a design flaw and what I think this was is that GW2 dungeons were never designed for large repeatable play & rewards in mind. Now I could be wrong but this is my feeling. GW2 dungeons were about story, about telling a story but after you’ve done a dungeon the hundredth or thousandth time story is the last thought on your mind.

Now don’t get me wrong I actual like the initial design & story focus of the dungeons and how they tie into the rest of the game. You do the story mode first but that’s not the end of the dungeon’s story just like the rest of the games these dungeons are living as well and can change over time. The first example is explorable which expand the dungeons story further after your initial visit. But explorable’s were suppose to be the repeatable dungeon experience but they still had this massive story focus.

What I would of looked at was adding more dungeon modes above these designed fully around repeatable play (and I mean thousands and thousands of play throughs) & associated rewards that matter for this type of repeatable game play. In a way this type of game play is really like sPvP.

In a way story & explorable modes are great allowing dungeon story & game play access for everyone. They are also great beginner’s & training modes for dungeon mechanics but they don’t work well for a constant repeatable play. And it’s the repeatable play I’m looking at as two new modes for dungeons;

• Speed Mode – Offensive focused game play honouring & expanding how dungeons are general played and the players that play dungeons this way. (Also would love another name then Speed Mode, would love to hear other players ideas on a name for this mode)
• Vanquishing Mode – Non Offensive focused game play, giving offensive focus players more play options but it’s this mode through mob design, map design & mechanics that I look at to create high end game play options for non offensive focused players in PvE dungeons.

Speed Mode
Again this is the mode designed for offensive focused players and really offensive focused groups. Here non offensive focused builds really would be “training wheels” as encounters & content is designed around offensive focused builds & the available support & defence these builds have. This is about the bosses & the boss fights. Travelling as quickly through the dungeon & killing the bosses as fast as possible.

One large change some players might not like is I would increase the standard completions time to around 15 to 20 minutes. Now I base this time off the time limits of sPvP matches. The reason I do this is for better rewards for completing a run, as I don’t believe rewards of rare & above were meant to drop or be achieved at times less the 10 minutes. Now I also mentioned sPvP and the new sPvP reward paths could be an effective repeatable reward system if applied to both these new modes. As it is designed for a repeatable game type and it gives players more control over the rewards they work for.

But how does Speed Mode work and is it really any different then explorable? To answer YES and it’s all about repeatable play and design around required completion times for each element;

1. Speed mode paths -Paths are designed with standard travel times in mind that are mainly unavoidable. This includes required trash mob engagements & dungeon mechanics and skippable trash mobs and dungeon mechanics.
2. Bosses & mobs – Are also designed with this time requirement in mind. So in a way no matter what the engagement there is always this minimum time. But don’t make use of to many hard time consuming counters (immune). For this it’s more of after the fact fixes I want. Let the players find ways to beat the designed minimum time also leave it available for awhile so it can be used but not for to long before the designer comes in and changes or fixes what the players are using to defeat this minimum designed time but always look to leave weakness were players can save a second or a minute. With this force the players to adjust and find these new weakness. This allow for changing content always challenging the players creating a fixed & changing meta for this mode.
3. Speed Mode: Modes – Practise / Training & Competitive and it’s this that really makes Speed Mode.

Speed – Practise / Training
This is the training learning mode. Were players learn the different speed mode game types, dungeon paths, path mechanics, mobs, bosses, general mob placement & skill sets of mobs & bosses (could have more then 1 available). What I call mode elements. Build locking could be enable & disable as needed for practise. Practise mode is for players to get a taste and start to learn without going straight into competition and effect their ranking. Also for players that like the mode but don’t like the competitive side.

Speed – Competitive
The real fun, challenge & competition is here. I’m looking at two game types Standard & Gambit, and leader boards for each. Also in competitive mode I would look at locking build similar to sPvP matches, with the idea that although you have all these skills & traits like any build you can’t use them all as this is what you have prepared for the challenge. But maybe there could be safe spots located in the dungeon were players could re-spec but I would make them out of the way costing time and also available on wipe (transported to closes safe area previously passed).

• Standard puts players against each other competing for fastest time were all mode elements are fixed.
• Gambit again puts players against each other competing for fastest time but unlike standard, gambit can randomise some or all of the mode elements. This means your never truly sure want your going to encounter until you’ve encountered it. Now this is not total randomise but swapping between elements you know how to engage and complete. It’s just you don’t know till you see it (eg. path mechanic) or you start attacking (mobs skill set).

Vanquishing Mode
Now other then adding another game play option for offensive focused players vanquishing is all about giving non offensive focused players high end PvE game play were there welcomed & desired. It should be almost impossible to impossible for solely offensive focused groups to complete and their times will typically be worst then average completion times.

Groups are going to typically require high sustain and be mixed focused. This is all about the journey through the dungeon more then just the boss fights. Vanquishing is all about engaging & destroying everything in the dungeon.

For vanquishing completion times I would look at 1/2 hr to 1 hr as the average with maybe some longer or short times available as an option. So:

1. No trash mobs – As such all mobs need to be engaging and rewarding.
2. No Skipping – It should not be possible to skip any content. (Mobs, Bosses, Dungeon Mechanics) To help with this mobs engagement range once aggroed is the whole dungeon unless assigned guard duty of some type. (Aggro too many and it’s a wipe)
3. Non Offensive Mechanics – To help with including non offensive focused builds dungeon mechanics will be design with these focuses as the better completion option. (Eg. Holding position / point, Sustained waves of damage (mobs wave, trap damage) …)

Like speed mode vanquishing could also have practise / training & competitive mode with leader boards.

Vanquishing – Practise / Training
The same as speed practising / training mode but using the vanquishing mode elements and game types.

Vanquishing – Competitive
Would follow the same structure as Speed Mode competitive but I would look at one large change in that if you wipe it’s a total wipe and you have to restart with a new attempt. Now this is not a total failure as I would look at adding check points, completion tiers into the dungeon with rewards and scoring attached to each tier.

Lastly regarding rewards in both overall modes I would look at making them equal for the time invested. To final finish some questions;

• Regarding dungeons for offensive & non offensive play could this help?
• Can these ideas be expanded or an I just missing the mark?

For all that have worked their way through this thank you so much for your time and all feed back would be welcomed.
That All folks till next time

Carighan.6758:

Harper.4173:

Easy – new rewards in the form of – wait for it – new and exclusive skins.
Preferably the account bound variety that you could obtain through a token system.
Preferably for a lot of tokens so that the skins have bragging rights value.

Think FOTM weapons skins but without the RNG requiring let’s say 150 or 200 pristine fractal relics to obtain.

Well, for dungeons that ought to work well IMO. It’s exactly how the existent dungeon armour and weapons work. So yeah, more of that.

That being said, I hope you realize that apart from the “more”-factor, there’s nothing extra-rewarding over the old (easier) dungeons here. They also have their unique skins. It’d work, but it’d not really reward the difficulty specifically.

You’re not really understanding me.

The usual system we have for the dungeons right now is not really exclusive in any way.

Anyone can eventually complete AC, and farm the tokens for the armor.

The system I’d like is a system in which you get tokens based on performance – for example :
If you don’t clear the content fast enough – no tokens – no progress.
If you wipe more than x times – no tokens – no progress.
You can see where I’m going with this.

I also mean it should require a lot of work to get. You can do your daily dungeons for a week and get a set of armor. Even less for a weapon.

I’m talking about a set requiring maybe 1 or 2 months of doing it every day and succeeding.

IndigoSundown.5419:

One way to revitalize existing dungeons would be to add new skins progressively. Endgame progression works in other games because by the time a bunch of people have the current rewards, the developer is ready with the next step. Some people had their GW2 dungeon looks by October of 2012. ANet revitalized FoW and UW rewards by adding new skins when they added the completion chests. Something like that would be welcome in GW2 — at least for some people.

Works in theory – but people are already sitting on THOUSANDS of dungeon tokens.
If they added new AC skins I’d have them on day 1.

Harper.4173:

The system I’d like is a system in which you get tokens based on performance – for example :
If you don’t clear the content fast enough – no tokens – no progress.
If you wipe more than x times – no tokens – no progress.
You can see where I’m going with this.

Ah, not bad. I kinda like that idea. I can see a few issues, but it’s a problem of implementation more than design:

• It requires near-perfect PvE-balance or certain classes will nearly always be excluded. Or at least, each class needs a very powerful PvE spec which is stackable for these runs. I don’t think “proper” balance is possible, so this is icky. Could be fixed with the requirements not being something simple like speed or lack-of-deaths or so, though.
• The rewards need to be carefully balanced. WS currently has the problem that people instant-quit on the first death because any result below gold is a waste of time, and as such it led to an extremely hostile atmosphere in groups.

Why does it need perfect pve balance? Certain things are always excluded when playing at a high level, whether it be video games, card games or whatever.

If say, mesmer isn’t cut out for it – then well if you want to get more tokens for better performance you better play a different class. Not everything can be equal.

maha.7902:

If say, mesmer isn’t cut out for it – then well if you want to get more tokens for better performance you better play a different class. Not everything can be equal.

Oh that’s a perspective I can get behind, but try that on most MMO-gamers. I mean, look at this forum! People go frothing at the mouth if someone has an ability they don’t have, much less a useful or strong one.

Then they’re going to have to get over it.

ANet have finally realised they can’t cater to everyone, so they’re not doing it anymore – they’ve been making more content in the previous months which requires organisation and not going brain afk, so classes being excluded from content requiring good performance is no big loss.

Those are certainly interesting ideas, Bezagron.

But, with game modes and leader-boards I think it might be worthwhile to consider how these things fit within the game as a whole and whether players will value it enough to participate. Ex; a game that doesn’t offer many short-term activities would be more attracted to the speed kind, just because it caters to a need the game doesn’t otherwise fulfill.

Kind of what I’m getting at is Clarity of Purpose.
I think they need to sort out what Dungeons are doing for the game at large, and then they can try to form content where offense/defense are more interesting choices based on how they cater to that purpose.

What I mean by that is;
As far as I can tell, Dungeons seem to have three major identities.

• Dungeons as a Tutorial
• Dungeons as Farming
• Dungeons as skilled coordinated play

And these identities are either naturally damaging to eachother (learning vs. skilled play) or cause the content to be pulled in two directions where a singular focus would yield better results (farming vs learning/ farming vs. skilled play). Leading to a pretty disjointed experience, but, one that makes it pretty clear the offensive leanings of the gamemode are partly because all but the temporary tutorial identity either favors offense directly (farming) or indirectly via execution (skill coordinated play).

Ultimately, I’m of the opinion Dungeons should focus on Skilled Coordinated Play, and downplay the Tutorial and Farming characteristics in favor of more focused content that fully fleshes out character building.

The reasons I’d go that route;

• I don’t think Explorable dungeons really work as a Tutorial
  • Their level requirements have no relation to their difficulty
  • They don’t so much teach mechanics (combo fields) as occasionally make them worthwhile things to maybe consider doing if you feel like it (condi cleanse in TA).
  • Storymode dungeons seem more naturally suited; as they have that mail/story-based tie to progression, a more one-time reward structure, and act as a pseudo-gating mechanism for explorable play.

• While I think Explorable dungeons could be made to work as Farming, I don’t see much of a point to it.
  • This game, more than any other I’ve played; has the ability to support masses of people in the open-world, and has a noteworthy vacancy of spaces that give your farmed items functional/social meaning. And yet it’s one of two games I’ve played that eschews the ‘open world is for alts/farming; dungeons are for teamplay/showing off’ dynamic. I’m not really sure dungeons as farming is playing to the game’s strengths, and the lack of a space that definitively puts meaning to your progression really hangs a questionmark over motivation.

/edit: Added formatting and lead-in.

Carighan.6758:

Harper.4173:

The system I’d like is a system in which you get tokens based on performance – for example :
If you don’t clear the content fast enough – no tokens – no progress.
If you wipe more than x times – no tokens – no progress.
You can see where I’m going with this.

Ah, not bad. I kinda like that idea. I can see a few issues, but it’s a problem of implementation more than design:

• It requires near-perfect PvE-balance or certain classes will nearly always be excluded. Or at least, each class needs a very powerful PvE spec which is stackable for these runs. I don’t think “proper” balance is possible, so this is icky. Could be fixed with the requirements not being something simple like speed or lack-of-deaths or so, though.
• The rewards need to be carefully balanced. WS currently has the problem that people instant-quit on the first death because any result below gold is a waste of time, and as such it led to an extremely hostile atmosphere in groups.

Near-perfect PVE balance is a dream – a fantasy that some people have.
If you have a dungeon that requires certain things you’ll always have classes that perform better and those that perform worse – even if by small increments that are under 10%.
People will always care about that difference – so short of making all classes one class as long as we’ll have differences between classes we’ll always have classes that are less desirable.

They can’t “fix” that. And not implementing new content because of this is just silly.
Also a lot of the class-exclusion is based on perception – people’s perception of a class.

Take rangers for example : played right they can boost your DPS in an encounter by a LOT. But since most rangers go bearbow they’ve kitten themselves. People no longer want rangers in runs because most experiences they’ve had with rangers in groups have been negative.

Also – the “extremely hostile attitude” is always going to be present near the top brackets of any type of play.
Of course I don’t want one guy ruining my daily token grab – of course he’s going to be excluded and people will be hostile towards him if any small mistake can ruin everyone’s reward.

You can’t have your cake and eat it too – if you create super challenging and hard to beat content you’re going to attract the players that want to beat this content for bragging rights and rewards.
By their nature these players are very competitive and usually short on patience for less than perfect. You can’t created content catered to them and then expect them to be super forgiving and understanding of those who are new.

Sure there’s going to be a learning phase – but most good players will power through it in the first weeks.

Vox Hollow.2736:

T

• While I think Explorable dungeons could be made to work as Farming, I don’t see much of a point to it.
  • This game, more than any other I’ve played; has the ability to support masses of people in the open-world, and has a noteworthy vacancy of spaces that give your farmed items functional/social meaning. And yet it’s one of two games I’ve played that eschews the ‘open world is for alts/farming; dungeons are for teamplay/showing off’ dynamic. I’m not really sure dungeons as farming is playing to the game’s strengths, and the lack of a space that definitively puts meaning to your progression really hangs a questionmark over motivation.

/edit: Added formatting and lead-in.

Sorry to say but if you’d look at the game as it is right now dungeons are farming.
People do them for farming – gone are the days of doing it for other reasons.

It’s been 2 years – the only reasons people touch dungeons right now are either the gold or the tokens or both. Or maybe the experience for alts.

But in all cases they are farming – or better put – they are playing for the rewards and not for the dungeon experience in itself.

That has been the case for a long time – remember how abandoned dungeons were before the patch that gave the 1+ gold at the end per path came?
Nothing but CoF p1 was getting done – and CoF P1 was being farmed.

As I’ve proposed above I feel the solution is new content that promotes farming through skilled play.
The faster you clear, the less you wipe, the more this or that you do – the more loot you get at the end.

If your party is good they’ll be rewarded with a lot of loot.
If your party is bad the experience won’t be worth your time and you’re better spamming #1 on bosses in the open world.

I feel that tying these two together would motivate players to get better.
Sure you can champ farm or some other afk farm for 5 gold/ hour but sooner or later you might want to get in on that sweet sweet new content that gives those who invested time and effort to get good 15 or 20 gold / hour ( figures entirely for example purposes) – and you’ll have to start improving your build, your gear and yourself as a player to be on par.

That sounds like what we want players to do – actively try to improve in order to get in on high-end PVE – not just take a whiff of it and realize it’s not worth it.

And yes – any players who’s done high level fractals can tell you that the current reward system means that the effort you put in a PR 50 run vs the rewards you get make the experience completely not worth it.

Are we sure we’re on the same page as to the meaning of ‘Farming’?
I mean it in the sense something can have rewards you sincerely value, and this is different than farming it for it’s rewards.

Farming is like; something that’s repetitive, highly accessible, and makes very few demands on you mentally or emotionally. Basically the ‘zone-out’ activity, giving you a steady sense of progress in a relaxed atmosphere.

Perfect for the open-world…not really what I want to see in a Dungeon.

Farming means making gold -fast and effective. What you described is what I consider an aspect of farming called " braindead zerging" where you put your brain on autopilot and tag everything with your #1 skill.

But ultimately if you’re doing the content for the rewards and not for the gameplay/story you are farming. Or at least that’s how I see it.

If I go to an instance/dungeon in order to have fun fighting mobs or in order to listen to the story and find out more about the lore, or just to challenge myself with some tough fights – that isn’t farming.

If I go to an instance/dungeon thinking strictly that I need some reward from it and trying to get my reward as fast as possible – that’s farming.

All dungeons / instances fall into farming after a while because once you’ve done them hundreds of times they can’t be new, challenging and engaging again.

You can’t unlearn content you know by heart.

I really don’t mind what we end up calling it, so long as I’ve successfully clarified the point I was trying to previously make.

Putting that miscommunication aside, let me see if I understand your area of concern.
Are you saying you feel as though achieving a sense of progress through repetitive auto-piloting is an inevitability, or are you saying feeling compelled to do something solely for it’s monetary reward is an inevitability? Both are interesting areas of discussion, however, I’m mainly focusing on the first one at the moment.

Well – as long as that auto-piloting gets you money/rewards at the end of the process I’d say people do feel a sense of progress.

It is why we have FOTM zerging and champ trains no?

But what I was mostly focusing on was the second – that sooner or later people will only do content for it’s monetary reward since PVE encounters become stale no matter how dynamic you make them just through the fact that people play them a lot.

People should stop being surprised that the a lot of players don’t want dungeons/encounters to change.

For some people those still are an enjoyable area of the game and they would like to see it “improved” ( or changed to better match their opinion of improvement) but for most players those areas ( dungeons) are just places they go to in order to get rewards.

Of course they don’t want them changed – they’re used to the way the dungeons are now and couldn’t care less about the content itself – they just don’t want their rewards being made harder to obtain or taking longer to get.

It would be a fun experiment that Anet could do ( but never will) – drop all rewards from dungeons for a week or two – and we’d see exactly how many people do them for the experience and how many do them because of the gold and experience and tokens at the end.

Harper.4173:

Well – as long as that auto-piloting gets you money/rewards at the end of the process I’d say people do feel a sense of progress.

It is why we have FOTM zerging and champ trains no?

But what I was mostly focusing on was the second – that sooner or later people will only do content for it’s monetary reward since PVE encounters become stale no matter how dynamic you make them just through the fact that people play them a lot.

People should stop being surprised that the a lot of players don’t want dungeons/encounters to change.

For some people those still are an enjoyable area of the game and they would like to see it “improved” ( or changed to better match their opinion of improvement) but for most players those areas ( dungeons) are just places they go to in order to get rewards.

Of course they don’t want them changed – they’re used to the way the dungeons are now and couldn’t care less about the content itself – they just don’t want their rewards being made harder to obtain or taking longer to get.

It would be a fun experiment that Anet could do ( but never will) – drop all rewards from dungeons for a week or two – and we’d see exactly how many people do them for the experience and how many do them because of the gold and experience and tokens at the end.

Hardly anyone would do them… but it’s not just black and white as your post makes it seem. You would lost the people that just want the rewards and also those that enjoy the content but also want to feel like their time is being rewarded.

I’m apart of the latter group. It would need to be something extraordinarily good in order for me to do it without any reward component when that’s offered elsewhere along with at least decent content. I also don’t want to mindlessly farm though…

Vox Hollow.2736:

But, with game modes and leader-boards I think it might be worthwhile to consider how these things fit within the game as a whole and whether players will value it enough to participate. Ex; a game that doesn’t offer many short-term activities would be more attracted to the speed kind, just because it caters to a need the game doesn’t otherwise fulfill.

Kind of what I’m getting at is Clarity of Purpose.

Vox Hollow that’s an interesting point, as What is the Clarity of Purpose of this content? As without a clearly defined clarity of purpose how can you improve other elements like improving game play focus options. And I think Arenanets and the players clarity of purpose for dungeon is murky.

• So for all the players what is your clarity of purpose for dungeons?

For me Dungeons as a whole are the overall concept of delivery. I’m guessing for my ideas above clarity of purpose depends on the dungeon modes as when I think of the different player types each group has a different clarity of purpose for there play style and what dungeons mean to them. So far existing dungeon players clarities I see are:

• Reward Farming – primarily only for gold as they is very little if any repeatable rewards when looking at dungeon tokens. (Reward focus gold)
• Speed Clearing – Player’s looking for a competitive mode in PvE to compete against other players. Doesn’t involve direct combat between players but competing against them through skill play of content. (Reward focus fastest time)
• Stage play – Typically role players using dungeons as a stage and backdrop. (Reward focus story telling)
• Lore collection – Played through to experience the story were multiply play through’s are to reinspect or collect lore their missed. (Reward focus lore)

At the moment the primarily play types I see are Reward farming & Speed Clearing. Due to existing combat, mechanics & content design have little desire for any non offensive focused play no matter player skill level. So in away you could say I’m looking to improve these existing clarities as I do not believe existing story & explorable truly work for them. And add & expand dungeon clarities to give more play styles access to dungeons at all skill levels with a focus of high end PvE play for these other play styles.

So Clarity of purpose for my ideas;

• Story mode: Story telling / Group play / Tutorial - Story is the first experience to a dungeon that gives the dungeon reason and tries each dungeon back into the worlds story. It also teaches dungeon mechanics & theme of each dungeon. It teaches party group play as it’s really the first time you actually need to party and perform as a party group.
• Explorable: Story telling / Group play / Living world - Explorable continues the story telling expanding dungeon stories past the first experience. Through adding and removing paths or whole dungeons, dungeons also becoming part of the living world. Through increasing the difficult level explorablies are the next step in training party group play.
• Speed Mode: PvE Competition / Speed Focused / Group play / Repeatable - Speed mode was really about recognising & honouring the existing speed clear game play. Improving, enhancing & creating a competitive PvE scene actual in game. Practise speed mode was added for a training area that wouldn’t effect your rankings and as an area for players that don’t like the competitive side to experience this mode.
• Vanquishing Mode: Extremely Challenging / Total Completion / Group play / Repeatable - This was to honour vanquishing from GW1 including this type of game play into GW2. It was also my look at improving non offensive focused play styles high end game play options in PvE and having the journey through dungeons matter. This could also be added into the PvE competitive scene.

Off Topic
In away as well as improve non offensive high end game play plus offensive options, I’m looking at actual having an in game competitive PvE scene and a complete competitive scene in game. Image:

• In game spectating of competitive events.
• Leader boards at in game social hubs that all players could look at.
  PvE – PvE tournaments rankings, Speed clear fastest times standard & gambit (Day, Week, Month, Path section, Complete path, Complete Speed path rotation), Vanquishing completion times, Wave survived (A survival mode, wave time, number of waves), Boss Arena….
  sPvP – sPvP tournaments rankings, sPvP rankings (solo, team, 2v2, 3v3)
  WvW – WvW rankings, For each match up & overall Kills (Day, Week, Roaming play, Zerg play), Objective captured / defence (Yaks, Sentries, Camps, Towers, Keeps, SM, Guild captures, solo) Repairs (Day, Week) Siege built (Day, Week)
• NPC talking about the latest tournament results or up coming tournaments.

Aberrant.6749:

Harper.4173:

Well – as long as that auto-piloting gets you money/rewards at the end of the process I’d say people do feel a sense of progress.

It is why we have FOTM zerging and champ trains no?

But what I was mostly focusing on was the second – that sooner or later people will only do content for it’s monetary reward since PVE encounters become stale no matter how dynamic you make them just through the fact that people play them a lot.

People should stop being surprised that the a lot of players don’t want dungeons/encounters to change.

For some people those still are an enjoyable area of the game and they would like to see it “improved” ( or changed to better match their opinion of improvement) but for most players those areas ( dungeons) are just places they go to in order to get rewards.

Of course they don’t want them changed – they’re used to the way the dungeons are now and couldn’t care less about the content itself – they just don’t want their rewards being made harder to obtain or taking longer to get.

It would be a fun experiment that Anet could do ( but never will) – drop all rewards from dungeons for a week or two – and we’d see exactly how many people do them for the experience and how many do them because of the gold and experience and tokens at the end.

Hardly anyone would do them… but it’s not just black and white as your post makes it seem. You would lost the people that just want the rewards and also those that enjoy the content but also want to feel like their time is being rewarded.

I’m apart of the latter group. It would need to be something extraordinarily good in order for me to do it without any reward component when that’s offered elsewhere along with at least decent content. I also don’t want to mindlessly farm though…

What I was trying to point out is that the gameplay in itself – no matter how interesting or fun will not be able to constitute a reason for players to keep playing the content after the first or second playthrough.

People keep saying that if dungeons were revamped – the encounters changed and made harder, the mobs made to chase so you can’t skip, the bosses applying constant pressure, stacking made obsolete – that somehow the dungeons would become the holy grail of Guild Wars 2 and people would love them and all would be amazing.

I’m just pointing out why that’s not going to happen – because the majority couldn’t care less about the experience in itself – and only about the reward.

People often ask " When you stack in a corner and your camera is so cramped that you can’t see anything that’s going on are you truly experiencing the game to its fullest? " – and the answer is : I don’t care. Because I didn’t go in that dungeon in order to experience it for the 345th time – I went in to get that 1 gold reward at the end and couldn’t care less about what’s in between the start and that reward as long as it’s short and I get my reward fast.

Dungeons were a thing for maybe 2-4 months after release – after that there’s nothing new they can give you – so the only reason you do them is to farm them.

Off Topic Continues
Regarding farming, I don’t see this a a focus for content design but a possible side activity due to content being designed with a focus on repeatable play with best results achieved with a repeatable reward system and reward sink included.

• Rewards: Need to matter for the time invested, content & challenge but also be balanced with other reward throughout the whole game.
• Reward sinks: But the most important part is the reward sink as without this as content becomes old and update are unable to keep pace massive amount of reward currency are able to be stored largely reducing new rewards.

Part of the problem in game with GW2 at the moment is that they is a lack of new rewards in PvE to work for and that there are few PvE rewards that actual matter kitten much can just be brought with gold. The new rewards being added are locked behind the gem store;

New cosmetics, permanent harvesting items, activity items, mini pets, black lion chest keys (a chance for Black Lion Claim Tickets) most are released only in the gem shop. And this becomes part of the reward problem & gold farming of GW2.

So you can buy gems with gold and there’s very little new PvE rewards, in away these gem store items become your new PvE rewards. So it comes about harvesting gold to get these items as fast as possible before they’re no longer available in the gem store.

Don’t get me wrong I actual really like GW2 gem store. But It would be nice that after a time period, maybe 1 or 2 years as more and more items are added and removed from the store. Most of these old removed gem store items start to become available through in game options. Depending on the item the challenge & time requirement should be appropriate.

Also PvE needs some content & skill locked rewards were you just can’t go spend gold, (Cosmetic skins, effects, emotes & titles) also WvW & sPvP need them. This allows players in game identity that shows what they’ve achieved, play & like. I feel at the moment there are very few rewards for this type of in game identity as there are few game mode exclusive rewards & so much can just be brought with gold.

Now to get back on topic rewards are a bonus, and all content needs a reward system with worth while rewards for the time invested & challenge but for me rewards are not the reason to create content or the clarity of purpose of said content. So again some questions:

• When you started playing dungeons what did you believe their clarity of purpose was?
• What clarity of purpose do you want for dungeons now?
• Could different clarities of purpose be added through different modes?

Harper.4173:

What I was trying to point out is that the gameplay in itself – no matter how interesting or fun will not be able to constitute a reason for players to keep playing the content after the first or second playthrough.

Thanks Harper this is a very interesting point. Other then item rewards what other reasons would you constantly repeat content? I only see two first up ;

• Competition – competing against other players.
• Challenge – typically only till total mastery is achieved.

And in away these are the two aspects I was looking at with my Speed / Vanquishing’s standard & gambit modes. Now I agree if these had no rewards very few would play but I typically don’t see the reward as the main reason I do content but that they’re the bonuses & trophies for doing the content.

In away when every I start to think about to highest level of game play I always start to think about competitive play be it WvW, sPvP or PvE. And is seems to come through in my ideas for high end play.

Back on non offensive focused play, PvE high end game play and looking at mechanic designs?

One thought I’ve resonantly be thinking about was the build locking in dungeons like sPvP matches. Groups would require builds to complete the whole dungeon not just a build for each encounter. With this and dungeon design I could see non offensive focused play being desired as although not optimal for each individual encounter/mechanic there could help group performance over the whole dungeon. This could increase the challenge and as I believe would make dungeon take longer and as the time investment has increase so should the rewards.

This build locking could carry over into open world as well. Although as a build experimenter I love the ability to change whenever I feel I started to notice that instead of just playing I’m respecing for each & every encounter. A case of too much freedom.

So in away I would like build locking back as I’ve been thinking this constant respecing flavours the offensive focused player as you can always adjust before each encounter. Only bring the bare minimum of defence & support. As you can bring everything you need there’s no need for you non offensive friend that has it always on.

So maybe something in between just out of combat and only at a trainer. Something to make it close and easy to do but you need to go out of your way. So you might think about it in a camp or town but once out in the field you can just play.

• Instance content could be easy giving players the option to do unlock or lock giving the incentive to play lock with better rewards.
• Open world builds could be locked unless in a friendly camp or town or there could be items or builds when near lock your build and you need to leave the area or destroy them before you can respec.

On a whole I find open world play the hardest with build locking And don’t really think it could work or really like it with the way the GW2 build system works I only really would look at build locking for competitive play so it’s about player skill and not how fast players can respec before each encounter.

Bezagron.7352:

Thanks Harper this is a very interesting point. Other then item rewards what other reasons would you constantly repeat content?

Nothing really. But, the “gameplay” encompasses a lot more than just how to fight boss X.
We play a MMORPG, the key component to which is the social interaction. The premise of GW2 is to not have artificial longevity via gear upgrades / tier upgrades.

Which means that the underlying game – it’s ability to be played and enjoyed together, played with existent friends, making new ones – has to carry it. It can, games such as EQ showed that. But it might not be as mass-market-capable gameplay because many played want that constant feeling of reward and improvement.

Further, not everyone seems to enjoy dabbling into the social part. Players feel “ok” with other players running around, so long as they get their stuff and aren’t held up by them. But, that’s absolutely not the point of a MMO. You should be reliant on those players, for better (making friends and enjoying the chatter) and worse (getting held up, helping out weaker players, being annoyed by them at times). The core component of MMORPGs compared to other games is the “MM”-part.

And lacking an artificial goal, I really think GW2 needs to capitalize on that.

It makes a good effort so far, don’t get me wrong:

• Inclusive content.
• Shared rewards.
• Mass-combat instead of instanced segregation (WvW, too!).
• Open structure and world, no phasing to separate players.

It has a lot to improve, sure. But I fear it might go into the wrong direction, trying to cater to the very type of player who actually just wants the reward/carry structure of WoW-like games.

Am I the only one that thinks the game is pretty well designed as is and just needs some fresh new content?

Jerus.4350:

Am I the only one that thinks the game is pretty well designed as is and just needs some fresh new content?

Mostly I agree, yeah. I even think the balance – while certainly patchy – is quite serviceable. Could use improvement, sure, but far from a big problem.

And content-wise I’d prefer them to re-use existent zones and trasnform them (as I think the total land-size is plenty). But yeah, some more. Map-rotation for WvW could be crazy awesome. :O

Bezagron.7352:

In away when every I start to think about to highest level of game play I always start to think about competitive play be it WvW, sPvP or PvE. And is seems to come through in my ideas for high end play.

Back on non offensive focused play, PvE high end game play and looking at mechanic designs?

One thought I’ve resonantly be thinking about was the build locking in dungeons like sPvP matches. Groups would require builds to complete the whole dungeon not just a build for each encounter. With this and dungeon design I could see non offensive focused play being desired as although not optimal for each individual encounter/mechanic there could help group performance over the whole dungeon. This could increase the challenge and as I believe would make dungeon take longer and as the time investment has increase so should the rewards.

This build locking could carry over into open world as well. Although as a build experimenter I love the ability to change whenever I feel I started to notice that instead of just playing I’m respecing for each & every encounter. A case of too much freedom.

So in away I would like build locking back as I’ve been thinking this constant respecing flavours the offensive focused player as you can always adjust before each encounter. Only bring the bare minimum of defence & support. As you can bring everything you need there’s no need for you non offensive friend that has it always on.

So maybe something in between just out of combat and only at a trainer. Something to make it close and easy to do but you need to go out of your way. So you might think about it in a camp or town but once out in the field you can just play.

• Instance content could be easy giving players the option to do unlock or lock giving the incentive to play lock with better rewards.
• Open world builds could be locked unless in a friendly camp or town or there could be items or builds when near lock your build and you need to leave the area or destroy them before you can respec.

On a whole I find open world play the hardest with build locking And don’t really think it could work or really like it with the way the GW2 build system works I only really would look at build locking for competitive play so it’s about player skill and not how fast players can respec before each encounter.

We had builds locked for almost two years and still ran full offensive or offensive support builds.

Have you forgotten this already?

Carighan.6758:

Which means that the underlying game – it’s ability to be played and enjoyed together, played with existent friends, making new ones – has to carry it. It can, games such as EQ showed that. But it might not be as mass-market-capable gameplay because many played want that constant feeling of reward and improvement.

Further, not everyone seems to enjoy dabbling into the social part. Players feel “ok” with other players running around, so long as they get their stuff and aren’t held up by them. But, that’s absolutely not the point of a MMO. You should be reliant on those players, for better (making friends and enjoying the chatter) and worse (getting held up, helping out weaker players, being annoyed by them at times). The core component of MMORPGs compared to other games is the “MM”-part.

And lacking an artificial goal, I really think GW2 needs to capitalize on that.

It makes a good effort so far, don’t get me wrong:

• Inclusive content.
• Shared rewards.
• Mass-combat instead of instanced segregation (WvW, too!).
• Open structure and world, no phasing to separate players.

It has a lot to improve, sure. But I fear it might go into the wrong direction, trying to cater to the very type of player who actually just wants the reward/carry structure of WoW-like games.

I think your idea that GW2 is carried by “friendship” and “playing with others” isn’t what’s carrying the game.

This game just like every other MMO out there is being carried by people’s vanity. That’s right vanity is the number one driving force behind any MMO in my opinion.
It’s the I’m better than you because my sword is shinier train of thought.

Guild Wars 2 does not have gear progression – fair and true – but it does have very expensive horizontal progression which is in fact the driving force of this game.

The Legendary weapons, rare skins, exclusive back pieces and all other items of the same nature are designed to keep players chasing the next shiny – just that in the case of GW2 the shiny is not better in a vertical progression kind of way but in a rarity kind of way.

People play MMORPGs for a variety of reasons but if you think the majority of them play it for the social aspect you’re wrong.
People prefer MMORPGs over traditional RPGs because at the end of the day there are other people there that you can brag about your achievements – the stuff you collect, titles, armor, weapons – there’s another human being ( actually a lot of them) there that you can brag to – even if it’s indirectly.

Yes teamwork plays a part, yes the multiplayer is fun but I doubt it’s the selling point.

I’d say that compared to GW1 for example ( a heavily instanced game) the social aspects of GW2 are even less. With people all over the place players feel no need to interact that much.
Megaflows have done nothing to help this issue since former server-wide communities are now gone.

For me as well – the social aspect of the game isn’t that important – I have friends and people I enjoy doing things with in game but the majority of players might as well be NPCs as I have no need or desire to engage with them as long as they’re doing their jobs in content. Ultimately I’m a self-oriented player and that means focusing on my rewards first. If other players don’t get in the way – that’s great – but if they do I feel the “social” aspect of the game is ruining my overall experience.

And in a sense that’s normal – yes – you heard me – human beings function best in small communities of around 100 individuals.
Life could also be considered a MMORPG but do you feel like socially engaging with every human being you encounter?

" You should be reliant on those players, for better (making friends and enjoying the chatter) and worse (getting held up, helping out weaker players, being annoyed by them at times)"

This part I cannot agree with – being self-reliant is the core aspect of GW2 – it’s why they did away with the trinity – it’s how most content in the game is set-up.
Being self-reliant and not having success or failure tied as closely to others like you see in other MMOs is one of the key aspects that this game got right.

There are PLENTY of MMOs out there that chain you to other people.
Bad healer – wipe; Bad tank – wipe, etc.
GW2 does it right by making things easier and better if you coordinate with others and work together but also not punishing you for other people’s mistakes and deficiencies.

People I’ve seen in game don’t really share your concepts or ideas. For example :
You might think the “for worse” ( “getting held up, helping out weaker players, being annoyed by them at times”) aspect you mention is where players might advise and help a fellow person out but in practice I’ve seen that these situations are usually resolved quickly via the votekick option.

maha.7902:

Bezagron.7352:

In away when every I start to think about to highest level of game play I always start to think about competitive play be it WvW, sPvP or PvE. And is seems to come through in my ideas for high end play.

Back on non offensive focused play, PvE high end game play and looking at mechanic designs?

One thought I’ve resonantly be thinking about was the build locking in dungeons like sPvP matches. Groups would require builds to complete the whole dungeon not just a build for each encounter. With this and dungeon design I could see non offensive focused play being desired as although not optimal for each individual encounter/mechanic there could help group performance over the whole dungeon. This could increase the challenge and as I believe would make dungeon take longer and as the time investment has increase so should the rewards.

This build locking could carry over into open world as well. Although as a build experimenter I love the ability to change whenever I feel I started to notice that instead of just playing I’m respecing for each & every encounter. A case of too much freedom.

So in away I would like build locking back as I’ve been thinking this constant respecing flavours the offensive focused player as you can always adjust before each encounter. Only bring the bare minimum of defence & support. As you can bring everything you need there’s no need for you non offensive friend that has it always on.

So maybe something in between just out of combat and only at a trainer. Something to make it close and easy to do but you need to go out of your way. So you might think about it in a camp or town but once out in the field you can just play.

• Instance content could be easy giving players the option to do unlock or lock giving the incentive to play lock with better rewards.
• Open world builds could be locked unless in a friendly camp or town or there could be items or builds when near lock your build and you need to leave the area or destroy them before you can respec.

On a whole I find open world play the hardest with build locking And don’t really think it could work or really like it with the way the GW2 build system works I only really would look at build locking for competitive play so it’s about player skill and not how fast players can respec before each encounter.

We had builds locked for almost two years and still ran full offensive or offensive support builds.

Have you forgotten this already?

Build locking is exactly what they’re trying to do away with.

People on the forums are asking for “more build variety” – I hardly see how we’ll achieve that if people are forced to play that one specific build over and over again.

It just doesn’t work.

For me as a guard usually running a hammer build this would simply have me either going 35042 or 33044 depending on the dungeon path instead of swapping back and forth throughout the dungeon. Really wouldn’t be a big difference to me. And note, those aren’t meta builds for dungeons, I just know it fits my group better giving us a more stable equilibrium to play in where a little mistake won’t escalate into a full wipe. That’s why I feel this topic is over-exaggerated, while many people play in the meta and you don’t need defensive tools, it’s not as if there isn’t some power in them that make the game IMO much more pleasant to play in.

Now the meta is still the meta and the ideal way to run if you’re after speed. I just feel that there is plenty of power in sub meta builds to give an easier run and that’s the purpose of off meta setups. And, before someone says “ohh then you’re just going so slow” no, you really aren’t. Sure if you have 5 full clerics guys you’ll be going at a snails pace, but that’s more akin to running other MMOs with tanks and healers only, which is just dumb.

I feel things are pretty well set up. GW2 is really no different than other MMOs in it’s high end content being completely DPS driven.

There’s a simple rule of High End PVE play, and that’s healing, tanking, support, CC, it all caps out, you only need so much. DPS basically never caps, so stack it up as much as possible once you have everything else covered.

Every game I’ve played follows that rule, if someone can name one that doesn’t I’d be very interested to see how it works, because I really don’t see how you can break that rule.

just my 2cents.

maha.7902:

We had builds locked for almost two years and still ran full offensive or offensive support builds.

Have you forgotten this already?

I believe the type of build locking he’s talking about is locking skill bars — as in no changing your weapon load or utilities between encounters, only between dungeons. Something similar to GW, where you entered an instance with eight skills and couldn’t change them without starting over.

If you’re coming from a place where you want dedicated adherence to different roles, it makes a sort of twisted sense. By removing flexibility, you create a more static approach to a team build. I doubt it would create the static diversity he’s after, though. Nor do I think ANet will throw out one of the core principles of the game to make it happen.

A few years ago the FPS genre developed a schism.

The reward system would value having a high amount of Kills and a low amount of Deaths, but this would lead to behavior that sometimes sacrificed wins. So in any given match there would be people ‘playing to win’, and people ‘playing for stats’ to advance their match-up ranking.

So after a bit of that the genre took a moment to reflect, and started to come up with ways to make sure everybody was on the same page when they played the game. They started to come up with things like Kill Assist, TruSkill, etc so that people with differing motivations had less differing outward behavior. What motivated you to play started to become difficult to distinguish without asking, because you largely had to play the game the same way regardless.

I bring to this up for two reasons;

• Harper: I tend to think experience and rewards aren’t naturally at odds, so much as rewards in this game are oversimplified in the same way K/D was.
• Bez: To question whether or not you should be reinforcing playerbase dividing behaviors with vanquish and speed or attempting to amend them? In addition, I’d like to cast some doubt on separating out content that is considered the most challenging from the content intended to be competed over. Ideally, wouldn’t you want them to be the same thing?

Other than item rewards what other reasons would you constantly repeat content?

I’m not exactly for replacing gold. However, I would like add something because I see the value in having multiple motives for doing an activity (so long as everyone’s on the same page in the way they play it, and it doesn’t lose focus on what kind of an activity it’s trying to be for the game at large).

Like Carighan, I think GW2 is in a unique position to tap into things other MMORPGs can’t or don’t. One thing that’s largely untapped right now is Climbing the Skill Curve. Having success depend more on execution and less on character building is a great way to foster repetition, so long as it doesn’t go too far and completely undermine your build choices. As a hybrid, this game is a better position than most to capitalize on that aspect of action games, and it’s oddly doing less so than some purebreed RPGs I know.

Harper.4173:

What I was trying to point out is that the gameplay in itself – no matter how interesting or fun will not be able to constitute a reason for players to keep playing the content after the first or second playthrough.

People keep saying that if dungeons were revamped – the encounters changed and made harder, the mobs made to chase so you can’t skip, the bosses applying constant pressure, stacking made obsolete – that somehow the dungeons would become the holy grail of Guild Wars 2 and people would love them and all would be amazing.

I’m just pointing out why that’s not going to happen – because the majority couldn’t care less about the experience in itself – and only about the reward.

People often ask " When you stack in a corner and your camera is so cramped that you can’t see anything that’s going on are you truly experiencing the game to its fullest? " – and the answer is : I don’t care. Because I didn’t go in that dungeon in order to experience it for the 345th time – I went in to get that 1 gold reward at the end and couldn’t care less about what’s in between the start and that reward as long as it’s short and I get my reward fast.

Dungeons were a thing for maybe 2-4 months after release – after that there’s nothing new they can give you – so the only reason you do them is to farm them.

I agree with that. Heck I was kinda miffed that I even had to do the S2 living story twice for achievements because it’s something that I already did and it offered nothing more the 2nd time through (other than the AP/Chest rewards).

IndigoSundown.5419:

maha.7902:

We had builds locked for almost two years and still ran full offensive or offensive support builds.

Have you forgotten this already?

I believe the type of build locking he’s talking about is locking skill bars — as in no changing your weapon load or utilities between encounters, only between dungeons. Something similar to GW, where you entered an instance with eight skills and couldn’t change them without starting over.

If you’re coming from a place where you want dedicated adherence to different roles, it makes a sort of twisted sense. By removing flexibility, you create a more static approach to a team build. I doubt it would create the static diversity he’s after, though. Nor do I think ANet will throw out one of the core principles of the game to make it happen.

Thanks IndigoSundown your right the build locking I was trying to explain is what is in sPvP solo & team once the match starts. Also note I mainly mention it when talking about competitive play. To note this has never been in PvE before as it was only really traits that required travelling to a training to reset all other build components could already be changed when out of combat in PvE.

Also I really had to do some twisted thinking on this as build locking is the absolute last thing I want in GW2. If anything in PvE I want easier build swapping, for sigils, runes, infusions & passive gear stats I dream they could all get the legendary weapons treatment but I’ll leave it at that otherwise we would be looking at many more posts. I’m a build experimenter & a build altolic one that can never stay on the same build for to long as I start to get bored (Please pity my poor friend as I would always be restarting characters in games were build choices were locked, I also ended up with large numbers of alts).

The build locking was a side thought about total build freedom and it’s effect on game play focuses. As was mentioned offensives focused players sacrifice anything but the minimum required defences & support to achieve the greatest offence available. Always being able to respec when out of combat allows the right minimum defences & support to be taken for every encounter. So in away focuses that would have these defences & support always equipped that would help in these encounters are not needed.

Now here’s a really twisted thought:
Image what would happen to sPvP offensive & non offensive game play with total build freedom in matches and the ability to have multiply builds store and swapped at the press of a button.

To finish on build locking I would only want this in a competitive scene as I believe it helps balances the playing field and is better for spectating. I would also love for a competitive PvE to become something in game for GW2. As I could see myself & other players repeating content just for the competition, okay not only just as we all still want rewards but the main reason would be to compete.

So to answer the question about repeating content:
I see very little point unless you have worth while rewards or for competitive reasons.

For me rewards get old but competition never does. If a competitive element was added to PvE I believe it would go a long way to satisfying players between content release.

Aberrant.6749:

Harper.4173:

What I was trying to point out is that the gameplay in itself – no matter how interesting or fun will not be able to constitute a reason for players to keep playing the content after the first or second playthrough.

People keep saying that if dungeons were revamped – the encounters changed and made harder, the mobs made to chase so you can’t skip, the bosses applying constant pressure, stacking made obsolete – that somehow the dungeons would become the holy grail of Guild Wars 2 and people would love them and all would be amazing.

I’m just pointing out why that’s not going to happen – because the majority couldn’t care less about the experience in itself – and only about the reward.

People often ask " When you stack in a corner and your camera is so cramped that you can’t see anything that’s going on are you truly experiencing the game to its fullest? " – and the answer is : I don’t care. Because I didn’t go in that dungeon in order to experience it for the 345th time – I went in to get that 1 gold reward at the end and couldn’t care less about what’s in between the start and that reward as long as it’s short and I get my reward fast.

Dungeons were a thing for maybe 2-4 months after release – after that there’s nothing new they can give you – so the only reason you do them is to farm them.

I agree with that. Heck I was kinda miffed that I even had to do the S2 living story twice for achievements because it’s something that I already did and it offered nothing more the 2nd time through (other than the AP/Chest rewards).

Yes this has been a complaint of mine as well.
There’s no reason to replay it other than the achievements – I don’t see why we couldn’t get them on the first go anyway.

Vox Hollow.2736:

• Bez: To question whether or not you should be reinforcing playerbase dividing behaviors with vanquish and speed or attempting to amend them? In addition, I’d like to cast some doubt on separating out content that is considered the most challenging from the content intended to be competed over. Ideally, wouldn’t you want them to be the same thing?

The quick answer YES.

The long, well…
To start I didn’t want to change the existing Story & Explorable dungeon modes as for what they are is quite enjoyable. But for the farmers, speed runners and non offensive focuses (at high end game play) dungeon just don’t seem to really work for these players.

• Farmers – get gold & tokens but after a point tokens are pointless and golds just gold. I was thinking these players would feel better rewarded with at repeatable reward system designed around repeatable content (Remembering I don’t believe Explorable is really repeatable).
• Speed runners – I really enjoy this play style and it’s great to watch (Imagination tournaments were you could watch two team competing simultaneously). But again I feel dungeons were never designed with this type of game play in mind.
• Non offensive focuses – There are many problems in PvE with this play style if you are skilled and want to enjoy and play at high end game play. As dungeons can be considered high end PvE game play I was looking for away for these styles to be included.

Next regard the 4 overall modes:

• Story & Explorable – I would like to leave basically alone for me these were the dungeon’s stories in the world and an introduction to dungeon & party game play. Let them be the one off play in away used to collect lore, role play & continue dungeons in a living world. This allows modification, addition & removal of paths and whole dungeons to give dungeons the living world effect too without effecting the dungeon farmers and dungeon competitive play.
• Speed & Vanquishing – I had two agendas with dungeons I wanted the speed runners & farmers game play not effected but I also wanted to bring non offensive focuses into high end PvE game play. Speed’s concept was first for the speed runners & farmers and Vanquishing was an attempt at bringing non offensive focuses into this game play level. But in truth you could almost think of them as just different game play modes (eg. capture the point, deathmatch). Just thinking while typing, build locking again. For both Speed & Vanquishing in their competitive modes if build locking was used and encounters & mechanics throughout the dungeon/path had different efficient & optimal builds for completion it might just come about that non offensive focuses start to become desire. Of course you always will need damage but some of these roles use at high end game play might feel more non offensive then offensive with non offensive skill slapped on.

To finish I don’t want to reinforce playerbase dividing behaviours, it would really be nice if somehow Speed & Vanquishing could help amend them bringing these differing players to play together but it’s not easy.

Also I do agree, casting doubt is the right thing to do. In truth usually the most challenging content is the content competed over. Regard Vanquishing I believe I also mentioned a competitive mode. I actually added practise modes to each of these after writing the ideas when my wife mentioned what about the players that don’t like to compete and how can you practise and learn without effecting your rankings.

I would be interested to read other players ideas for Speed & Vanquishing that help;

• Reward farmers
• Competitive PvE players
• Non competitive PvE players
• Different play style focuses.

Also on competitive play:

• What could we score?
  I can see most include time is some way but the could be other scoring stats eg. Fastest completion time (path section, whole path, whole dungeon, number of paths, mechanic completed or defeated), mob kills, boss kills, blocks, blinds, reflects. To help all play style we need FPS Vox Hollow mentioned.

Vox Hollow.2736:

things like Kill Assist, TruSkill, etc

• How could tournaments work?
  I love the idea of watching 2 teams compete at the same time with a shout caster commenting throughout the match.
• What game play modes/type would work in a competitive environment?
  Looking at my Standard & Gambit game types.

Now I’m getting off topic on offensive & non offensive game play in away but in PvE I also believe contend design is part of the problem with non offensive focuses being desired at high end game play. So also looking at this content design with players helps. In a way I would be very interested in just throwing Speed & Vanquishing competitive modes with build locking in game and just see were the meta lands.

Harper.4173:

Aberrant.6749:

agree with that. Heck I was kinda miffed that I even had to do the S2 living story twice for achievements because it’s something that I already did and it offered nothing more the 2nd time through (other than the AP/Chest rewards).

Yes this has been a complaint of mine as well.
There’s no reason to replay it other than the achievements – I don’t see why we couldn’t get them on the first go anyway.

I also agree I was thinking the challenges, achievements, reward all weren’t just going to be tried back to just repeating the story but with this little challenge. Having some is nice but it would of been amazing if it unlocked other new challenges and experiences.

If you lock utilities then we will just make sure we have certain necessary utilities which work for the fights in the instance. For example in arah p3 a guard may go wall, shield of the avenger and purging flames. You need purging for cleanses versus the hunter/crusher and wraith lord, wall of reflect versus hunter/crusher, magecrusher and lupicus and shield of the avenger for magecrusher. You lose stand your ground for lupicus but either an ember can take the grub or the guard can and renewed focus to prevent being knocked down. For wraith lord you miss out on retreat to block an auto attack but it doesn’t require you to take a defensive setup. If you locked utilities through a full set of fractals I’m sure wall, stand your ground and purging flames or maybe retreat would be safe utilities to take to cover all fights. Defensive builds will never be used at a high level and there’s no reason they should be.

I guess why maha is there really any different in skill level between defensive play and offensive play.

Offensive, Defensive, Supportive & Control are only favours. It’s content design that decides which is the best and fastest favour or combination of favours for completion, be it offensive or non offensive.

Large powerful attacks at slow intervals favour offensive play. Faster constant attacks defensive play.

Defensive play can also do just as much damage as offensive thought punishing skills (counter attacks, creating vulnerability and striking in these windows). But this is really not in GW2, counter attacks, or attacks of opportunity after some defence. The damage is not improve by non offensive builds but by offensive.

Now if your talking about active versus passive play that’s a different thing all together. As I will agree passive play should not be a option.

At the highest level it should require very skilled active play to perform, some passives can help but should not be the deciding factor. One of the largest problems with GW2 and defensive focused builds and defensive gear is the large passive play. Defensive focused builds are unable to improve there active defence in anyway that matters for GW2 active combat but give up to much damage that impacts on the group so much that I almost better not to have them in the group at all.

Now I enjoy GW2’s combat and I’m not as attach to defensive focused play as you might think (Typically play rogues, thiefs or dual wielding characters). But I don’t agree offensive focused should be the only option. Were talking group play here, if you look at any group sports there is both offensive and defensive and both can require great skill.

But this comes down to what Arenanet & players want out of GW2 party play:

• How many party members should group content require for successful completion?
  1, 2, … 5
• If party members start to died when do you fail group content?
  1, 2, … 5

And again just like your example, It comes down to content design. Until content is designed with non offensive focus in mind and content completion times are faster with 1 or 2 non offensive focused play styles in your group you won’t take then and if this is high end game play then they will be undesired & unwanted. And there is nothing wrong with that if that’s what the game should be, but can 1 or 2 spots in a party for group content not be made available at the upper skill level of play.

It’s the whole package and what I’m interested in the skills, the gear, the builds, mob AI, mob design, content and how all this interacts. Offensive, Defensive, Support & Control are the tools we the players are given to interact with the world. It’s design which decides which is the best interaction.

In this thought bubble I’m not looking to take away from offensive focused play but add the other non offensive play styles. As there are many players with both high & low skill levels that like these play styles. GW2 can provide for these players, you already see them in WvW & sPvP at all skill levels. In this way WvW & sPvP are truer to Arenanet’s Play how you want then PvE.

Is it wrong to look at ways to bring these play style to PvE and give them access not only to low and mid PvE skill levels but PvE’s high skill level as well?

Bezagron I feel you’re missing the point when it comes to why the content is designed the way it was.

You feel the content is designed for “offensive playstyle” only – but that’s not the case.
I do agree that the offensive play style becomes the easiest and most effective way to navigate the content but you have to understand that the designers didn’t aim at this when they designed the content.

This is a side effect of they were aiming at when they designed the content. What is that? What am I talking about?

The game was designed to have a low skill level being created with the intention to not punish people who lack the time investment to get good at it and keep them playing.

That’s not actually it. The reason is that they designed the game to have a very low skill ceiling required to play and complete content successfully.
This was done in order to keep a good retention rate of hypercasual players – the kind of player that isn’t very good at games and can’t be very good ( because he’s got a job and spends most of his time outside the game) but who might be inclined to spend money on the gem store ( because he has a job and can afford it).
The indirect ( and unavoidable) side-effect of this is that very skilled players ( the kind that play the game for thousands of hours on end because they have the time – or just the kind that are good at games in general) are capable of mitigating every threat the game poses through skill and don’t need defensive gear because they can compensate the lack of passive defense with their own ability as a player.
This is what lead to the viability of full glass parties.

Making the game require at least 1 or 2 support characters would mean upping the difficulty past a point where the average casual player could still manage.

If bosses no longer applied damage in big hits and started applying it constantly bad players would start completing content much less since more of the boss’ damage would connect with them.

Highly telegraphed boss attacks are Anet’s way of making sure even the baddest of bads have a chance to survive the encounter. Imagine if dodges and stacking PVT were no longer enough since encounters would now wear you down little by little.

It would require players to reorganize, rethink and reinvest in other gear. It would force builds to be changed and strategies to be reworked.
It would force a lot of effort – the kind of effort casual players aren’t really going to put in.

The game was designed to be very pick up and play and more importantly do pretty much anything with any build and still win – they’re not going to go 180 degrees on that since it’ll hurt their player retention and ultimately their gem store sales.

I think that whether we want to or not – the time has pretty much come for us to admit that GW2’s hardcore players are a minority. An afterthought that gets catered to only after the large mass of casual players has what they want.
Sad but true.

maha.7902:

If you lock utilities then we will just make sure we have certain necessary utilities which work for the fights in the instance.

What if it was not possible to bring all necessary utilities (most efficient & optimal skills for the encounter) in a fully offensive focused group for all encounters in the instance.

What if no group could bring all the necessary skills (most efficient & optimal skills for the encounter) that no matter what there was content that you could struggle with. You will be fine for 90% of the instance but that 10% is going to be a challenge and it’s your performance here that will really matter.

If your thinking competition this is exactly what I’m would be looking for. As you can have two different teams and team compositions were there difficult 10% is different or the same. This helps shout casting as you can focus on these 10% for each team knowing this is a critical part of their run that can really help decide a match.