Guild Wars 2

So here is my list of design principals that ANet keeps sticking with – even tho most of the people playing the game must know that they are wrong:

1. Keep number of buttons at a minimum – I imagine that this has it’s benefits. But to some degree! Why there is no quick use bar yet? (for miniatures and consumables) How is that helpful?
2. No standard MMO Quests – so my issue with this is tied directly with answer to the following question:
What do you like more: Quests or Hearts? Objectives and mechanics are similar… Problem is that there is no story or lore tied to the hearts (or it’s at minimum). And that makes them so horribly boring. Also the world feels so empty with just a few hearts there and no one that you can talk to.
3. No standard Quest journal – really ANet? That huge brick of text at the right side of the screen is better then RPG style journal?! How? In what universe?

I have some more controversial principals of Gw2 but in this thread I’ll stick to those that are just obviously wrong.

There is no right and wrong when it comes to designing an mmo, the point of GW2 is to be different than other mmos, not just blatantly copy everything everyone else is doing in every other mmo out there. Personally I find hearts much better than the standard quests.

Doomguard.5094:

There is no right and wrong when it comes to designing an mmo

There is always right and wrong when is comes to designing any game.

Doomguard.5094:

the point of GW2 is to be different than other mmos

Why stick to ‘different’ for all costs?! I know it’s fine from marketing stand point… But not from players stand point.

Doomguard.5094:

Personally I find hearts much better than the standard quests.

Why?!

HiddenNick.7206:

Why are hearts better than standard quests?

Variety of options. You’re trying to earn someone’s trust, affection, esteem, whatever. There’s no reason why you should need to bring them exactly ten wolf pelts. Renown Hearts recognize general “assistance” acts (e.g. defending the local area from hostiles, healing injured people nearby) in addition to the explicitly-stated objectives (e.g. rounding up Moas). The explicit objectives often include several alternatives, just in case players have difficulty with a particular task (or find it boring). It’s often possible to make progress on a Renown Heart while participating in Dynamic Events nearby.

Since heart completion rewards are automatically mailed to the player, there’s no need to backtrack. Players can explore the map and focus on new/undiscovered content. Players who choose to visit the Heart vendors will occasionally find useful (or amusing) consumables, but won’t gain a huge advantage over those who do not.

Since quest-text (which most people skip anyways) is minimal, Guild Wars 2 fulfills the maxim of “show, don’t tell.” Players learn about NPCs by exploring and fighting alongside them; they learn history by prowling through ruins and assisting scholars; they’re introduced to the problems of each outpost or village and then asked to ameliorate them.

Many of the hearts help to relieve monotony by introducing brief mini-games, special environmental weapons, or transformations. I guess that this isn’t really a unique feature; it could be provided by standard quests as well.

HiddenNick.7206:

1. Keep number of buttons at a minimum – I imagine that this has it’s benefits. But to some degree! Why there is no quick use bar yet? (for miniatures and consumables) How is that helpful?

This isn’t a design principle; the design principle is to keep a certain number of skills, not buttons.

That being said, I wouldn’t have anything against this.

HiddenNick.7206:

2. No standard MMO Quests – so my issue with this is tied directly with answer to the following question:

What do you like more: Quests or Hearts? Objectives and mechanics are similar… Problem is that there is no story or lore tied to the hearts (or it’s at minimum). And that makes them so horribly boring. Also the world feels so empty with just a few hearts there and no one that you can talk to.

There is story tied to the Hearts, if you speak with a Scout. They tell the story of the area.

Also, I’d say it depends on what the quest is being used for:

For general things (gathering, killing ect) I prefer Hearts and Events; Hearts because they give you multiple ways of being able to help the NPC out, and Events because they’re more immersive than ‘kill 10 bandits who are causing us trouble by just standing around’.

For long, over-arching storylines and mini-storylines, I prefer the traditional questing system (without the arrows and markers telling you where to go).

i agree with quick buttons for consumable.
prefer the heart for the above mentioned reasons.
no need for a quest journal since there is no quest in the game. maybe personal story line made optional would be nice.
the text boss for world event i find it very useful. and btw i look often in the middle of the screen, not in the upper right corner, so i don’t know what the problem is there. resizing ui may help

Hearts have one advantage over traditional MMO quests (by which I mean, “talk to guy with ! over his head, do his task, come back for the reward.”)

Because you don’t need to backtrack with Hearts, it very much promotes a flow in GW2 that’s missing from most other MMOs – you can just pick a direction and keep on going, doing stuff along the way. Just keep exploring, no need to go back to town.

This gives quite a feeling of adventure and freedom.

As for the Heart quests themselves, I agree that they need to be less grindy and more meaningful / story-based.

i find it somewhat amusing that people are citing the lack of meaning, or story-base, with the hearts. i talk to the heart people, i listen to their conversation with each other, and i know EXACTLY what’s going on in their little corner of the world — as well, sometimes, as their neighbor’s, or their friend in another zone …

the fact that you don’t do this doesn’t mean the story isn’t there.

My problem with heart quests is that they don’t really make quests any different, it’s still the same kill 10 centaurs or gather 10 bags of whatever… What they don’t do though is give you a compelling reason to check out other places, you just happen upon them while exploring.

What if there is some totally awesome place in the game that is hard to find? Am I expected to hug every nook and cranny of this game to look for areas? Does this game expect me to use Wiki as part of my personal arsenal to find fun things?

I would much rather get a quest in an outpost with a compelling story and have an actual adventure, where I discover the world through a story/quest.

TheDaiBish.9735:

There is story tied to the Hearts, if you speak with a Scout. They tell the story of the area.

Are you serious?! Those dialogues are plain simple and they DONT tell any worth reading story.

I’m in agreement that the hearts for the most part are lack-luster. The biggest pro to them I find is the removal of useless ‘back and forth’ quests outside of the personal story. You know the ones I’m talking about. The quests of ‘Go kill 10 badgers. Now go give the skins to my friend. He’ll likely send you back to me with what he owes me.’ Their main job though is to help direct you through the world, which I think they do their job superbly. ’I’m level x, where should I go next. I should probably go to level x heart since I’m still not high enough to complete my story mission’.

I think one of the biggest things people often forget is that the Hearts weren’t even part of the original design for the game. Originally the entire game was meant to be played by Orr, in that you were supposed to follow Event chains through the world as they progressed, watching as those stories unfolded before your eyes.

The hearts were implemented because the Devs found at the Demo booths at conventions, players would ignore areas or be utterly lost as to where to go next in terms of playable content for their characters. The Hearts are supposed act as guides on which area is suitable for you to level up in next and what level range you should expect from the Dynameic Events in them. They’re also generally anchors, where many Dynamic Events either lead to or begin at.

Long story short, they’re training wheels for when you get to Orr where you have to learn how to progress through the map. I think the problem is that because they’re everywhere but Orr, it would have been better to slowly ween them out of the higher level areas before Orr before having them disappear entirely.

This is what makes GW2 different and I love it. No quests whatsoever, no exclamation marks. Huge score for ANet in my humble opinion.

TheDaiBish.9735:

HiddenNick.7206:

1. Keep number of buttons at a minimum – I imagine that this has it’s benefits. But to some degree! Why there is no quick use bar yet? (for miniatures and consumables) How is that helpful?

This isn’t a design principle; the design principle is to keep a certain number of skills, not buttons.

That being said, I wouldn’t have anything against this.

HiddenNick.7206:

2. No standard MMO Quests – so my issue with this is tied directly with answer to the following question:

What do you like more: Quests or Hearts? Objectives and mechanics are similar… Problem is that there is no story or lore tied to the hearts (or it’s at minimum). And that makes them so horribly boring. Also the world feels so empty with just a few hearts there and no one that you can talk to.

There is story tied to the Hearts, if you speak with a Scout. They tell the story of the area.

Also, I’d say it depends on what the quest is being used for:

For general things (gathering, killing ect) I prefer Hearts and Events; Hearts because they give you multiple ways of being able to help the NPC out, and Events because they’re more immersive than ‘kill 10 bandits who are causing us trouble by just standing around’.

For long, over-arching storylines and mini-storylines, I prefer the traditional questing system (without the arrows and markers telling you where to go).

Not only the scouts, if you talk to heart NPCs before completing the hearts they’ll usually tell you who they are, what are they doing there, and the different ways you can help.

HiddenNick.7206:

TheDaiBish.9735:

There is story tied to the Hearts, if you speak with a Scout. They tell the story of the area.

Are you serious?! Those dialogues are plain simple and they DONT tell any worth reading story.

And traditional quests do?

The text is practically the same.

“Oh, we’ve been having trouble with so and so, can you thin their numbers out?”

“Oh, the camp just North of here is having trouble with so and so, and the camp to the West is a bit short on hands to help gather stuff. Maybe you can help them out?”

Please explain how these are any different?

I do miss questing in GW2. The renown hearts were fun, but not exactly the same. In other games I’ve played, quests ranged from novice level to grandmaster. I would compare the renown hearts to simple, easy quests where you kill a few foe or gather some resources to help out some people. There is usually limited dialogue.

In a grandmaster-type quest for instance, you have a full-length story. Usually the quest involves talking to many different characters to gain clues about the mission. It can include puzzles to be solved in order to gain access to hidden rooms. The dialogue tends to be a lot more interesting because the storyline is developed over the course of the quest. Sometimes you might get a cryptic message or have to collect items to use in some special manner to continue the quest. Again logical reasoning or puzzle-solving skills come into play. Those are the sorts of quests I miss in GW2.

I’m sure most people who play GW2 are not questers and are perfectly happy with renown hearts. That’s fine with me; I’m not expecting Anet to suddenly bring quests into the game. They have a right to create the game as they like. I’m just responding to above posters who seem to think that renown hearts are just like quests. Not all quests are created equal.

TheDaiBish.9735:

HiddenNick.7206:

TheDaiBish.9735:

There is story tied to the Hearts, if you speak with a Scout. They tell the story of the area.

Are you serious?! Those dialogues are plain simple and they DONT tell any worth reading story.

And traditional quests do?

The text is practically the same.

“Oh, we’ve been having trouble with so and so, can you thin their numbers out?”

“Oh, the camp just North of here is having trouble with so and so, and the camp to the West is a bit short on hands to help gather stuff. Maybe you can help them out?”

Please explain how these are any different?

So hearts are exactly how you describe them. How quests are different? There is story tied to every single quest. And a bunch of quests can form a chain with long and compelling story.

For examples check out these:
http://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/List_of_hearts_in_Diessa_Plateau
(simple tasks without any story tied to it – heart tasks aren’t tied together in any way)
http://www.wowwiki.com/Grizzly_Hills_quests
(long chains of tasks with long and compelling story tied to every chain)

Single WoW, Rift or SWTOR quest isn’t much different then heart task. But as a whole quests are able to tell compelling stories. And hearts aren’t able to do that.

HiddenNick.7206:

TheDaiBish.9735:

HiddenNick.7206:

TheDaiBish.9735:

There is story tied to the Hearts, if you speak with a Scout. They tell the story of the area.

Are you serious?! Those dialogues are plain simple and they DONT tell any worth reading story.

And traditional quests do?

The text is practically the same.

“Oh, we’ve been having trouble with so and so, can you thin their numbers out?”

“Oh, the camp just North of here is having trouble with so and so, and the camp to the West is a bit short on hands to help gather stuff. Maybe you can help them out?”

Please explain how these are any different?

So hearts are exactly how you describe them. How quests are different? There is story tied to every single quest. And a bunch of quests can form a chain with long and compelling story.

For examples check out these:
http://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/List_of_hearts_in_Diessa_Plateau
(simple tasks without any story tied to it – heart tasks aren’t tied together in any way)
http://www.wowwiki.com/Grizzly_Hills_quests
(long chains of tasks with long and compelling story tied to every chain)

Single WoW, Rift or SWTOR quest isn’t much different then heart task. But as a whole quests are able to tell compelling stories. And hearts aren’t able to do that.

Mmm… SOME quests have long and compelling story lines, others are as uninteresting as a nice portion of the heart quests. In this game as far as I can tell They’re just divided into the (usually) more nondescript quests, and living stories. So you have the same lore and chains to follow like in WoW and then a freer version of collect x amount or kill x amount quests.

TheDaiBish.9735”

the design principle is to keep a certain number of skills, not buttons.

Another big reason I like GW2. But I wouldn’t mind more optional buttons. Aren’t there mods though? (Haven’t been playing long… And on that basis you can also slam me for putting forward opinions.)

ShadowSkulkerer.8539:

HiddenNick.7206:

TheDaiBish.9735:

HiddenNick.7206:

TheDaiBish.9735:

There is story tied to the Hearts, if you speak with a Scout. They tell the story of the area.

Are you serious?! Those dialogues are plain simple and they DONT tell any worth reading story.

And traditional quests do?

The text is practically the same.

“Oh, we’ve been having trouble with so and so, can you thin their numbers out?”

“Oh, the camp just North of here is having trouble with so and so, and the camp to the West is a bit short on hands to help gather stuff. Maybe you can help them out?”

Please explain how these are any different?

So hearts are exactly how you describe them. How quests are different? There is story tied to every single quest. And a bunch of quests can form a chain with long and compelling story.

For examples check out these:
http://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/List_of_hearts_in_Diessa_Plateau
(simple tasks without any story tied to it – heart tasks aren’t tied together in any way)
http://www.wowwiki.com/Grizzly_Hills_quests
(long chains of tasks with long and compelling story tied to every chain)

Single WoW, Rift or SWTOR quest isn’t much different then heart task. But as a whole quests are able to tell compelling stories. And hearts aren’t able to do that.

Mmm… SOME quests have long and compelling story lines, others are as uninteresting as a nice portion of the heart quests. In this game as far as I can tell They’re just divided into the (usually) more nondescript quests, and living stories. So you have the same lore and chains to follow like in WoW and then a freer version of collect x amount or kill x amount quests.

Your just trying to cheer yourself up… But that’s not the point. I’m right – there isn’t a single reason to keep hearts. They aren’t better at anything!

Overall I like heart-quests better than regular quests. With the old quests, I never read any of the dialogues. I just accepted everything, and filled my quest log with things-to-do.

With heart-quests, I get to explore while doing the quest automatically. It feels less of a chore. And I also like not having to talk to someone to get the quest, or talk to someone to get the reward. The rewards get mailed right to me. I think that’s great!

But heart-quests aren’t without flaws. There are many heart-quests that repeat the same activities, and there are quite a few that have repetitive tasks. The typical kill-10-rats idea is still there. And I hate that.

What I also dislike, is how disconnected heart-quests feel from the world. They don’t feel part of an overall story. Just some random chore some npc wants you to do. I wish they were a bit more involving. Rather than just tending to a farmer’s garden, I want to do something exciting.

As for quests that chain into long stories we have meta-events and some regular events. Most of them don’t do a great job at storytelling but some do in fact substitute fully the kind of quests cited by rosenmyst.

Nonsense:

Having 400 in crafting (light, medium, heavy) armor and having to pay some NPC to repair it for you!?

Rosen Myst.7641:

In a grandmaster-type quest for instance, you have a full-length story. Usually the quest involves talking to many different characters to gain clues about the mission. It can include puzzles to be solved in order to gain access to hidden rooms. The dialogue tends to be a lot more interesting because the storyline is developed over the course of the quest.

You are describing the personal story. Anything else you miss belonged to a different MMO, which I am fine if ANet is trying to develop their own thing and doesn’t copy others.

HiddenNick.7206:

So here is my list of design principals that ANet keeps sticking with – even tho most of the people playing the game must know that they are wrong:

1. Keep number of buttons at a minimum – I imagine that this has it’s benefits. But to some degree! Why there is no quick use bar yet? (for miniatures and consumables) How is that helpful?

I love the minimal look, but I would also very much like a utility belt with maybe 4 slots for food and other gear that I never use because its in my inventory and not where I can see it. F5-F8 seems like a good bind point too.

HiddenNick.7206:

2. No standard MMO Quests – so my issue with this is tied directly with answer to the following question:
What do you like more: Quests or Hearts? Objectives and mechanics are similar… Problem is that there is no story or lore tied to the hearts (or it’s at minimum). And that makes them so horribly boring. Also the world feels so empty with just a few hearts there and no one that you can talk to.

Hearts aren’t quests. Hearts are a way to draw people to were Dynamic Events are occuring and to encourage them to stick to the area long enough to maybe partake of them. Dynamic Events are ArenaNet’s answer to Quests.

Personally I don’t like quests. I find most quests in most MMOs to be a dumb and uninteresting way to give you Minor Gear Improvement Item X. Even though there is about as much diversity in Dynamic Events as there is in standard Quests, I prefer them.

That said, I would very much like to see more advanced Quests that send you all over the place and possibly involve instances, not unlike the personal story, but with a more open world feel. Epic Quests with a story and a major reward at the end can be very appealing.

HiddenNick.7206:

3. No standard Quest journal – really ANet? That huge brick of text at the right side of the screen is better then RPG style journal?! How? In what universe?

With no quests it makes sense there is no quest journal, obviously. Either way, the brick of “activites” does and has needed a lot of work since the beginning.

The reason traditional quests are superior to heart quests IMO is it allows the quest to stay with the player, and longer quest chains even go through multiple zones; instead of being confined to a specific area on a map.

This game essentially has one traditional quest, the personal story.

Latorn.4209:

This game essentially has one traditional quest, the personal story.

Thank God! Or better yet, Thank ANet! I hate questing. I think hearts give enough fun to do on that area and that is it. If you are trying to tell a story through questing, then the personal story is the way to do it. It is shaped by your choices, it creates an instance of the world specifically for you, none of that is possible through traditional questing. It is perfect.

Other than that, any other “secondary” quests are simply a bunch of kill X of Y or bring me X of Y. In that case, the hearts make perfect sense. So you are helping a bunch of Asurans who are studying something somewhere but they are being attacked by skales. You don’t need a quest for that. You just happen to be on the region and you decide you’ll help the Asuran team. So it is a local event. Perhaps you are complaining that there are no dialogs for “helping the Asurans”, that is true. But the story behind every Heart is sent to you by mail. Maybe ANet could change it so you had to talk to the Heart NPC to complete the Heart. Maybe, but I honestly wouldn’t want ANet to deviate much from that.

The Hearts are the very first model I’ve seen that breaks from the traditional questing from other MMOs. Kudos for doing something new.

Kal Spiro.9745:

Hearts aren’t quests.

That’s true. The only thing that they have in common with quests are some tedious objectives(like kill ten rats).

Hearts are a way to draw people to were Dynamic Events are occuring and to encourage them to stick to the area long enough to maybe partake of them.

Quests could fill the same role. And bring more awesome stories into the game.

To sum it up:
Tedious objectives = Quests and Hearts
Story telling = Quests

So why on god sake stick with the Hearts?! Because they are different?!

HiddenNick.7206:

So why on god sake stick with the Hearts?! Because they are different?!

Advert Paperer.7059:

HiddenNick.7206:

Why are hearts better than standard quests?

Variety of options. You’re trying to earn someone’s trust, affection, esteem, whatever. There’s no reason why you should need to bring them exactly ten wolf pelts. Renown Hearts recognize general “assistance” acts (e.g. defending the local area from hostiles, healing injured people nearby) in addition to the explicitly-stated objectives (e.g. rounding up Moas). The explicit objectives often include several alternatives, just in case players have difficulty with a particular task (or find it boring). It’s often possible to make progress on a Renown Heart while participating in Dynamic Events nearby.

Since heart completion rewards are automatically mailed to the player, there’s no need to backtrack. Players can explore the map and focus on new/undiscovered content. Players who choose to visit the Heart vendors will occasionally find useful (or amusing) consumables, but won’t gain a huge advantage over those who do not.

[+ Since Hearts appear automatically, you do not have to follow a Quest-Route. You do not need to "have the Quest for the Cave" , in Order to explore the cave. In your beloved WoW f.e., there was no motivation to explore at all. It just got you to the wrong place without “having the Quest”, forcing you to walk all the way back to the Quest-Route. ]

Many of the hearts help to relieve monotony by introducing brief mini-games, special environmental weapons, or transformations. I guess that this isn’t really a unique feature; it could be provided by standard quests as well.

+ Hearts can do a lot of story telling.
Guild Wars 2 could definitely combine a few (great) “classical” Quests with the Heart-mechanism, but there are many reasons to “stick with the hearts”.

HiddenNick.7206:

1. Keep number of buttons at a minimum – I imagine that this has it’s benefits. But to some degree! Why there is no quick use bar yet? (for miniatures and consumables) How is that helpful?

But let’s be perfectly honest here: how often do you eat food? I consume food, artisan oils etc. every 30 minutes, max. The inventory is just one button away.

It would be a different story if I had to go into my inventory every few seconds. There are consumables that we consume a lot more often, but they are ALREADY on the quick use bar: they were turned into skills. (Elixirs, kits to equip – sorry my main is an engineer so this is the engineers perspective, but other classes have similar skills. It doesn’t matter if you call it potion/elixir or prayer if it has the same effect.)
So yes, you have healing potions on your quick bar already, AND an unlimited supply of them. (Show some gratitude?)
You also already have a button swap weapon sets.

An additional item quick bar wouldn’t hurt (as long as it could be disabled for people who play on smaller screens) but I certainly don’t see it as a necessity, let along an obvious one.

HiddenNick.7206:

Problem is that there is no story or lore tied to the hearts (or it’s at minimum). And that makes them so horribly boring. Also the world feels so empty with just a few hearts there and no one that you can talk to.

This makes me wonder whether we have been playing the same game. There is a ton of lore going on in hearts as well as other NPC dialogues. Every NPC has their own little viewpoint, their own little window into the wealth of information. I missed most of this on my first run through the world because I was too busy chasing rewards and didn’t take the time to stop and listen and engage with the NPCs. Maybe you’re doing the same?

HiddenNick.7206:

3. No standard Quest journal – really ANet? That huge brick of text at the right side of the screen is better then RPG style journal?! How? In what universe?

I love how you stumble into situations, hear that something’s going on nearby, the “huge brick” is more than subtle enough for me (I wish I could keep more than 2 of them expanded, actually).

And the things that are supposed to be life-changers, in terms of lore questing, are kept track of in your personal story chapters.

Bottom line, what you call obvious flaws I don’t see as flaws. People are different and have different preferences. Maybe many people would prefer GW2 to be more like WOW. I know many people who don’t.

Kal Spiro.9745:

Hearts aren’t quests. Hearts are a way to draw people to were Dynamic Events are occuring and to encourage them to stick to the area long enough to maybe partake of them. Dynamic Events are ArenaNet’s answer to Quests.

I hadn’t thought of it in this specific way, but it makes total sense. Thank you!

Advert Paperer.7059:

Variety of options. You’re trying to earn someone’s trust, affection, esteem, whatever. There’s no reason why you should need to bring them exactly ten wolf pelts. Renown Hearts recognize general “assistance” acts (e.g. defending the local area from hostiles, healing injured people nearby) in addition to the explicitly-stated objectives (e.g. rounding up Moas). The explicit objectives often include several alternatives, just in case players have difficulty with a particular task (or find it boring). It’s often possible to make progress on a Renown Heart while participating in Dynamic Events nearby.

This ^ I really like the way the hearts are implemented. Yes, many of them have tasks like “kill n of x” but there is always alternatives, and some of them are completely different: barter with jotuns, escape the bunnies…