(edited by Hunterdan.4921)
Discussion on End game design philosophy.
This is part of the problem, but the bigger part is that there simply isn’t enough interesting and fresh PvE content for people who are at cap now.
But to expect that there would be in any newly-released game is totally unrealistic. Games can’t be designed around people who get to cap in two weeks.
Most of the frustration on these forums is caused by the game being different. People say they want change but really expect everything to stay the same.
End game is 20 minutes of spamming “2” in a turret Most exciting boss fight ever.
End game is 20 minutes of spamming “2” in a turret Most exciting boss fight ever.
End game is what you make of it. If you want to spam “2”, great.
End game is 20 minutes of spamming “2” in a turret Most exciting boss fight ever.
End game is what you make of it. If you want to spam “2”, great.
Sadly, it’s not. The final boss you literally have only one way to hit him and that’s to use a turret that only has three abilities: move left, fire, and move right. And the boss never moves so you only use fire. repeatedly. For 20 minutes.
Using GW1 as a gauge, I know it took quite a feat to get from 1 to 20 in the Prophecies campaign. You didn’t get to 20 until some time near your Ascension in the Crystal Desert, which was pretty late in the campaign (Unless you were going for Legendary Defender of Ascalon, which was still quite a feat at the time but for different reasons). At max level, you had at least the Shiverpeaks and Ring of Fire zones to explore as well as special missions like Tomb of Primeval Kings and Sorrow’s Furnace.
Then Factions came around you would get to 20 right when you get to Vizunah Square, which was the third mission of the Factions campaign. Getting to 20 was stupid-easy, but the content onward was still moderately challenging.
In GW2, you have Frostgorge Sound and the three Orrian zones; plus many of the Explorable versions of the dungeons. In comparison, it’s definitely a lot more options to consider than in GW1.
I would predict that in a future expansion pack (whether free or paid), getting to 80 would be incredibly quicker and/or more interesting if there are more mid-level zones added in; but it could also include a vast amount of max-level content to keep those at that level a little bit more busy and interested instead of vanquishing Risen zombies and Icebrood all day. Besides, your level scales with the content anyway. The beauty with it is that even if you out-level the content in question, it still poses a moderate challenge and remains relevant until you decide yourself that you don’t want to be challenged in that area anymore.
I am Fleeting Flash, in-game dungeon cosplayer of Reddit Refugees [RR] .
(edited by Ari Kagura.9182)
i think most of the people who are complaining are the ones who only focus on 1/3 of gw2. the pve 1/3 part.
gw2 is 3 games in one
1. PvE – Elder Scrolls: Skyrim with friends and strangers
2. WvW – Romance of the Three Kingdoms, Dynasty Warriors
3. sPvP – Team Fortress 2: Steam Punk Swords & Sorcery Style
People seem to forget that in their video specifically about endgame, ANet focused on Orr, so they were either making stuff up, or they really considered Orr to be one of the pillars of GW2’s endgame, along with WvW and dungeons. The description of it sounded great, except that when the game finally shipped, Orr was in what looked like alpha stage – broken, monotonous, tedious, neither fun nor rewarding. Dungeons – same thing, although the recent update started taking some steps in the right direction. The only thing that’s really left to do is WvW. So my opinion is that the endgame is there, its just that it’s broken and not fun to play.
I think the problem is this game is so good ppl just don’t want it to end.
I think the problem is this game is so good ppl just don’t want it to end.
Yeah… That’s not it. The problem is that the game has good potential but fails to capitalize on it at every turn.
Why are so many people still using this stupid “endgame” phrase? Traditional endgame is terrible, and I’m glad GW2 does away with it. This idea that the only fun stuff is at the end and everything else is filler until you’re max level is one of the most absurd ideas to ever rear it’s ugly head in gaming.
“But this game would be so good if it had a way to constantly increase your stats post-max level like in WoW…”
That crap sucked. That’s why this game is different.
“…or if there was some way to get better gear than other players in sPvP by playing longer…”
No, that crap also sucks. That’s another reason this game is different.
“…and in other games I can farm…”
Farming sucks, and it draws players away from content. It funnels players to specific content instead of spreading them out across the game. You wanna see how well funneling players to specific content works? Take a look at pretty much any area in WoW that’s not the main quest hub for the most recent expansion. Dead as dead gets.
Everything you people keep asking for sucks. That’s why Guild Wars 2 was created; so the rest of us who care about gameplay and don’t need some infinite climb in numbers “endgame” to satiate a short-man complex can finally have an MMORPG that’s actually worth playing.
Also, check out Hardcore Adventure Box: World 1, World 2, Lost Sessions
Main Character: Dathius Eventide | Say “hi” to the Tribulation Clouds for me. :)
Why are so many people still using this stupid “endgame” phrase? Traditional endgame is terrible, and I’m glad GW2 does away with it. This idea that the only fun stuff is at the end and everything else is filler until you’re max level is one of the most absurd ideas to ever rear it’s ugly head in gaming.
A game that is not focused on endgame would for example be anarchy online. There, max lvl before expansions was 200. You rarely saw somebody beeing lvl 200. you played the game at your level. You were happy to level up, but you didn’t plan beeing 200, at least for a very long time.
In this game you reach 80 megafast. ANd no, i didn’t rush, I’m not even 80 bc I’m playing 4 chars at the same time. But I see how fast leveling is.
This game is not about playing it before max level. Well, it is for a few weeks, but not after that
DusK is kinda right …this game is very successful at spreading the content across the map so you can experience the whole game
..ppl are just not used to this idea and they rush to lvl 80 thinking that more power will make the unexploited content better ..but then they realize that character progression has stahp’t
..too bad there aren’t lvl 80 resets with cross-professions (like the ability to gain and choose an utility skill or trait from a different class on each reset) ..that way character progression will never stahp (but that may get way too OP)
Why are so many people still using this stupid “endgame” phrase? Traditional endgame is terrible, and I’m glad GW2 does away with it. This idea that the only fun stuff is at the end and everything else is filler until you’re max level is one of the most absurd ideas to ever rear it’s ugly head in gaming.
“But this game would be so good if it had a way to constantly increase your stats post-max level like in WoW…”
That crap sucked. That’s why this game is different.
“…or if there was some way to get better gear than other players in sPvP by playing longer…”
No, that crap also sucks. That’s another reason this game is different.
“…and in other games I can farm…”
Farming sucks, and it draws players away from content. It funnels players to specific content instead of spreading them out across the game. You wanna see how well funneling players to specific content works? Take a look at pretty much any area in WoW that’s not the main quest hub for the most recent expansion. Dead as dead gets.
Everything you people keep asking for sucks. That’s why Guild Wars 2 was created; so the rest of us who care about gameplay and don’t need some infinite climb in numbers “endgame” to satiate a short-man complex can finally have an MMORPG that’s actually worth playing.
You sir, deserve a medal. I couldn’t agree with you more.
There is sooo much I still want to do in this game.
Over the last two days I have done 100% on a zone, ran a dungeon, helped a lower lvl friend explore a region neither of us has been in, bought a cool skin for my GS, did some personal story, earned 400+ influence for my guild, crafted my way to 300ish on my Jewelry profession that I have neglected so far.
I am not at 80- I am at 67. I understand that people don’t like Orr.
But there is a huge world out there to play in with tons of stuff to do- it doesn’t suddenly go away because you’re at lvl cap.
I certainly don’t see myself suddenly changing my play style because I hit 80- I’ll just go on playing the game- I feel like I haven’t even scratched the surface
edit: at the OP i really think their end- game philosophy is like a breath of fresh air and is imo a really good choice for a game like GW2, that more resembles a virtual world as a backdrop for your own goals and adventures- or at least that is how I see it.
(edited by Morrigan.2809)
I’m sure like quite a few people, played the last beta weekend. In going through the content they had I was interested by what more there would be, and was content with how drops seemed to be working.
Haveing played through the story, exploring, crafting, WvW and sPvP on one character I don’t really feel that motivated to do it again, and have a hard time deciding what to do.
And I think I know why, for me at least. It’s the lack of rewarding experiences.
The story, while it starts off well, gets obviously generic. Though the priory’s quests/story was fun, they killed off a lovable character that you barely got to know. And replaced it with a story that was not interesting to play through, with charaters I had no empathy for (mainly due to lack of personality and emotion). Though I could live with this alone, the lack of any item rewards added to the feeling of “why bother”.
I have seen they’ve added in their last update that the end loot bags had been fixed (a really big turn off, at the time) but no mention of retroactivly giving this once in a charaters life reward, to the players that obviously were kittened.
I want to play in order to experience what the game has to offer, but alot of that seems hidden behind the idea that items we could be considered to need/want are not necessary to my enjoyment. And if I wanted to, I could, grind out another 400-1200 levels in crafting with the limited gold I have, to aquire the items I probably coulden’t make due to the few drops giving materials that would be needed. Or buy them off the trade post for the entirity of my in game wealth for just a couple of pieces.
I realise the game should be enjoyed for what it is, but when playing with the game is what you like to do, it doesn’t give you many options for that. It’s a little sad.
In this game, rare means rare. As a result there is more value attached to them as an individual, than there is on the trade post. Which could be ok, but why make us craft for our rares and exotics when adventuring is what you like to do.
Tl:dr. Lack of synergy and reward is a turn off.
(edited by Darque Intent.1674)
Honestly guys. the “end game” is not the final boss in the story (leveling mode). It’s the end of the starting phase.
How can you even make that assumption? Have you tried Arah Explorable? Have you done any of the dungeons after the patch?
I know it’s not wow raiding, but it was never intended to be, and frankly im glad i can play when i want to and not be forced by a guild to be there every night at 7 to raid for 4 hours 5 days a week.
They will need to add more of a challenge PvE or larger scale group dungeons or something in that caliber in a future patch or expansion.
Why are so many people still using this stupid “endgame” phrase? Traditional endgame is terrible, and I’m glad GW2 does away with it. This idea that the only fun stuff is at the end and everything else is filler until you’re max level is one of the most absurd ideas to ever rear it’s ugly head in gaming.
“But this game would be so good if it had a way to constantly increase your stats post-max level like in WoW…”
That crap sucked. That’s why this game is different.
“…or if there was some way to get better gear than other players in sPvP by playing longer…”
No, that crap also sucks. That’s another reason this game is different.
“…and in other games I can farm…”
Farming sucks, and it draws players away from content. It funnels players to specific content instead of spreading them out across the game. You wanna see how well funneling players to specific content works? Take a look at pretty much any area in WoW that’s not the main quest hub for the most recent expansion. Dead as dead gets.
Everything you people keep asking for sucks. That’s why Guild Wars 2 was created; so the rest of us who care about gameplay and don’t need some infinite climb in numbers “endgame” to satiate a short-man complex can finally have an MMORPG that’s actually worth playing.
Good posts!
Keep in mind, I only use the term “end game” because that is how anet addressed the same topic. Saying, “The endgame starts at level 1” and so on. Which sounds like a marketing pitch, but is entirely accurate, as we’ve all seen. Which I feel is a good thing.
I’m merely pointing out that a possible reason for the complaining about a lack of things to do at cap is because players have the ability to access the exciting content from the get go. Expediting the process by which they go, “Hey, this is fun!” to"Hey, what else is there to do?"
Again, this is more of an observation than an opinion. I don’t really want the old quest to cap, then raid content format.
End game for this game is just like WoW but with out the raids.
Farm instances for gear and thats it. only problem is WoW does a better job at instances
But then again Anet did a great job with leveling and the zones overall.
End game is 20 minutes of spamming “2” in a turret Most exciting boss fight ever.
End game is what you make of it. If you want to spam “2”, great.
Sadly, it’s not. The final boss you literally have only one way to hit him and that’s to use a turret that only has three abilities: move left, fire, and move right. And the boss never moves so you only use fire. repeatedly. For 20 minutes.
That’s the end of the personal story line (i agree that it’s very sad), – it’s not what is meant by “endgame”.
Why are so many people still using this stupid “endgame” phrase?
Anet uses the term.
Endgame is whatever there is to do at max level, it does not have to be terrible.
Traditional endgame is terrible, and I’m glad GW2 does away with it.
GW2 does not do away with it entirely (see dungeon grinding), but worse: it does not put much in place of traditional endgame.
I’m with Dusk, the entire WoW progression model is set up to fail because it illustrates one of the most common problems in nature. The fox and the hare ( also known as the Predator Prey Problem, a common assignment in AI classes :p )
You have an ever growing group of foxes ( players ) consuming all the hares ( content ) more quickly than nature can produce hares ( ie content can be generated ).
Also the whole gear treadmill is a self-serving exploitation of human nature. It’s basically crack for some people, crack is whack.
@Anishor: Uh, what? How exactly does the WoW progression model illustrate the “Fox and the Hares” problem? In fact, I think it better describes GW2 – there just isn’t enough hares to sustain all the foxes for a prolonged period of time. WoW’s progression model actually provides enough Hares for the Foxes. People raid, and do so for months, chasing that carrot – I won’t go into whether its good or bad, but one thing is that it keeps players in the game until next expac comes. A better analogy for GW2 I think is “butter spread over too much bread” – the game is huge, but its very shallow in a lot of places.
@Anishor: Uh, what? How exactly does the WoW progression model illustrate the “Fox and the Hares” problem? In fact, I think it better describes GW2 – there just isn’t enough hares to sustain all the foxes for a prolonged period of time. WoW’s progression model actually provides enough Hares for the Foxes. People raid, and do so for months, chasing that carrot – I won’t go into whether its good or bad, but one thing is that it keeps players in the game until next expac comes. A better analogy for GW2 I think is “butter spread over too much bread” – the game is huge, but its very shallow in a lot of places.
SWTOR is prob a better illustration of the problem with the Gear Based Progression Model than WoW due to WoW’s size and therefore supportive development team, though you do have to factor in the massive amount of time between raid/content releases. All the hardcore guilds consumed all the content in less than a month, and were desiring the next set of gear and complaining about it on the forums.
The only games I’ve seen the raid+gear-progression model work in is AoC and Rift. AoC works because the content is very hard and usually takes a long time for PUGs and casual guilds to be able to clear the current ‘tier’. Rift has an amazing dev team that puts out content really fast, they must have epic tools to aid in that speed.
For me I think the only concern I have is that it’s a great experience.
The first time you do it.
And honestly only that first time.
Right now my choices for leveling an alt are
1. repeat the same vistas, renown hearts, POI’s and explorations ive already done (first char has 85% world completion, and all the zones I dont have are higher level)
2. Slog through WvWvW with an upscaled character, which is genuinely unfun for me. Especially seeing as my server is currently on the backfoot which means if im playing my weaker character im being a detriment to my server.
3. craft. This is really the best option, but it either requires money or farming materials
I cant really do anything else. I cant run dungeons because DR. I cant grind monsters because fights are slow, and training in earlier area’s is much harder. I could run around looking for DE’s but that’s kind of obnoxious. Now, you might say “well its still better than other MMO’s” but the answer is no it really isnt. In other mmo’s they’re vastly aware of the grind, and they do all they can to make it fun. And I much prefer being able to just turn my brain off for 2-3 hours and find that i’ve gained tons of levels, than have to re-experience the same content twice, in a manner that’s just kind of unsatisfying.
as for specific endgame I dunno. There’s lots to do at 80. But quite a lot of it is A. grind intensive and B. then disadvantages you for that grind…
I agree with the OP. It seems many players feel like they’ve “finished” the game and it’s not even been out more than a month.
I agree with the OP. It seems many players feel like they’ve “finished” the game and it’s not even been out more than a month.
Sure. They only feel that they’ve finished because they’ve been dining on the gameplay, rather than working towards an end game aspect of gameplay.
If I could raid in WoW from level 1 on, easily, then I would tire of raiding rather quickly.
I very much look forward to what the first new released content is like. It will be very interesting to see what they do.
I’m really sad for all the people who find a chore to re experience old content in this game. I can’t really imagine what it could be for them on other games like WoW, then.
I’ve ran over and over low level zones so many times, helping friends with alts or just hunting for low level crafting mats that I really lost count of it. And I can say that they are all still fun and interesting to me.
There are just so many variables changing the whole system or just giving you options, all the time, that makes the whole experience fun to me , no matter how many times I go back to do them.
Many will say that DEs and hearts are no more than the quests we have from other mmos on disguise. Still, I couldn’t keep myself playing Tera for more than a week, nor I can manage to play WoW for more than 30 mins these days. Rift still manages to keep my attention for more than an hour, but only if I focus on pvp and forget completly about questing. Even TSW couldn’t keep me hooked up for a month.
It all boils down to opinions, of course, but to me, A.Net made an excelent job at giving me enough feeling of variety to make every single step of my journey on their game fun and rewarding (and I’m not talking about gear here)
I agree with the OP. It seems many players feel like they’ve “finished” the game and it’s not even been out more than a month.
Sure. They only feel that they’ve finished because they’ve been dining on the gameplay, rather than working towards an end game aspect of gameplay.
If I could raid in WoW from level 1 on, easily, then I would tire of raiding rather quickly.
I very much look forward to what the first new released content is like. It will be very interesting to see what they do.
I failed to understand your point here… My last alt on wow was a Mage. It took me less than a month to level him to 85, and way more than a month to get only a dagger, a staff (which was a random drop), one chestpiece and another piece of armor I forgot now, through raiding…
So it takes way more than the time need to level a char from 1-85 to get a full set of gear through raiding on WoW. From your comments I may take that you will always get tired of raiding rather quickly.
Unless I missed your point entirely
This is part of the problem, but the bigger part is that there simply isn’t enough interesting and fresh PvE content for people who are at cap now.
But to expect that there would be in any newly-released game is totally unrealistic. Games can’t be designed around people who get to cap in two weeks.
The cap isn’t that hard to reach..
Dusk pretty much nailed it…Moreover this game had a great launch compared to other games (Been on several of them…).Enjoy the game guys and enjoy it to way it was built,its different either its pvp or pve. HF!
Dusk pretty much nailed it…Moreover this game had a great launch compared to other games (Been on several of them…).Enjoy the game guys and enjoy it to way it was built,its different either its pvp or pve. HF!
lol this game does have good endgame content FOR LAUNCH, but dusk has NO idea what he’s talking about. A themepark game needs progression for PvE to have any sort of longevity, b/c there’s only a set amount of content that players can beat faster than the devs can make.
Without progression, why would people play things they’ve already played before? If you want no endgame, than this game will be like a single player game, which would be a bold thing to do for an mmo, and I guess makes sense for a B2P game, they want you to stop playing to ease up on their servers, and they have no incentive to have you keep playing since you aren’t paying them for new content.
My endgame is travelling to places I haven’t seen and doing events I haven’t done, or only done rarely. I’ve been through Queensdale a ton of times, and I’ve only managed to catch the undead dragon event once. It was a lot of fun, I’d like to do it again.
I know there’s many many other events in other zones that I haven’t seen, or haven’t seen various outcomes of, because I hear my friends talking about them. They go on my list of “ooh, one day, I should go there and find that event”.. But that list fills up faster than I can check stuff off on it, that’s for sure.
Uprising lets say Dusk is not correct in most of what he says but i tend to disagree also with you saying that they want you to stop playing since they wont gain “money” and stop releasing new content…
1st: Of all in the Long-term they might get a little smth from you mb from the in-game shop or from mouth 2 mouth e.g you saying to 2-3 friends of yours to buy the game to play all together cause its great…
2nd: They did it with GW1 which was also with the same B2p model and never stopped updating and releasing Expansions why would they stop now when they have a lot more players playing at launch than the original game ever had…
HF m8!
The cash shop gives them enough to keep the servers online, and encourages the devs to make patch notes, but nothing more imo, look at GW1, the cash shop did just that.
Also in GW1 the devs released fixes and patches like they do now in b/w expansions, but there were no really major content releases they did for free. Basically all the content releases they did were things that should have been at launch, but didn’t get time to finish, and didn’t need to finish them since they were endgame zones. These weren’t “extra” things that were added for free, but rather integral parts of the game. Like imagine GW1 without FoW, lol.
Dusk pretty much nailed it…Moreover this game had a great launch compared to other games (Been on several of them…).Enjoy the game guys and enjoy it to way it was built,its different either its pvp or pve. HF!
lol this game does have good endgame content FOR LAUNCH, but dusk has NO idea what he’s talking about. A themepark game needs progression for PvE to have any sort of longevity, b/c there’s only a set amount of content that players can beat faster than the devs can make.
Without progression, why would people play things they’ve already played before? If you want no endgame, than this game will be like a single player game, which would be a bold thing to do for an mmo, and I guess makes sense for a B2P game, they want you to stop playing to ease up on their servers, and they have no incentive to have you keep playing since you aren’t paying them for new content.
Um this game is more virtual world than any that have launched since SWG. Just saying, and is designed to be a virtual world. Not a themepark. It’s the anti-thesis to wow.
(edited by Anishor.6921)
Dusk pretty much nailed it…Moreover this game had a great launch compared to other games (Been on several of them…).Enjoy the game guys and enjoy it to way it was built,its different either its pvp or pve. HF!
lol this game does have good endgame content FOR LAUNCH, but dusk has NO idea what he’s talking about. A themepark game needs progression for PvE to have any sort of longevity, b/c there’s only a set amount of content that players can beat faster than the devs can make.
Without progression, why would people play things they’ve already played before? If you want no endgame, than this game will be like a single player game, which would be a bold thing to do for an mmo, and I guess makes sense for a B2P game, they want you to stop playing to ease up on their servers, and they have no incentive to have you keep playing since you aren’t paying them for new content.
Um this game is more virtual world than any that have launched since SWG. Just saying, and is designed to be a virtual world. Not a themepark. It’s the anti-thesis to wow.
Are you joking? You think GW2 isn’t a themepark game??
I don’t want to insult you, but you really should brush up on the definition of themepark games, what constitutes them, how they are profitable, etc.
You might want to read what the developers themselves had said. This MMO is designed to be a Virtual World. Not a themepark.
You are guided through the leveling process somewhat, but because of down leveling and the event system you are actively encouraged to go back through the world on high level characters. Unlike themeparks where you go to Tatooine, finish Tatooine, and never return to Tatooine.
(edited by Anishor.6921)
YUnlike themeparks where you go to Tatooine, finish Tatooine, and never return to Tatooine.
Really? What about the Outlaw’s Den on Tatooine? Spent alot of time there.
If GW2 were a Virtual World you wouldn’t need to to load every zone separately. It sorta takes away from the “immersion” that sandbox games typically provide.
Hell I don’t want change, I want an evolution of the old model. To pull out the bad crap and keep the good. Why can’t you keep a pve set of armor that tiers up but you have a different one for WvW. They already show this rational partly with the pvp system.
End game is 20 minutes of spamming “2” in a turret Most exciting boss fight ever.
End game is what you make of it. If you want to spam “2”, great.
Sadly, it’s not. The final boss you literally have only one way to hit him and that’s to use a turret that only has three abilities: move left, fire, and move right. And the boss never moves so you only use fire. repeatedly. For 20 minutes.
Ya my whole team after killing the trash jumped on turrets and was like “Alright what’s next!!! nothing….. hmm maybe when he gets alittle lower… no… hmm wtf THIS is the epic battle i’ve spent 80 levels getting to?”