Guild Wars 2

If you put a donkey at location A and a big juicy exotic carrot at location B, within sight of the donkey, what do you expect to happen? …Right, the donkey heads for the carrot along the path that gets him to the destination in the shortest time or along the path of least resistance.

This donkey/carrot design was fine in early RPG games such as Bard’s Tale, Wizardry etc. because those games were almost completely linear: In order to reach the carrot, you had to go through and experience every location in the game. But, it is not so good in a game such as Guild Wars 2 that (sort of) wants you to explore and experience the game as a virtual world. I say “sort of”, because there are all manner of things in the game to speed the donkey on it’s direct route to the carrot (XP from everything, XP on all food, boosts, kill streaks…), so that you can more easily ignore even more of the distractions (content) along the route.

There was a lot of talk during GW2 development that levels don’t really matter – endgame begins at level 1 and you can always come back to experience the content that you missed later (after you have got your exotic carrots presumably). Of course you can do that, but what do you get out of it? The downscaling has limited effectiveness since you are downscaled to 2 levels over the content and have traits, armor etc. that make you invulnerable. My ranger pet is capable of winning most downscaled encounters on it’s own (which probably explains to some extent the high incidence of ranger bots). And, of course, the major reason people won’t go back to do low level content is that the rewards are much less, which essentially is what pushes everyone into grinding for their exotic carrots in the same limited places.

How about alts, then? Well that’s what I’m doing and I think it is the only way of keeping the game vibrant. But, if you are going to play alts and adopt an exploring style, whilst not grinding the high level events you can essentially say good bye to getting any of the high level rewards in the game at least any time this decade.

Arenanet have innovated extensively in Guild Wars 2 and it’s a wonderful game in so many ways. But, I do feel that to add all that content and then to incentivise players into ignoring most of it in favour of grinding a few high level events is the major flaw of the PvE design and needs to be addressed.

Please note if u don’t read anything else in the post: This is intended to be constructive criticism and certainly not some blanket condemnation of the game – which is great and we are all hoping will get even better – otherwise why are you still here?…

The solution is simple, and ANet have already implemented it.

To continue your analogy, when the donkey starts to walk directly towards the carrot they beat it with a big stick until it turns away. Simple.

rocoqo, when you go back to do lower level content, the rewards are not always low level. If that were the case there wouldn’t be so many people complaining that when they go to low level areas they keep getting high level drops and don’t get the low level drops they want for crafting.

Where do you draw the line between high end drops as an incentive the high level player looking for loot, and low drops as an incentive the high level player looking for mats?

As the post above proves, whatever ANet do is going to be ‘wrong’.

Kaz.5430:

rocoqo, when you go back to do lower level content, the rewards are not always low level. If that were the case there wouldn’t be so many people complaining that when they go to low level areas they keep getting high level drops and don’t get the low level drops they want for crafting.

Where do you draw the line between high end drops as an incentive the high level player looking for loot, and low drops as an incentive the high level player looking for mats?

As the post above proves, whatever ANet do is going to be ‘wrong’.

It actually works like this:

Since drops are individualized, the weapon/armor/items drops are somewhat appropriate for your level, at least to some extent. I do tend to get item drops a couple of levels below my actual level, so those drops seem to be a bit lower than they would be when I’m playing in an area where I’m not down scaled.

All crafting nodes yield the same results as they would if you were at the correct level for the area (1-15 areas yield copper etc), these don’t differ at all for higher level players … and all drops of rare materials from mobs are the also the same as if you were levelling through the area. So I’ve no idea why people should complain that they can’t farm the materials they want in low level areas.

Further the karma/gold rewards from dynamic events, hearts etc. are also not scaled up if you are higher level, they remain the same as they would have been if you had been levelling through this area. On the other hand travel costs for higher level players are just as high as they are in higher level areas…

So you can see that as things stand there is no reason for high level players to do lower level areas, when they are trying to get their exotic items. And that’s the reason that level 80 players all crowd into a single area even though their toons have probably not seen more than 1/2 the content in the game.

The nice thing is, this seems to be easily fixable in a patch (should ANet agree).

roqoco, I agree. Why not make EVERYTHING scalable , it makes more sense. If you want me to explore, incentivise me to explore. Vistas, PoIs, waypoint discovery, etc. should scale. This would really set GW2 apart even more than it already has, because, let’s face it, most MMOs don’t do a a very good job of this. Actually, most games don’t in general don’t. The more I think about it, why don’t RPGs scale everything? We may be on to something here…

Now it sounds like a big patch as well as some rethinking, but I like it. Get on it guys.

this is one of my major complaints too and i was really disappointed when i realised that the “everything is endgame”-talk was just a nice lie.

i wonder who had the idea that events and story rewards shouldnt scale with your true level.

@DNickB. @RashanDale.

Yes, scaling karma & gold rewards to player level as well as items (currently only these are scaled up as mentioned previously) would seem to be an improvement and would help to alleviate the bottlenecks at level cap. And as Dnick said would surely be a reasonably straightforward thing to do.

However, I wonder if there might be a more complete solution, than just scaling everything to level, if one asks exactly what exotic and prestige rewards should be for. Surely the answer is that players should be rewarded for participating in the gameplay over a long period: Prestige/exotic rewards should act as a motivation for visiting every nook and cranny of the game and doing all the content, whether that be with a single toon or with multiple alts. Whether players do some particular event (or whatever) whilst levelling up or whether they do it at level cap should really make no difference to the reward contribution… And prestige/exotic rewards absolutely shouldn’t be there to encourage players to rush to level cap in the shortest possible time and then farm a very limited area of the game for a very long time.

If you agree with the above, then you have to question why things like the karma rewards for dynamic events increase as you move to higher level areas. You don’t do anything more at higher levels to contribute to an event than you did at lower levels and higher level events aren’t essentially any more challenging, given your increased level, than events were at lower levels.

So, if karma is to be used as a prestige/exotic reward currency (lets ignore it’s other less important functions for the sake of argument) then there’s no reason why the quantity you earn should be scaled down at early levels in the first place! Giving full karma for events in early areas would be of major benefit in attracting players back into those areas and also you could start earning karma on alts immediately just by playing the game in the way that altaholics enjoy.

roqoco.4053:

The downscaling has limited effectiveness since you are downscaled to 2 levels over the content.

Only 2 levels?

Here’s a fun exercise: go to local vendors and purchase level-appropriate weapons for the area. Compare your damage before and after.

Downscaling is a poorly implemented mechanic, likely due to adding 80 levels to cater to the fans of older MMOs.

PuffballPink.6035:

roqoco.4053:

The downscaling has limited effectiveness since you are downscaled to 2 levels over the content.

Only 2 levels?

Here’s a fun exercise: go to local vendors and purchase level-appropriate weapons for the area. Compare your damage before and after.

Downscaling is a poorly implemented mechanic, likely due to adding 80 levels to cater to the fans of older MMOs.

Well I don’t think we are disagreeing about anything here – although nominally 2 levels over the content your gear and traits as a level 80 put you way over level to get the slightest challenge from the content.

There seems to be some schizophrenia about what downscaling is actually for. Originally, in that long video on dynamic events Eric Flannum said that the purpose of downscaling was so that high level players could not return to low level areas and spoil the fun by one shotting low level enemies, but they’d still be much stronger than the content. It’s arguable with a level 80 in say Queensdale whether even that goal has been achieved.

Anyway see my op: Carrying The Burden Of Grenth (Hard Mode) for a possible way these issues might be addressed.

this seems to be something of a personal issue not a game wide issue. the other day i had our lowest level guildy pick a map where they were leveling and we had an entire guild group run through and play along with them, i didnt feel over powered in these zones except the rare instances where i was actually 2 lvls above the area…but it seemed fine to me .

also i believe this is a nasty habit of some gamers to look at the carrot and not the grass everywhere around them which is just as healthy and sometimes tastier…ok i lost a little on that analogy but what i am getting at is:

play for fun enjoy the content who cares about exotics and such who cares if it takes you till next decade, enjoy using your abilities to kill things. challenge yourself by trying to solo champions or trying to find new areas in maps you never went too. i see the carrot but i also see the grass and ill get the carrot eventually maybe even by accident while i am gobbling up all this tasty grass.

@Psychrome: So, if I understand you correctly, you ran a zerg of high level players through a low level area and at no time did you feel over powered? That’s very interesting. And thanks for the advice on how to have fun in the game, I’m sure that will be extremely useful and it’s always nice to know about a person’s eating habits.

not really a zerg per se about 8 of us and half the time we all were ADD and running around different directions but yeah it doesnt feel that over powered mean it still takes a bit to kill some of these big baddies and the regular trash stuff doesnt drop in miliseconds but id does die fast but that is probably because it was a decent size group not because we have some overpowered gear. hehe and yeah gotta eat your veggies:)

Psychrome.9281:

not really a zerg per se about 8 of us and half the time we all were ADD and running around different directions but yeah it doesnt feel that over powered mean it still takes a bit to kill some of these big baddies and the regular trash stuff doesnt drop in miliseconds but id does die fast but that is probably because it was a decent size group not because we have some overpowered gear. hehe and yeah gotta eat your veggies:)

When you get to level 80 it’s likely that there will be many areas of the game that you haven’t yet completed. So the question you have to ask yourself, if you want to complete the content with that toon (rather than say farm mats & items in Orr) is: Is it going to be fun and challenging to explore the rest of the map on this level 80 character? Well, since the content you missed was really designed for low level characters with less skills doing the content for the first time, I think you will have to agree that it’s going to be quite a bit easier with your level 80 toon (and the balance is such ATM that open world PvE isn’t exactly hard the first time around). But what many of us are really looking for from “endgame” (i.e. anything we do after level 80) is experiences that are more challenging not less challenging – particularly since by now we should have L2Ped our class at least to some extent.

improve downleveling (make it more challenging)
improve DE scaling
improve rewards when downleveled
fix old bugs
add new DE’s

problem solved. you have a world that feels alive. as long as people have a reason to go back. right now, there is none. dungeons are nice, but i aint grinding Orr and dragons with bad AI.

i dunno. i don’t need a carrot. the game’s fun to play so i play it. getting lvl80 stuff dropping is a nice bonus but not the goal.

Voltar.8574:

i dunno. i don’t need a carrot. the game’s fun to play so i play it. getting lvl80 stuff dropping is a nice bonus but not the goal.

Well – if you read the op carefully, it isn’t about getting more carrots, rather it’s about making different ways of playing the game viable after you get to level cap.

Currently the amount of PvE content for level 80s is quite limited, so that players rub around a restricted area and that leads to just farming for gold, materials, karma etc.

Perhaps a more fun option than farming after you reach level 80 and have had your fill of Orr and Frostgorge, might be to complete the areas you missed on the way up to cap and fully explore the map. However, your level 80 toon is really much too strong for those early areas (even when down scaled) so that rather detracts from the fun – what many people really want after level 80 is a little more challenge rather than less. Since by that time they should know their skills a bit better.

What’s a little ironic about people complaining that there’s nothing to do for endgame – is that there is actually a lot of content that they mostly haven’t done, they are just too high level to do it now. So what I’m saying is that Arenanet should leverage the large amount of content they put in the game a bit better.

Also, I know its very worthy and all that to say that one should seek and not ask for any reward (save that of knowing you’re not a greedy farmer), but OTH rewards are fun as well and why should they be restricted (or so much easier to obtain) to players who play the game in a particular way, especially considering that intensive farming is a restricted and somewhat myopic way of playing the game that can interfere with other player’s enjoyment of the content.