GW2 Deficient in Hardcore Content
Hmm, I think you are greatly overestimating the demand for that kind of content.
Take a look at WoW for example. Their hardest content, the HM raid, only has 1500 guilds participating (most of them 10 man guilds). This is with their millions and millions of players.
The market just isn’t there for that kind of stuff. ANet is doing well not to put it in.
I agree, there’s very little ultra hard content, but even the stuff that’s sorta hard, is hard for a lot of people.
The ultra competitive PVe guys aren’t going to have a huge amount to do in this game. Unless Anet eventually institutes a hard mode for dungeons.
For most people however, the content is hard enough. There are plenty of people who find dungeons hard.
There’s nothing in this game I can’t do in PVe…but some of it definitely pushes my boundaries (Arah for one, higher level fractals for another).
Personally (as a former hard-core WoW raider), I miss similar content. I know that Guild Wars 2 is the wrong avenue to reciprocate this experience, but I believe that the implementation of something along the lines of 10-15 man dungeons (different from raids mind you) would greatly increase my enjoyment and extend the playability of the game for myself. Think back to UBRS / Scholo days, that’s what I miss and I think Arenanet would be able to improve upon the roots set down by other games.
From what I understood in the infamous Manifesto, GW2 was/is not supposed to be just another WoW. Therefore, it’s not supposed, nor was intended, to satisfy players who enjoy WoW and the hundred other copycats, but those who are, on the contrary, disappointed with that model and who are looking for something different.
The Wikipedia page on Guild Wars states:
ArenaNet believed that players would not pay subscription fees for every online game they play and that paying a fee would cause players to make a “lifestyle commitment” to a particular game, rather than the usual behaviour of playing many different games and switching between them. Jeff Strain, a founder of ArenaNet, said, “It is our opinion that the free online gaming model combined with frequent content updates is the optimum online paradigm for interfacing with consumers and creating a significant, enduring gaming franchise.”
This suggests that they’re people who know and accept that their players will not be hanging around their game forever, as is perfectly normal. It would therefore make perfect sense that they not try to create end game grinds such as FotM, or Ascended gear, or anything which requires the majority of players to feel they have to do some boring grind to not be left behind. It also suggests that they will produce more paid real content for the game on a regular basis, attracting back those players who leave to do something else. This is a game, after all, not a full time hard core occupation.
The current 180° direction trend from the Manifesto seems to imply to me that so many WoW players, or traditional MMO players were attracted by GW2 early on, and put so much demand on Anet, that they lost their vision, the one they spoke of in the manifesto and which they were able to preserve during development as long as they were isolated from those masses. It seems almost like they were overwhelmed with traditional demands, and lost hope in being able to realize their dream and promise. (The alternative would be ugly to consider.)
Now the real question is, how much has ArenaNet’s vision changed, and how satisfied are they with their accomplishment as compared to their initial goals.
From what I understood in the infamous Manifesto, GW2 was/is not supposed to be just another WoW. Therefore, it’s not supposed, nor was intended, to satisfy players who enjoy WoW and the hundred other copycats, but those who are, on the contrary, disappointed with that model and who are looking for something different.
The Wikipedia page on Guild Wars states:
ArenaNet believed that players would not pay subscription fees for every online game they play and that paying a fee would cause players to make a “lifestyle commitment” to a particular game, rather than the usual behaviour of playing many different games and switching between them. Jeff Strain, a founder of ArenaNet, said, “It is our opinion that the free online gaming model combined with frequent content updates is the optimum online paradigm for interfacing with consumers and creating a significant, enduring gaming franchise.”This suggests that they’re people who know and accept that their players will not be hanging around their game forever, as is perfectly normal. It would therefore make perfect sense that they not try to create end game grinds such as FotM, or Ascended gear, or anything which requires the majority of players to feel they have to do some boring grind to not be left behind. It also suggests that they will produce more paid real content for the game on a regular basis, attracting back those players who leave to do something else. This is a game, after all, not a full time hard core occupation.
The current 180° direction trend from the Manifesto seems to imply to me that so many WoW players, or traditional MMO players were attracted by GW2 early on, and put so much demand on Anet, that they lost their vision, the one they spoke of in the manifesto and which they were able to preserve during development as long as they were isolated from those masses. It seems almost like they were overwhelmed with traditional demands, and lost hope in being able to realize their dream and promise. (The alternative would be ugly to consider.)
Now the real question is, how much has ArenaNet’s vision changed, and how satisfied are they with their accomplishment as compared to their initial goals.
They didn’t lose their vision. I don’t understand why people keep saying they did.
The grind they put into the game to get ascended gear is mitigated by the idea that you don’t need ascended gear at all to do anything in the game, except higher level fractals which give you ascended gear. A compromise is not an abandonment of principle.
They also said you could play your way, and a bunch of players couldn’t. There was nothing for them to grind for. So if Anet didn’t put that stuff in, then they’d be going against that principle. What they’ve tried to do, from the beginning, its to offer different things for different people.
There are tons of people playing this game who could care less about ascended gear, because unlike other games, it doesn’t gate them. It doesn’t prevent them from doing what they want to do.
Do you know how many people in this game spend laurels on dyes instead of an ascended amulet? Or save for the minipets.
There are two reasons why people feel they "Need’ ascended gear. One is WvW (which was never balanced for 1v1 anyway, something Anet also said) and 2. because they’ve been trained by other games that if they don’t have BIS gear, they’re somehow missing out.
I dont’ have BIS gear on most of my characters and they all do just fine.
Vayne, I don’t have Ascended gear and don’t intend to get any. (I believe the true wealth of real content in this game is in the variety of playing the different classes and revisiting the vast and varied world content with each class and in WvW.)
And I haven’t done any comparisons recently (shows you how much I’m interested in Ascended stuff), but I don’t believe the difference in stats with Exotic is just 10% as it was claimed. The OP, Skylightmoon, is demanding “hardcore content with proper rewards”. I’ll let you guess what “proper” means to him, and what it’ll mean to you and me if that gets implemented.
Also, from a certain chat with the devs that occured a couple of months ago, I was left with the impression that Ascended gear was not going to remain just a requirement for FotM. Can you imagine all that variety of ascended gear right now, with more introduced on a regular basis, just to be used in one dungeon? Do you really believe that?
They said there won’t be another quality of gear (higher than ascended), but did you look at the infusions? +4 Power?? Do you honestly believe they intend to keep those upgrades like that? Of course the players will ask for more, and then they’ll comply, with a good excuse. When the infusions start giving 3×50 stats, will you be sitting here saying you don’t feel you need Ascended gear?
(edited by Alad QB.8904)
Personally (as a former hard-core WoW raider), I miss similar content. I know that Guild Wars 2 is the wrong avenue to reciprocate this experience, but I believe that the implementation of something along the lines of 10-15 man dungeons (different from raids mind you) would greatly increase my enjoyment and extend the playability of the game for myself. Think back to UBRS / Scholo days, that’s what I miss and I think Arenanet would be able to improve upon the roots set down by other games.
I can’t get PUGs or even my own guild mates to run Twilight Arbor with me. They all just want to do their own thing. If you mention CoF, they jump all over that opportunity, but not TA. I can’t imagine trying to get 15 people to do a large scale dungeon with.
Vayne, the OP is demanding “hardore content with proper rewards”. I’ll let you guess what “proper” means to him, and what it’ll mean to you and me if that gets implemented.
Also, from a certain chat with the devs that occured a couple of months ago, I was left with the impression that Ascended gear was not going to remain just a requirement for FotM. Can you imagine all that variety of gear, with more introduced every now and then, just to be used in one dungeon? Do you really believe that??They said there won’t be another quality of gear (higher than ascended), but did you look at the infusions? +4 Power?? Do you honestly believe they intend to keep those upgrades like that? Of course the players will ask for more, and then they’ll comply, with a good excuse. When the infusions start giving 3×50 stats, will you be sitting here saying you don’t feel you need Ascended gear?
I feel like by the time I need ascended gear, it will be easy to get. That’s how it’s been with lots of stuff.
If you run fractals, you don’t need any ascended gear at all to do level 10. If you run a level 10 fractal daily for 10 days you’ll get a fractal ring of your choice. However, during that time, you have a random chance to get a fractal ring every single day. I get them about every third day. So by the end of ten days, you’re bound to have two, or more rings. That’s all you need
I’m sure that by the time we need this stuff it’ll be easy to get, at which time I’ll get it.
Personally (as a former hard-core WoW raider), I miss similar content. I know that Guild Wars 2 is the wrong avenue to reciprocate this experience, but I believe that the implementation of something along the lines of 10-15 man dungeons (different from raids mind you) would greatly increase my enjoyment and extend the playability of the game for myself. Think back to UBRS / Scholo days, that’s what I miss and I think Arenanet would be able to improve upon the roots set down by other games.
I can’t get PUGs or even my own guild mates to run Twilight Arbor with me. They all just want to do their own thing. If you mention CoF, they jump all over that opportunity, but not TA. I can’t imagine trying to get 15 people to do a large scale dungeon with.
Me and four guildies ran TA today. We’ve finished all the paths, and though it has some annoying bits, it’s really not that bad. There are two paths of CoE that are far worse than TA, so I don’t really get why.
There’s one challenging fight in the beginning of each path and the rest of it is moderately easy.
Personally (as a former hard-core WoW raider), I miss similar content. I know that Guild Wars 2 is the wrong avenue to reciprocate this experience, but I believe that the implementation of something along the lines of 10-15 man dungeons (different from raids mind you) would greatly increase my enjoyment and extend the playability of the game for myself. Think back to UBRS / Scholo days, that’s what I miss and I think Arenanet would be able to improve upon the roots set down by other games.
I can’t get PUGs or even my own guild mates to run Twilight Arbor with me. They all just want to do their own thing. If you mention CoF, they jump all over that opportunity, but not TA. I can’t imagine trying to get 15 people to do a large scale dungeon with.
With the proper incentives, people will run the dungeons.
Guys, people who wants more challenging content arent just WoW players ive never played WoW and i think Anet is focusing a little too much on casual players they already have tons of stuffs to do, but if you are looking for something other then that….not so much. I think FoTM was great update it would be nice to just know that we can look for something forward too. With what we know now we cant really say if there ever going to be something similar to that….
Gamers need to stop using the term “hardcore”. It once meant something, maybe 15-17 years ago, but it got adopted by Microsoft to sell the Xbox as having a gaming heritage to the public, and Microsoft’s rebranding of the term kind of messed up the original meaning. It then became a buzzword that’s been thrown around like a frisbee at a dog park.
I doubt the OP can even describe his idea of “hardcore” even while thinking he/she is missing it.
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I believe Anet is focusing at having a good community, this can be shown on their strict enforcement rule on flaming related posts. Many times, competitive plays often turns sour and degrade the community. The stronger one gets, the more arrogance one may get thus more conflict arise. This always has an chain reactions and is not a good thing for the community.
Also, if “hardcore” items come into play, the skills aspect of the game will get dull and become a rush towards gears and that will be no different from any f2p games which build around high end upgraded gears.
Ascended gears does provide quite a bit of advantage and not just for pve means. Anyone with a full set of ascended gears and comparing it with exotic gears can easily spot the differences. You can live without it but you can do more with it.
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i disagree with most of you regarding what constitutes hardcore content.
to me, what separates the gaming groups known by the labels “casual” and “hardcore” is that hardcore players enjoy improving their playing skill.
A casual player isn’t that interested in improving his skills – either he doesn’t care or he doesn’t have the time. Give him a game like Dark Souls which simply kills you until you work out how to survive, and it’s not really an enjoyable experience – pretty much like bashing your head against a wall without any progress.
GW2 is pretty casual – there’s not much content that gates you based on player skill. I don’t have a problem with that, but instead i would like more gameplay that allows people to display skill and more mechanisms to recognise skill.
dungeon ranking modes might be a good start. provide a score based on how quickly you complete a path, how few times someone died, percentage of enemies killed, etc.
each path gets a leader board, and maybe top teams each week get a reward or something. This will do a lot to get people thinking about different strategies and builds, give guilds things to work towards, and spread people around the different dungeons.
anyways, i repeat -.hardcore content isn’t grindy raids that drop rare gear or anything like that, or ultra hard content that only 1% find fun. All it needs to be is content that measures and recognizes player skill.
So even if a player goes from terrible to slightly less terrible, he can enjoy himself.
anyways, i repeat -.hardcore content isn’t grindy raids that drop rare gear or anything like that, or ultra hard content that only 1% find fun. All it needs to be is content that measures and recognizes player skill.
So even if a player goes from terrible to slightly less terrible, he can enjoy himself.
Thats a more general definition of hardcore content, I just used raids as an example because of their long term type content. Its basically there to satisfy players who enjoy an intense test of player skill, like you said, but also a long term system of rewards. Some people like chugging in 20 hours a week for a month just to get a few certain items, whether that be gear or aesthetics. I think I can agree with you on the player skill part though. There certainly needs to be much more difficult content in the game, that equally rewards the difficulty. Guild Missions have been somewhat of a push in that direction.
I think however they need a system to satisfy the desire for that same content but on an individual scale. Its really a hastle for me to take time organizing 10 people in the guild for missions. Id enjoy something challenging that I can do on my own.
ANet needs to be careful about the rewards tho, or they need to introduce two tiers of WVW. Already the “elites” are making must have claims regarding acended gear outside of fractals…
Challenging content that remains engaging in an MMO is not going to happen.
Open world: the math behind open world content is going to be forgiving enough to allow players to defeat mobs, sometimes several mobs. Games that didn’t do this, that required people to group to beat one on-level mob in the open world are a thing of the past. Why? Because while some people enjoyed this style of play, a lot more didn’t.
Open world events that scale based on players. Anet is experimenting with that with the Krait and Risen. It won’t ever be hard enough for those who sneer at dungeon difficulty, though.
That leaves instanced content. The problem with instanced content is that, though it can be made hard, it has to be doable. If it’s doable, some players will figure out the best way to get it done, then rinse and repeat until bored. Of course, that whole process took less time than it took to develop the instance in the first place.
These are some of the realities in the current state of MMO’s.
If the game goes the route of “hardcore endgame progression” it will likely suffer in other areas like open world events. The “core of the game” was meant to be a conveniently cooperative open world experience mingled in with exploring and simple “being” in the world of Tyria.
It was not ever meant to be a game centered around bum rushing to level cap and grinding an instanced “dungeon” (though they aren’t dungeons, more like brightly lit hallways) over and over again, rendering the rest of the game obsolete.
One of the worst things about MMO’s that focus on end game progression as their meat is the mentality that “The game starts at level cap.” Nothing is more poisonous to new players, and nothing makes your current playerbase more jaded, demanding, and unappreciative.
Besides, that’s not what MMORPG’s, games based around being in an open world and part of a larger community, should be about. Spending all of our time in instances and cliques is NOT “massively multiplayer”, it’s called Diablo and DotA.
“All is Vain…”
to me, what separates the gaming groups known by the labels “casual” and “hardcore” is that hardcore players enjoy improving their playing skill.
I completely agree, Rieselle. To me, “hardcore” isn’t about how much time you spend in the game; it’s about how focused you are around understanding the game mechanics and improving your own skill in playing.
The fractal dungeon is a great step toward offering hardcore content: while there is some level of “progression” as far as increasing agony resistance, advancing to higher fractal levels requires a better understanding of the different fractal encounters and how you can use your profession to work through them.
There needs to be more content like the fractals that offers a good challenge to those who want it, but is completely ignorable by those who don’t. GW1 started with two areas: the Fissure of Woe and the Underworld; and a few months later we got Sorrow’s Furnace (not sure I’d really call SF hardcore, but it was more challenging than anything else short of FoW or UW). Factions and Nightfall took it a step further and offered actual Challenge Missions, complete with leaderboards. If GW2 offered similar missions, in addition to exclusive titles or equipment skins that can only be earned by catching the top spot on the leaderboard (and ABSOLUTELY CANNOT be acquired by random drops from Black Lion Chests or through the gem store), I really think that would be sufficient incentive for a lot of hardcore players. Give them something distinctive that says “I am the best” and not just “I put in a lot of time, spent a lot of real-world money and/or got really lucky.”
Not only would this system meet the desires of many hardcore players (requiring continual improvement of skill and providing distinct recognition), but it has nothing to do with the amount of time someone plays. A group of very skilled players who only plays a few hours a week could still capture the top spot on the leaderboard for a challenge mission, and easily move past players who spend 80 hours a week in game but haven’t progressed past random button mashing of their skills.
I just pulled my Guild Wars 1 box off the shelf and looked at one of the tag lines on the inside flap: “Your skill will be your legend. You’ll prove your worth with every battle as skill, not hours played, decides your fate. Whether battling horrific monsters or competing at the highest levels of tournament play, it will always be your skill that earns you victory or defeat.”
That, to me, is what “hardcore” is all about.
“Give them something distinctive that says “I am the best” and not just “I put in a lot of time, spent a lot of real-world money and/or got really lucky.””
That right there is pretty much why I can’t take this game seriously. A buddy of mine are going to give it another shot. Already I’m like meh this still sucks. Having to do PvE to get the best PvP gear in the game rather lame. The other big name games that you pay a sub for don’t have these failings. I could see it maybe it may be worth off time like while watching a movie or something to do PvE dungeons but not really.
Your legendary is also based on RNG. There’s nothing epic about it other then time wasted saving for the parts and the epic roll if you manage to get a precursor. Nothing skill or talent involved. Just seems kinda lame. Tons of grind with a chance of payout.
I’ll give it one more go however since my buddy wants to play it. He likes it basically because it can be played as a single player Non MMO game. It’s going to be hard justifying the time wasted though. Like what they say in RL. You get what you Pay for.
I think at this point the ship has sailed on hardcore raiding for this game. They need to focus on fixing the core of the game…
1) Classes- Better balance and increasing number of viable builds. Even today different builds and classes feel somewhat “samey” and could use a little more distinction.
2) Make WvW feel slightly more alive. More things for small groups to do. Rare spawn NPCs with nice loot tables to fight the other factions for, etc.
3) Like #2. Make events in the PvE world feel more connected and dynamic. Give more reasons for players to explore the world (even after world completion) and scale down high level players more in the lowbie zones so its not so faceroll.
Do these three things and I think we’ll be fine. Dungeons seemed like an afterthought in this game. Most players heavily interested in dungeons/raids have since left anyway. Might as well focus on the core strengths and build on that.
That right there is pretty much why I can’t take this game seriously. A buddy of mine are going to give it another shot. Already I’m like meh this still sucks. Having to do PvE to get the best PvP gear in the game rather lame.
Since PvE gear does not affect sPvP, I’ll assume you mean Wv3. I will agree that deciding to make mix PvE gear and objectives into Wv3 was a mistake. Wv3 should have been separated from PvE, just like sPvP.
Yes I was thinking of wvw. I never got in to the whole sPvP. That also seemed kind of pointless. The way you can get people on and Que in to Battlegrounds is way better. I know they tried to make it more like an arena because they wanted to do the whole esports thing. Yeah AN how’s that going for yah? Ohh yeah.
But in WoW you can use PvP gear and PvE gear in the other. However you will be disadvantaged by using the wrong gear. The base PvE tier will allow you get your pvp base gear and versa. But if you want the best PvE gear you do PvE. If you want the best crushing PvP gear you get that in PvP. Your not forced to do PvE to get the best PvP gear. Like I said before you get what you pay for. Pay a monthly sub get a better designed product.
I think that they should include the Guild Wars 1 practice of “Hard Mode” for every zone. THAT would address much of the hardcore player’s needs. Especially, with 80 levels of zones.
“The only problem is that it can be somewhat difficult integrating hardcore endgame progression type content for the people that play 7 hours a day”
Well yes! Designers can never keep up with the rate that players devour content, particularly those who play 7 hours each day. No other form of entertainment is expected to entertain for so long and so repeatedly as MMOs.
Six months down the line we are still getting people that
Didnt Read the Box( here after to be known as DRB’s )
The problem with DRB’s is they got tired of floppy eared purple elf land and the grind of a game where every 6 months there is a differnt colored sheep to ride and gear with 0.5% better stats that means you have to throw away all your old stuff and get the new stuff or no one will play with you.
Sadly the DRB’s leave FPE land buy other games and then demand they be changed to be the same as the game they just left.
This game does not have raids it does not have vertical progression ( well almost) it doesnt have mounts and does not and hopefully never will have pandas.
This was all explained many times as the game was developed, if you failed to read a single review before buying the game i am sorry this is not what you expected. However the game is ( for the most part) how I and many others like it, it is unique it breaks the treadmill aproach of just about every game on the market please dont try and change it to a clone of the 50 other games out there go play one of those and let GW2 be GW2.
You bought a Vespa it doesnt do 0-100 in 5 seconds if you dont like that go buy some thing else dont demand everyone else be made to drive a porche.
That said if your playing 2548 hours a year A: no group of devs is going to be able to provide enough content to keep you satisfied B: you need to get out more.
Ulfar SOR
Totally agree with this, they especially could use some more interesting fight manuevers than just dodging…
“Give them something distinctive that says “I am the best” and not just “I put in a lot of time, spent a lot of real-world money and/or got really lucky.””
That right there is pretty much why I can’t take this game seriously. A buddy of mine are going to give it another shot. Already I’m like meh this still sucks. Having to do PvE to get the best PvP gear in the game rather lame. The other big name games that you pay a sub for don’t have these failings. I could see it maybe it may be worth off time like while watching a movie or something to do PvE dungeons but not really.
Your legendary is also based on RNG. There’s nothing epic about it other then time wasted saving for the parts and the epic roll if you manage to get a precursor. Nothing skill or talent involved. Just seems kinda lame. Tons of grind with a chance of payout.
I’ll give it one more go however since my buddy wants to play it. He likes it basically because it can be played as a single player Non MMO game. It’s going to be hard justifying the time wasted though. Like what they say in RL. You get what you Pay for.
I don’t know. I paid for a lot of those others games and hated them. I paid for WoW, Lotro, DDO, Perfect World, Rift, AoC, always trying to find a game I could play for any length of time without feeling like I was on rails, or had to grind too much, or had to pay into the cash shop to get anything done.
I don’t feel any of that in this game. You think you get what you paid for. I shudder to think how much I paid into other games. I saw the potential of the MMO genre, but until now, I’ve never gotten my money’s worth.
Most of those other games, from my point of view, are a complete waste of money.
Take a look at WoW for example. Their hardest content, the HM raid, only has 1500 guilds participating (most of them 10 man guilds). This is with their millions and millions of players.
I am not sure where you got this number, but it doesn’t seem right. Blizzard invests really hard at raids. They’re more beautiful every time and the boss battles are balanced, tight and complex. Just as they should be. If there is anything wrong with WoW, that is not raids.
Take a look at WoW for example. Their hardest content, the HM raid, only has 1500 guilds participating (most of them 10 man guilds). This is with their millions and millions of players.
I am not sure where you got this number, but it doesn’t seem right. Blizzard invests really hard at raids. They’re more beautiful every time and the boss battles are balanced, tight and complex. Just as they should be. If there is anything wrong with WoW, that is not raids.
There have been many polls over the years aimed at how many people raid, some of them with fairly high numbers of respondants. Usually the figure of the number of people that actually raid, at least years ago, was very low. I believe that number is getting higher.
Yet, I also believe that many of the people who do raid dont’ want to. I have that in my house. Two sons, one who loves to raid, one who doesn’t, but they never have enough people for the raid and so one guy is badgered to go. Others do it for the rewards and wouldn’t do it if they could get those rewards in other ways. In other words, the game itself trains people to raid.
And still the uptake on raid content isn’t as high as you might think. Plenty of casual players don’t raid at all and plenty of PvPers don’t raid either. They just don’t find it fun.
This has nothing to do with the quality of the raids. This has to do with the mindset of the players. I’m willing to wager far more people play WoW as a solo game than most people realize.
I’m wondering how anet missed the awesomness that could be Scaling Dungeons
That feel when 6 people are online in the guild and one has to sit out of a dungeon run -_-
The event scaling system should be applied to dungeons. More guild content.
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Challenging content that remains engaging in an MMO is not going to happen.
Open world: the math behind open world content is going to be forgiving enough to allow players to defeat mobs, sometimes several mobs. Games that didn’t do this, that required people to group to beat one on-level mob in the open world are a thing of the past. Why? Because while some people enjoyed this style of play, a lot more didn’t.
Open world events that scale based on players. Anet is experimenting with that with the Krait and Risen. It won’t ever be hard enough for those who sneer at dungeon difficulty, though.
That leaves instanced content. The problem with instanced content is that, though it can be made hard, it has to be doable. If it’s doable, some players will figure out the best way to get it done, then rinse and repeat until bored. Of course, that whole process took less time than it took to develop the instance in the first place.
These are some of the realities in the current state of MMO’s.
You’re making the mistake that I often find in western gaming. The Do/Die, Win/Lose sort of mentality. Where you either “complete” the content, or you fail and give up, with nothing in between.
Classic arcade games (and many Japanese games even now) had things like High Score tables, various bonuses for specific behaviours (eg. combo bonuses for killing 3 of the same colour in a row in Ikaruga) and Rankings and so forth.
So it’s not about Win/Lose, it’s about how well you perform. Even if open-world content is easy enough so that anyone can kill 10 mobs at once, if the game recognises that you did it without taking any damage in return, then there’s opportunities for Hardcore gameplay there.
Even if Scaling Events scale based on number of players, if the game recognises individual achievements like number of teammates rezzed, number of downs, damage received, amount of damage healed/inflicted, enemy attacks interrupted etc.
And even if instanced content is easy enough to be doable, if people have leaderboards to compete against each other in who can run it the most efficiently, and enough skippable but ranked content to challenge anyone, then it can be a source of a lot of interesting, repeatable, hardcore gameplay.
I don’t like some people’s focus on “rewards” though. I think attaching performance to things like item drops or even skins is a big mistake.
Better to offer temporary and fleeting recognition, like every week the top team of the leaderboard will be immortalised in the historical records and receive a shiny cape for the week. Hardcore gameplay is all about repeatable gameplay, and giving out permanent rewards pretty much kills that concept. If you’re playing to get your legendary item for getting #1, then you’ll probably stop after you get it. Whereas without a permanent reward, just competition, you’ll keep going. Human psychology is funny like that sometimes.
(edited by Rieselle.5079)
Challenging content that remains engaging in an MMO is not going to happen.
Open world: the math behind open world content is going to be forgiving enough to allow players to defeat mobs, sometimes several mobs. Games that didn’t do this, that required people to group to beat one on-level mob in the open world are a thing of the past. Why? Because while some people enjoyed this style of play, a lot more didn’t.
Open world events that scale based on players. Anet is experimenting with that with the Krait and Risen. It won’t ever be hard enough for those who sneer at dungeon difficulty, though.
That leaves instanced content. The problem with instanced content is that, though it can be made hard, it has to be doable. If it’s doable, some players will figure out the best way to get it done, then rinse and repeat until bored. Of course, that whole process took less time than it took to develop the instance in the first place.
These are some of the realities in the current state of MMO’s.
You’re making the mistake that I often find in western gaming. The Do/Die, Win/Lose sort of mentality. Where you either “complete” the content, or you fail and give up, with nothing in between.
Classic arcade games (and many Japanese games even now) had things like High Score tables, various bonuses for specific behaviours (eg. combo bonuses for killing 3 of the same colour in a row in Ikaruga) and Rankings and so forth.
So it’s not about Win/Lose, it’s about how well you perform. Even if open-world content is easy enough so that anyone can kill 10 mobs at once, if the game recognises that you did it without taking any damage in return, then there’s opportunities for Hardcore gameplay there.
Even if Scaling Events scale based on number of players, if the game recognises individual achievements like number of teammates rezzed, number of downs, damage received, amount of damage healed/inflicted, enemy attacks interrupted etc.
And even if instanced content is easy enough to be doable, if people have leaderboards to compete against each other in who can run it the most efficiently, and enough skippable but ranked content to challenge anyone, then it can be a source of a lot of interesting, repeatable, hardcore gameplay.
I don’t like some people’s focus on “rewards” though. I think attaching performance to things like item drops or even skins is a big mistake.
Better to offer temporary and fleeting recognition, like every week the top team of the leaderboard will be immortalised in the historical records and receive a shiny cape for the week. Hardcore gameplay is all about repeatable gameplay, and giving out permanent rewards pretty much kills that concept. If you’re playing to get your legendary item for getting #1, then you’ll probably stop after you get it. Whereas without a permanent reward, just competition, you’ll keep going. Human psychology is funny like that sometimes.
That’s an interesting series of thoughts. I can see the idea of leader-boards which changed weekly appealing to some people. However, a lot of players have been conditioned to want gear upgrades. Try selling them on the idea that they only get to keep their better stats for a week or a month, then have to earn them again. Gear rewards may have been a mistake, but if so, it was a mistake made a long time ago — back in the early days of PnP.
Yeah, I’d like to see games focus more on things other than gear rewards, but this might be a hard sell to some people. Just look at all the “GW2 has no endgame, no progression” complaints that prompted Ascended.
I very highly doubt people left a month after launch because of lack of hardcore content :P They left it because they found the game itself boring, not because they didn’t have content that challenges their godly skills.
There is a lot of reason i can think of why 250 people in my guild left that has NOTHING to do with lack of hard content. Progression style, goals of dressing up, tedious grinds, lousy story, players getting confused on what to do, character control, lack of gold, what is mystic forge, what is trading post, exploits. Some of these things aren’t just for everyone.
If hardcore content was interesting for the majority of people they would be running high lvl fractals, and i assure you the majority doesn’t do that.
I don’t even believe they should up the rewards. They should just make hardmode version of dungeons for the most elite of players, with the same rewards as normal. Why? Because the challenge itself is the reward :P (this being reference to the whole “fun is it’s own reward” movement on these forums)
Bottom line is that, players didn’t leave because there wasn’t enough hardcore content. They left because they had nothing to do that interests them when they hit 80, which isn’t necessarily content that is hard and challenging. They just didn’t find things that are offered interesting enough, easy or hard.
I too would like to see more hardcore content. But it can be done in Anet style. We don’t need uber stats. Rewards for extra hard content could just be skins, pets and titles. I think the hardcore content crowd just want the challenge with a reward of recognition, not bigger numbers on their gear.
Content locust please go to another game and leave this one alone. Better yet go outside and live for a while. That is all. Anet the rewards you have and content you have is at a perfect pace please don’t listen to the locust “hardcore” gamers.
Commander X Swagalicious X
Commander Twerknificient
Joey Bladow
Commander Twerknificient
Joey Bladow
I just want challenging content similar to what we had in GW1. I don’t need any special rewards, I just want something that is more fun than zerging bosses with a gazillion hit points or going through linear dungeons and fighting the same mobs with bosses getting increased hit points.
If you want hardcore, high level fractals and WvW.
Content locust please go to another game and leave this one alone. Better yet go outside and live for a while. That is all. Anet the rewards you have and content you have is at a perfect pace please don’t listen to the locust “hardcore” gamers.
It’s not even about that. There’s just no PvE in this game that requires you to be good at anything. The closest they get is Fractals, and “goodness” there is measured by how many projectile blockers you have, and how good you are at standing in/behind them.
There are players who want some content that requires your group to be reasonably adept at playing a video game. That really isn’t too much to ask; most video games operate with some level of challenge.
If you want hardcore, high level fractals and WvW.
Fractals are not hardcore. Group comp plays more of a role than strategy. Not to mention how uninteresting everything in it is, other than the volcano boss.
(edited by Pinch.4273)
If you want hardcore, high level fractals and WvW.
Fractals are not hardcore. Group comp plays more of a role than strategy.
Neither is WvW…
I just wish they would put all their systems together in a large, coherent fashion.
Combine: event scaling, instancing, world bosses, dragons and guild missions.
Result: An Orr-like zone with temple bosses and dragons, that is instanced, perfectly scaled to your group size, with difficult content.
So you would take your guild into the zone, raid each of the temples, kill a few dragons, get some exotic/decent loot, have an epic experience and leave happy.
“I swung a sword, I swung a sword again, oh look I swung a sword again!”
- Colin Johanson while spamming key 1 in GW2
- Colin Johanson while spamming key 1 in GW2
If you want hardcore, high level fractals and WvW.
High level fractals have nothing on DoA or any hardcore zones from Guild Wars 1, that you need specific builds to beat them easily.