Guild Wars 2

I apologize if this topic has been already been covered somewhere else (If that’s so, feel free to delete this thread and perhaps link me to that, but there’s lots of pages to check through . Not an excuse I know, but still.)

Anyway, with that prefaction, I’d like to talk about the issue of what many people consider as ‘grinding’.

Especially with the addition of Masteries, and the number of XP needed to finish one or another track, the open world content and events might actually feel grindy.

I’ve been playing this game for a year now, and I’m madly in love with it, seriously. I love the aesthetics, I love the events, I love how core Tyria’s quests are made (I do hope we’ll see a return of the renown hearts down the line) but, from what I gathered from other people playing the game too, the content feels grindy, and one of the reasons of this feeling is the lack of ‘pace-breaking’ activities around.

I think I can understand the thought about it: there are activities like this in the game (see the Maguuma Jungle ‘minigames’) and they’re basically just a waypoint away! But that doesn’t really help, because they’re…well, -just- there, as in, they’re locked in those areas, and especially in the maguuma jungle example, half the time they’re down due to the metaevents happening.

Now, you have already plenty of interesting, fun activities – again, the maguuma ones are an example, and the festival activities are a lot of fun as well (The choir bells, just to name one). And I think you can capitalize on that to make the game feel a bit more varied in pacing, with fun rewards helping in keeping the art design team working on in-game acquirable items along with the gemstore items making the itemization feel more balanced, and give players something fun and distracting to do in all the various areas just to break the pace of grinding for events and stuff. Jumping puzzles were a good start, but I do feel we need more.

For example, one thing might be something akin to the choir minigame in all the various major cities, with songs themed along the area, and more than just one instrument (instead of having low/mid/high have lute/harp/bass, for example).

It might come as an heresy, but fishing would be another good way of giving some pace-breaking activity. There’s plenty of rivers and seas in Tyria, after all.

So yes, this kind of stuff, spread across the land so once you leave -THAT- zone, that’s not the only place where you can do that – but it actually becomes another fun thing to do for a collection/reward/etc, that would help making the game feel less grindy and doable closeby where I’m already working for my levels/masteries/etc.

Anyway, this is my suggestion. Thanks for the attention, and I hope I’ll hear some feedback on it! Keep up the great work!

I think you may get your wish, as Anet seems to have abandoned the Manifesto that came out before the games release in favor of typical MMO fare. They have used lore in extremely vague ways, and commenced to implementing 8 bit like game parameters to satiate the fly by night game style off young players, those that frequent free to play games and move on. I liken the new content aims right at this demographic.
The “old time” player that has been around since GW1 can tell you how the game has done a 180 since launch. The release of HoT with (IMHO) juvenile mini games as achievements was just, well, juvenile, and I have not been back there for more than a few minutes since. My purchase of HOT, only to be told i have to farm hero points, to farm masteries, to talk to an NPC that is an inaccessible tree unless you can jump there on a mushroom? Well I find that type of game is more like a Japanese 1980’s knockoff rather than a mature, lore laden, plot driven game like GW2 used to be.
I really feel, and this is my humble opinion, that monies available from the aforementioned demographics combined with the skill set of designers and programmers will continue the current path. I fear the even the bug laden original world will be forgotten(if not already) in favor of this modern toy version of the GW franchise.

To be perfectly honest, I liked the expansion story-wise, and I do understand that in order to achieve a horizontal progression there must be a reason for you to play the content and have rewards tied to it (in this case, the masteries and the hero points for the new specialization). What I’m suggesting doesn’t need to work -against- what GW2 has been, which is a story where the player decisions have some impact (and let’s be honest, they had it, this without spoiling anything) but just something to experience ‘on the side’ along with the main content. I have to admit, I still have faith in anet, even if I’m probably just something akin to the new guy on the block, but the work they did is admirable and still out of what was the standard when the game just went out. And it is true the MMO scene changed in the years after it.

Sligh.2789:

The “old time” player that has been around since GW1 can tell you how the game has done a 180 since launch.

I hate to think of it, as it makes me sad. GW1’s mechanics were not broken at all, but everything about those mechanics have been completely forsaken in this sequel.

It comes to my mind today HoT maps are the perfect example of how the hell should be; eternal struggle in endless cycles. You have no impact on them even you put a lot of efforts as anything effort you put in will be back to zero. Yes I can get new skins and better stat set from the maps. But the world seems to ignore you and run on his own course.

Well, in every map the progress needs to be ‘reset’ at a certain time. Or it would be silly to have an event happen ONCE, affect the world, and then no one else can do it ever again. It’s an MMO, as such some player agency on the main overworld needs to be sacrificed in order for -everyone- to be able to experience the content. If nothing would reset you’d have the impact, but no one else would have the fun you had on that map.

Anyway, what about the suggestion that has been made here? I’d like to know more opinions about that.

I do think it would be nice if there were some general, as well as map-specific games to just pop into to take a break and relax. Preferably you can enter a hub zone or something, like Heart of the Mists, and then go around and play some stuff, or even have things like in HoT maps, but I think one big benefit to the idea of a hub, and to these activities in general, is a lack of rewards. Yes, benefit. I think once you put a reward behind something, aside from just recognition, it becomes grindy and tedious. So I recommend they have mini-games that are just for the sake of relaxation and fun. And to really expound upon that idea, while in them or in the zone, disable all effect duration reductions and so on (food, utility, boosts, map reward progress reset, etc.), so that there’s no pressure. Make this a zone/place that you can go to to get away from time-gated events and/or time-limited buffs that ‘force’ you to do things efficiently to make the best use of them. These mini-game things can be just solo, comparative, or directly competitive between players, preferably a mixture.

I know that these having no rewards may seem like a huge cut to longevity and value in the game, but I think having cool-down things are very valuable for morale and sanity.

As for the concern about the stuff being locked at certain times, check this out:
https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/game/gw2/Suggestion-Explorable-Meta-versions-of-maps/first#post5829245

edit:
Okay, actually, something interesting they could do for rewards, because that would be nice to have… would be progress like in PvP. You have ranks that you earn as you do activities, but doing them multiple times in a row (daily) would give increasingly less toward your rank upgrade. The better you did could also give more towards the rank xp. Basically, even rank upgrade, you can get Transmutation charges, a festivities token redeemable for cosmetic skins, and based on your rank, you could get a title or badge of some sort, either a toggleable aura, the detail and color of which increases as you increase rank; something like the Tyria 100%/League rank/Mastery level badge by your name (getting a bit cluttered); or a fancy player portrait frame when other players see you, and maybe by your health bar. I don’t know, but something purely cosmetic, as this is a mainly cosmetic game, and that just generally shows your progress in a more social/relaxed approach of the game, something that anyone could get without too much intense grind. Maybe even some things that only you can really see, so you can feel accomplished if you invest in this side of the game, but not necessarily a bragging thing; or a few unique cosmetic sets based on rank. Lot of little things they could do I guess.

The rank leveling does sound like an idea too, I do like it. And for certain activities it might be even more suited as a progression style (Like the heres-ehm, fishing, I meant. I still think that is a good idea.) Trans charges and cosmetics, or perhaps just ‘activity specific’ items (which is, you don’t get anything that helps you OUTSIDE of the activity, but inside it) would sound like a good kind of reward.

I’d like to see more mini games. The festivals and living stories were good. But what bothrred me is that all the best content, like all events, is temporarily. More permanent mini games would be amazing! Be it fishing or be it the Jubilee

This is another perfect example of how different people want different stuff. If they divert resources to building more adventures and mini game type content. I would probably start to look for another game. I simple find them…pointless? I have fun doing the content to work towards whatever goal I have set for myself. Whether that is getting mats for crafting a weapon, or map completion, or working towards a mastery.

Little side mini games that do nothing but add fluff, for me, would be considered useless filler. At that point I would rather take a break and play another game. Rather than play a game within a game.

Then again, I am the guy that moved boxes for hours in Shenmue 2 with a forklift.

Well, it’s not like it’d be -disconnected- from the content. We do already have some activities like this (see the bell choir, or the jungle adventures) but they’re just confined to the same spaces, or even just temporary. Bringing them to the rest of Tyria would just help making them more appealing to access and use instead of having to go through waypoint/activity starter/perhaps instance/finish activity/get back to whatever you’re doing.
And the idea would be for them to give a sense of ‘game progression’ too, not to mention with the addition of guild halls and all that stuff there’s plenty of possible rewards usable in the…let’s say ‘main content’?

There’s a thread about Polymock, a minigame that was in GW1, that is actually a good example of what I’m talking about here!
https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/game/gw2/A-Polymock-Idea/first#post5902598

I can see how some people might not like the idea, but if it can help people being less hurt by the grinding, and keep them in game some more, I think it’d be worth a shot.

Good suggestion! I was just thinking I’d like some more middle ground things to do in the game, so not as grindy and heavy as legendary collections, or as easy as getting the armor from just grinding the map. I liked the Luminescent Armor collection for example. They could tie your ideas to these more middle-ground goals and rewards.

That’d be quite amazing, yes, having more middle-tier stuff to just keep people occupied while they’re doing the ‘big things’

jarieleledan.8249:

Well, it’s not like it’d be -disconnected- from the content. We do already have some activities like this (see the bell choir, or the jungle adventures) but they’re just confined to the same spaces, or even just temporary. Bringing them to the rest of Tyria would just help making them more appealing to access and use instead of having to go through waypoint/activity starter/perhaps instance/finish activity/get back to whatever you’re doing.
And the idea would be for them to give a sense of ‘game progression’ too, not to mention with the addition of guild halls and all that stuff there’s plenty of possible rewards usable in the…let’s say ‘main content’?

There’s a thread about Polymock, a minigame that was in GW1, that is actually a good example of what I’m talking about here!
https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/game/gw2/A-Polymock-Idea/first#post5902598

I can see how some people might not like the idea, but if it can help people being less hurt by the grinding, and keep them in game some more, I think it’d be worth a shot.

The HoT adventures are my least favorite content. I despise it. If they added more stuff like that I would very likely find another game. So, for me, I pray they don’t go that direction.