Guild Wars 2

DISCLAIMER::

This topic is an attempt help players better understand and remove certain “misconceptions” about game development ~as well as clean up player suggestions and point people in a more productive direction when submitting ideas.

Thread Start

Ok, so I’m sure we’ve all been there.. when someone suggests an idea that ticks you off because it’s either based on a general/overused sentiment.. or seems like nothing more than Hyperbole.

A good example is when someone says..

This game isn’t rewarding!

People assume, you’re talking about the need to have a “Gear Treadmill” in the game ~ via adding “tier” loot, like you would find in your typical “raid” MMO.

This of course is nothing more than a common misconception.

Other than “Gated Content” ~ What most people are actually talking about is the lack of “Challenge”. #(whether or not, they realize it).

So what is challenge?

Simply put, it’s the main reason “Hardcore” servers are popular.. where if your character dies “once”.. it’s over! ~ time to make a new character.

What I’m talking about, is that “rush” you get when you’re loosing a fight.. not because the mob has stupid amounts of HP or because he hits like a truck, but because he requires actual skill to kill.. because he pushes your limits.. and if you “fail” there’s legitimately something valuable “on the line”.

This comes in the form of rare spawns.. raid bosses with weekly lockouts and of course, perma-death servers.

At the end of the day, it has almost nothing to do with the “+1 Great Axe of 1337 skill” the mob drops.. as you could just as easily replace it with any other cosmetic trophy (e_Peen symbol) and people would be just as happy.

Why?

Because of what the mob/dungeon/event represents.. and that it doesn’t respawn every 10 minutes or even every 4 hours.. yet with it’s defeat.. yields the promise of more “challenging content”.

So if you win, you’ll throw your arms up in the air and proclaim victory over all other living things!

Thus pushing you towards your next “challenge”.

Keep in mind, that the game still needs “normal” content.. to maintain the balance.. cause some people play games, to relax.. and don’t want to “fight for their life” every time they aggro a mob.

This my friend is WHY many people are walking away from much of the content in GW2 or just simply blowing it off entirely::
1. Dungeons?… what’s the point?.. anyone can “do” them.
2. Does that event have a chest at the end?.. no? then I’m not interested.

Simply put… GW2 is NOT challenging, thus trivializes the content into people only caring about the “easiest way” to get something.

At this point, it wouldn’t be too farfetched to say that GW2 is NOT fun.

Now, before egos get hurt and knights start brandishing their blades ~ I ask you to consider ONE THING.. keeping the above statement, in mind.

~ Why is League of Legends considered “fun” when there’s only one tournament style map, characters are limited to 4 abilities, 2 spells.. and the entire first half of each match consists of nothing more than “farming” PvE?

Quite simply.. it’s because of::
1. PvP balance via Profile levels and Elo.
2. Player Progression utilizing the IP/Runes.
3. Potential “challenge” of pwning teh nubs!.. or getting your own face melted.
4. Options in available champion pool, summoner spells and character builds.

Basically, LoL has everything GW2 is after (minus the foam-at the mouth, rabid playerbase).

Finally, I’d like you to consider these few videos for reference when submitting ideas about combat balance, dynamic events and dungeons.

Power Creep:
http://penny-arcade.com/patv/episode/power-creep

Game Design: How to?
http://youtu.be/8FpigqfcvlM

Game Design: for better?.. or worse?
http://youtu.be/Aip2aIt0ROM
___________________________

If you would like to see my own take on improving GW2 utilizing “challenge” ~ please feel free to check out my suggestion::
https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/game/suggestions/Combat-Dynamic-Events-what-s-the-point-if-they-re-easy-mode/page/1

Wait…. did you write [STICKY] in the title? Wassup with that?

Is the point of this thread to tell the GW2 devs how to design GW2? Because I think you may be a year or two late for that.

ccrazool.2905:

Wait…. did you write [STICKY] in the title? Wassup with that?

Is the point of this thread to tell the GW2 devs how to design GW2? Because I think you may be a year or two late for that.

Please read the “DISCLAIMER”.

I think everything you said after the word Sticky is going to be ignored by a lot of ppl.

Some good points. Just don’t think you can suggest a fundamental change to the philosophy of the game. All I can really take away from this post is: go play LoL.

springelf.9236:

I think everything you said after the word Sticky is going to be ignored by a lot of ppl.

Yep, that’s why I put “STICKY” in the title.
Perhaps the mods will make it “official”

springelf.9236:

Some good points. Just don’t think you can suggest a fundamental change to the philosophy of the game. All I can really take away from this post is: go play LoL.

GW2 has ALWAYS been stated to be designed around fun.. and to quote a dev.
“The boss doesn’t care that I’m there, cause he respawns 10 mins later”

Realistically, this entire thread was written utilizing the philosophy stated in the Manifesto. (IE: I’m not trying to change anything).

This. I’ve put down GW2 to play Dark Souls, and I feel like ANet can learn a lot from that game about rewarding content. I’m not suggesting that all content needs to be hard – but there should be enemies that only the most skilled players can take down AND be rewarded appropriately with a unique weapon/armor skin.

lacrimstein.5603:

This. I’ve put down GW2 to play Dark Souls, and I feel like ANet can learn a lot from that game about rewarding content. I’m not suggesting that all content needs to be hard – but there should be enemies that only the most skilled players can take down AND be rewarded appropriately with a unique weapon/armor skin.

Dark souls?…

lol honestly, I’ve never played the game ~ but have heard from a very vocal crowd, that the game is indeed “challenging”.

Perhaps to help the ANet devs out, you could create your own suggestion thread by writting about some of the things you like most about DS that “might” be compatible with some aspect of GW2?

I’d definitely give your suggestion a read, if you do

Wow.

The first part contains several assumptions that are not in any way proven, anecdotal or not.

How do you know when people want more “content” or “challenge” (not saying gear grind good or bad here) do not want a gear grind?

How do you know Hardcore servers are “popular”? In most games that I know Hardcore style servers tend to be a minority, usually very devoted fans.

You then completely miss the ‘point’ of a risk and reward system. Sure, you got the risk part down but then pretend that the ‘reward’ part does not exist. I am pretty sure that at least the same number of people appreciate the challenge for just being a challenge as do it just for the shiny loot.

I do agree about the general idea of “challenging” content, but GW2 pretty much promised drop-in casual PvE experience. Considering the nature of GW2’s progression, more “challenging” zones might come with time, which I do hope for personally.

Second part of the post is even worse, you make several mocking insults towards people who might have a different opinion then you. You then seem to completely miss the point of LoL’s popularity, starting form the fact that it is a completely different game.

Finally you throw in a few videos on relatively vague design concepts without even explaining their relevance. Good job?

Not even commenting on the fact that you put a fake sticky tag on your own post.

In summary, while I can agree with the relative lack of challenge, this reads more like a badly written blog post.

I agree that GW2 lacks greatly in regards of PvE in difficulty, but I’m pretty sure they will come up with Hard Modes.

There is a lot of people out there who will sadly rage quit over any complicated difficulty, and they are paying customers too.
That’s why having Normal and Hard mode is good rather than making changes to the difficulty just to cater to one part of the audience, while disappointing the other part.

They just need to bring back good ol’ HM.

@Hughs
lol… ya know, I sat here and wrote a WHOLE freak’n article in reply to Red Falcon, trying to elegantly state what you did in so few sentences

Kudos, Mr. Hughs ~ kudos!

…I’m still gonna post my reply tho! XD

Red Falcon.8257:

I agree that GW2 lacks greatly in regards of PvE in difficulty, but I’m pretty sure they will come up with Hard Modes.

There is a lot of people out there who will sadly rage quit over any complicated difficulty, and they are paying customers too.
That’s why having Normal and Hard mode is good rather than making changes to the difficulty just to cater to one part of the audience, while disappointing the other part.

They just need to bring back good ol’ HM.

Hmm, Hard Mode wont really solve anything…
I mean, we’re talking about a problem with the core mechanics here.

IE: Can you REALLY say that Just giving mobs more HP/DMG/ZergAds is gonna make it all better? ~ it’s nothing a few more people spamming aoe’s wont solve.

Basically, GW2 has “casual” content in spades! ~ but what they don’t have, is anything worth “doing” for people that want “more”.

Despite how much they talked about having such content in the Manifesto and all those blogs/diaries leading up into launch.

IE: No, the boss does NOT care that I’m there… he’ll just respawn in 10 mins anyways =/
____________

I guess to look at the bigger picture…
1. WoW = Raids.
2. LoL = Ranked..

*Both are games that’ve successfully catered to casual AND hardcore gamers.
Meanwhile, GW2 doesn’t… for fear of becoming a “typical raid/gear grind mmo”.

It’s almost like they’re holding themselves back…

lol, unless you count Legendaries ~ but those aren’t really challenging ta get..

As all you need is the proper amount of gold / karma ~ I’ve even seen people posting on DAChat about getting their Legendary via spending some cash in RMT sites ta get most the “mats” through the Trading Post.

I guess what I’m getting at.. is that when you look at WoW and Raids or LoL and Ranked… the people right now, that are happy with GW2 seem to be those same people that would never touch a Raid/Ranked ~ thus having that “content”.. isn’t hurting those casuals at all.

However!

I can see how making the dragons more “Epic/Challenging” via bigger map events and mob tactics that prevent spaming, could “annoy” those same casuals…

But at that point, I guess it’s up to ANet in whom they chose to cater too.

Do they want an actual “epic” battle, that’s worthy of youtube videos and livestreams?… or do they just want simple events that anyone can farm?

lol, honestly.. this is an interesting debate.
I’m looking forward ta seeing what direction ANet take.

I think this game would benefit from more rewards/ more challenging rewards via treadmill or otherwise

The only thing that is a challenge in this game is making legendaries, and in all honesty.. we will have chimps on mars before .01% of the population make a legendary(and if anyone already has one, then gg for supporting gold sellers and botting probably.) I find myself realizing why this game doesnt have a monthly p2p, I for one wouldn’t pay for it, having a hard time stomaching it while it is free, almost have the nerve to ask for a refund..

most games these days lack a challenge, a lot of developers ideas of making something challenging is wacking a ton of hp on a monster and making it hit like a truck, instead of focusing on challenging mechanics, dodging certain attacks, knowing when to use a certain skill etc.

I personally don’t like the way Anet do the dungeon rewards, you get a set amount of tokens at the end and thats it, all the loot during the dungeon sucks and there is no chance of getting what your after in the dungeon. It lacks that feeling of, it could drop this time if im lucky and instead replaces it with 20 runs to go, 19 runs to go etc.

It gets mind-numbingly boring farming the same dungeon over and over again so if they insist on keeping the tokens it would probably be a better idea to have dungeon wide tokens instead of a specific token type per dungeon, so if you get bored of one dungeon you can do another without feeling like you are wasting your time because your not working towards the reward you want.

Well, thanks for the support guys ~

Sadly.. the topic was moved to “Linksville” so I doubt it’ll be of any help to people in general discussion or when players are submitting a risk/reward suggestion.