Accessibility vs. Complexity
Early on, the developers used a phrase – “easy to learn, hard to master.” I find that a pretty accurate description of the game and a good design philosophy that allows more people to enjoy the game.
Depends on how unfamiliar with other mmos you are.
If you have played other mmos to any reasonable degree, especially the more squishy classes, GW2 will be a culture shock. Over there you are used to using CC to hold back a couple of mobs to ease on the fight. Over here the CC barely last a couple of seconds, and so can rarely help ease the fight to any solid degree.
In essence, GW2 CC is used to counter big attacks rather than trim the mob herd.
agreed with Blaeys
Depends on how unfamiliar with other mmos you are.
If you have played other mmos to any reasonable degree, especially the more squishy classes, GW2 will be a culture shock. Over there you are used to using CC to hold back a couple of mobs to ease on the fight. Over here the CC barely last a couple of seconds, and so can rarely help ease the fight to any solid degree.
In essence, GW2 CC is used to counter big attacks rather than trim the mob herd.
and that is what makes the combat in this game so much more of a challenge as compared to other MMOs. It is easy to say ok, CC Crown, Square, X, and Circle, DPS down the Skull, then X, Square, circle, crown. Now in GW2, is it people paying attention to the animation of the boss/champion and knowing when to use the CC or knowing when to Dodge
Depends on how unfamiliar with other mmos you are.
If you have played other mmos to any reasonable degree, especially the more squishy classes, GW2 will be a culture shock. Over there you are used to using CC to hold back a couple of mobs to ease on the fight. Over here the CC barely last a couple of seconds, and so can rarely help ease the fight to any solid degree.
In essence, GW2 CC is used to counter big attacks rather than trim the mob herd.
and that is what makes the combat in this game so much more of a challenge as compared to other MMOs. It is easy to say ok, CC Crown, Square, X, and Circle, DPS down the Skull, then X, Square, circle, crown. Now in GW2, is it people paying attention to the animation of the boss/champion and knowing when to use the CC or knowing when to Dodge
Yes, it works when you have a single large target. But when you get 2+ trash mobs, the lack of classic CC results in the game devolving to a kite unless you happen to play a profession who’s weapons auto-attack cleave. Never mind getting a combo of single large target and 2+ trash mobs…
Hrmf, now that i think about it i wonder if the short CC durations where a last minute SPVP change (again). The champs and such already get defiant, meaning that they can’t really be chain-CC’ed anyways, so that can’t be the reason.
(edited by digiowl.9620)
I think there is a general trend to simplify games. WoW has greatly simplified the game and D3 is a much simpler game than D2. Certainly this makes a game easier learn. The simplicity acts as training wheels as when there are less options, there are fewer chances to make big mistakes. There is nothing wrong with making games easy or easier to learn. What you typically sacrifice is character customization and the ability to meaningfully explore builds that have perhaps wildly different playstyles but equal viability. Of course, this doesn’t prevent cookie cutter and fotm builds, but the complexity does typically offer more options.
Here I’m speaking more generally but would include GW2 in this general trend. I understand the design goals and reasons why they would want to simplify games in this manner. There is no need for learning a game to be hard. But, at the same time I miss the richness that complexity offers. Maybe a better balance in games will emerge over time as players react to the trend.
As far as MMOs go this game has a much steeper learning curve than most. For an MMO veteran it seems extremely easy to learn, almost too easy.
But I recently had a friend start playing that has never played MMOs before and just leveling with him and having to explain things to him made me realize this game is a lot more complicated than most MMOs to just pick up and play for a newbie MMO player. It lacks a ton of explanation on how the game mechanics work even simple things like how chat works.
Its actually complicated enough to where the game actually isnt fun unless you have someone telling how the game actually works which means its not really newbie friendly at all.
It lacks a ton of explanation on how the game mechanics work even simple things like how chat works.
I have seen this as well. I have a friend that came over from wow recently. He didn’t know that he could switch weapons in combat until I told him around his 33rd level. That’s a fairly important game mechanic, and it’s contrary to most other MMOs. There may be a little tip at level 7, I don’t remember, but the little tip pop-ups don’t convey the importance of “you can now use 2 sets of weapons.” If I wasn’t such a forum dweller, I probably would have been in the same place when I started.
Early on, the developers used a phrase – “easy to learn, hard to master.” I find that a pretty accurate description of the game and a good design philosophy that allows more people to enjoy the game.
It’s more like “Easy to learn, hard to master, nothing to use your master skills on anyway because nothing is hard”
In general I don’t like this recent trend of simplifying RPGs (MMO and single-player) to try and draw in new players. I don’t think it’s necessary and I think it sends the wrong message about the genre in general and could put people off branching out from their initial game by giving the impression that anything else they try is going to have another very steep learning curve.
But part of that might be because I went completely the other way – I started out playing Eye of the Beholder when I was about 7 years old. Didn’t have a clue what I was doing and I don’t think I ever got past the first section but I loved it anyway and the ability to customise your characters was a big part of that (even if I didn’t know what the options really meant).
But if you’re going to do it I think GW2 has the right approach because a lot of the depth and complexity is still there, but it’s introduced gradually. You start off with a very simple build – 1 weapon skill and one heal – and then work your way up to playing with traits and bonuses from armor sets and so on. By the time you hit level 80 you’ve got most of the options you’d see in any RPG, but you’ve also got enough experience with the game to know what to do with them.
The one thing I do like is that aside from the fairly basic choice of race and profession you’re not stuck with your choices if you don’t like them later on. I think I restarted Dragon Age about 20 times because I kept wanting to adjust my build but the only way to do it was to start over from scratch.
I do think the other option would be to add more stuff at the start/in total and include a tutorial zone to walk players through it, as well as basic options like the various F key functions, dodging, combat basics etc. but it seems Anet and I have very different opinions there. I think they got it exactly right with the Factions and Nightfall tutorials (especially since you could skip it if you wanted to) and they apparently hated feeling like they had to put it in and were determined to avoid it with this game.
Danielle Aurorel, Dear Dragon We Got Your Cookies [Nom], Desolation (EU).
“Life’s a journey, not a destination.”
“Life’s a journey, not a destination.”
Depends on how unfamiliar with other mmos you are.
If you have played other mmos to any reasonable degree, especially the more squishy classes, GW2 will be a culture shock. Over there you are used to using CC to hold back a couple of mobs to ease on the fight. Over here the CC barely last a couple of seconds, and so can rarely help ease the fight to any solid degree.
In essence, GW2 CC is used to counter big attacks rather than trim the mob herd.
and that is what makes the combat in this game so much more of a challenge as compared to other MMOs. It is easy to say ok, CC Crown, Square, X, and Circle, DPS down the Skull, then X, Square, circle, crown. Now in GW2, is it people paying attention to the animation of the boss/champion and knowing when to use the CC or knowing when to Dodge
The distinction should not be easy to describe combat in the other game. I would describe it as an aspect of organized teamwork. As one who applied great CC I would be asked by the leader(s) to apply it differently in the same fight. That there were symbols often, not always, applied doesn’t make the fight easier it makes it organized. This was the tactical expression of battle strategy. (This is how IRL combat is performed.) Always good to know not to DPS the target that’s to be CC’d. What you are describing is organized teamwork. It shouldn’t be dismissed as something easy or inferior as a standard for group play.
I have seen this as well. I have a friend that came over from wow recently. He didn’t know that he could switch weapons in combat until I told him around his 33rd level. That’s a fairly important game mechanic, and it’s contrary to most other MMOs. There may be a little tip at level 7, I don’t remember, but the little tip pop-ups don’t convey the importance of “you can now use 2 sets of weapons.” If I wasn’t such a forum dweller, I probably would have been in the same place when I started.
Yea other things that arent explained are how the bank works, using different weapons to unlock the abilities of that weapon, karma vendors, skill combos, trait manuals, boons/conditions the list goes on.
Like I said, if you’ve played other MMOs before this seems like a no brainer, but after actually having to explain a bunch of this stuff to a total noobie, in hind site it needs a much better noob friendly tutorial.
Yup, coming from gw1, they simplified a lot to reach a wider audience, and personally, I think they might have gone a bit far.
Effectively streamlining all the active effects you can have on other players to boons and conditions is something I could put up with, but the loss of the true free form building we had in gw1 is something I just can’t get over with. Back there, the skill interaction was much more like a trading card game, i.e. you get a complete set of all the cards out there, but you can only ever hold 8 of them, and there are attributes that made sure that you couldn’t spread your build all over the place. I think that approach worked great, seeing it could create numerous and sometimes surprising out-of-the box thinking builds (read: Touch Rangers), because so many combinations were possible.
After having had this at your fingertips, gw2’s character building seems restrictive and bland in comparison. You only ever have so many options, because skill bars are largely set in stone (you always get the same 5 weapon skills, and you always have to go with 1 and only 1 healing skill, you have to chose 1 elite, wether you like it or not…). Also, those trait points we have rarely change fundamental gameplay mechanics like a new set of skills would. Some do, but overall, this leads to a percieved lack in true variety.
Those mechanics do ensure that you can’t even really go wrong all that much, no matter how noobish you are, but the lost a great deal of the “mastering” part right there.
I don’t mean to say gw2 is a bad game, it certainly is not, but personally, I think that it would be a truely awesome game if they had managed to really stick to that phrase “gw2 takes everything you loved about gw1…”, but sadly that was just the marketing department speaking what people wanted to hear…