Guild Wars 2

After playing Guild Wars 2 for quite some time now, I wanted to make a list giving a shout-out and kudos to Arenanet for making some of the best game design decisions I have ever seen in an MMO.
—————————-
1. Players are rewarded for helping each other, rather than conditioned to compete with each other, such as xp awarded for ressurecting other players.

2. Players do not compete for resources, and all players are allowed access to gathering nodes.

3. Players can learn all trade professions on one character, and do not lose the knowledge of recipes when switching.

4. Players can progress and earn the top-tier gear by playing how they truly want to. One may earn ascended gear from doing dungeons, doing pvp, or even doing pve on your own through dailies.

5. Items sold in the gem-store do not offer advantages when facing other players, and gem store currency can be bought with in-game gold.

6. Content is constantly added to the game despite there being no subscription fee.

7. End-game gear progression is mainly for cosmetic looks, with ascended gear only adding minimal stats above exotic gear, and legendaries having the same stats as exotic gear. This puts an end to constantly ‘needing’ to get new gear, and allows you to do what content you find fun.

8. The latest living story achievements in SouthSun Cove do not require players to do the jumping puzzle to complete, yet still offer a reward for those who do.

9. Super Adventure Box provided infantile mode which allowed those who do not enjoy jumping puzzles but still wanted to see the content the opportunity to do so.
—————————-
With all of the negativity that naturally occurs on forums like this, I think it is good to keep all of the positive things in mind. If you have anything to add to the list of great design decisions you have seen, feel free to do so!

You pretty much made the entire concise list there already for us. lol.

I think I can agree to most of those.
1. Agree.
2. I think this is a good and a bad.
3. I think this is a good and a bad. (2 and 3 are a major part of why crafting is not a way to make money in this game.)
4. Agree.
5. Agree.
6. Agree, though I know full well that while it’s free for all who bought the game, it is definitely paid for in full by those who do buy Gems.
7. Agree.
8. Agree somewhat. The reward for doing it wasn’t amazing, but at least it was something.
9. Agree, though the achievements being tacked on for every little thing was a bit much.

There’s plenty of real great reasons for people to be negative with all of the things missing from the game that were not only promised prelaunch, they were put on the backburner indefinitely or completely thrown out, add to that the list of problems created by ignoring bugs and game design flaws in every class, a highly manipulated economy, content is lacking in the open world, the only balance they cared about up until this last patch is PVP WvW, and the pigeonholing into only certain working builds in all classes and you’ve got really great reasons for people to complain.

In this case, it’s not naturally occurring negativity, these are well thought out and tangible problems that we’ve been expecting them to fix for almost a year now.

I’m dead set against 3. If everyone has access to all crafting disciplines, and many take advantage of the experience offered by them, we wind up with a glut of finished goods that far surpasses the demand (in most cases). I wish we’d been limited to two crafting disciplines per character. This would (theoretically) increase the demand for finished goods and thus make crafting a more profitable venture.

I agree with most, but as per my opinion, you are off the mark on some…

1. Agree.
2. Agree.
3. Agree.
4. Disagree. I cannot earn ascended gear for all available slots just by running dungeons. 40 Laurels and 50 ectos for the accessories I believe. I dont know about you, but I don’t get many rares to salvage into ectos for explorable dungeon runs. Also, you can only get Ring and the backpiece from fractals, and you must run fractals to get the back piece(theres a mat that only drops in fractals that is required). So, I disagree. If all I wanted to do was farm for armored scales and run CoF over and over, I cannot get all of the ascended pieces. I’ll have to change it up to finish the daily and/or enter fractals.
5. Agree.
6. Agree.
7. Disagree. Endgame gear = ascended gear = increase for stats as you mentioned. Also, when ascended weapons are released, legendaries will no longer be the same sats as Exotics. Hence, the treadmill continues.
8. Agree somewhat.
9. Did not partcipate, was on hiatus.

I applaud you for being so positive on these negative filled forums. I really hate to do this, but I wanted to point out some negatives that come with these great features. (I do really love this game though, don’t get me wrong! I just think it is beneficial to identify weaknesses, so that they can be addressed and improved).

1. Players are rewarded for helping each other, rather than conditioned to compete with each other, such as xp awarded for ressurecting other players.

This is definitely great, and I love that it encourages group play! This sometimes makes the game way to easy though, as many events do not scale well. i.e. look at any meta boss, they are all so very easy and we all get credit for them.

2. Players do not compete for resources, and all players are allowed access to gathering nodes.

This is great in theory, but in practice it results in all materials being very cheap to purchase on the TP. There is a huge saturation of supply which is greater than demand on many materials.

3. Players can learn all trade professions on one character, and do not lose the knowledge of recipes when switching.

This is also great in theory, but in practice has resulted in making crafting useless. It is often cheaper to purchase a crafted item on the TP than it is to craft it yourself. That is because once the materials are used to craft they degrade in value. Therefore, it is better for you to sell mats that you collect and then purchase the crafted armor from the TP. The only 2 reasons for crafting are a) experience/levelling and b) legendaries.

4. Players can progress and earn the top-tier gear by playing how they truly want to. One may earn ascended gear from doing dungeons, doing pvp, or even doing pve on your own through dailies.

This I mostly agree with. The only concern is how easy it is to get max stat gear. Many find this great, I personally find it dissatisfying.

5. Items sold in the gem-store do not offer advantages when facing other players, and gem store currency can be bought with in-game gold.

Yes, I do love this! However, it has resulted in RNG chests for skins as the best source of income for ANet. Because you can purchase gems with gold, any desirable skin that is guaranteed would simply be purchased this way. The only way to ensure people use real money is for the gem count required to be very high.

6. Content is constantly added to the game despite there being no subscription fee.

Can’t disagree with this one

7. End-game gear progression is mainly for cosmetic looks, with ascended gear only adding minimal stats above exotic gear, and legendaries having the same stats as exotic gear. This puts an end to constantly ‘needing’ to get new gear, and allows you to do what content you find fun.

It’s mainly for cosmetic looks, but the cosmetic options are very few. Personally, I do not like most of the armors in this game. I liked GW1 armors way more. It’s also extremely easy to get the skins you want, so the progression for appearance is short lived.

8. The latest living story achievements in SouthSun Cove do not require players to do the jumping puzzle to complete, yet still offer a reward for those who do.

Again, can’t disagree with this one

9. Super Adventure Box provided infantile mode which allowed those who do not enjoy jumping puzzles but still wanted to see the content the opportunity to do so.

Haha yes this was good, however I think infantile mode sounds a bit condescending.

cesmode.4257:

7. Disagree. Endgame gear = ascended gear = increase for stats as you mentioned. Also, when ascended weapons are released, legendaries will no longer be the same sats as Exotics. Hence, the treadmill continues.

Legendaries will take on the stats of Ascended Weapons when they are released. They stated this somewhere.. too lazy to dig it up, though.

4. Players can progress and earn the top-tier gear by playing how they truly want to. One may earn ascended gear from doing dungeons, doing pvp, or even doing pve on your own through dailies.
Fanboy lie. Backpeice is exclusive to fractals minus an Apotha Backpeice you get from new content. The earrings are Guild Mission exclusive. The only things that barely meets the statement are rings and necklaces, but they are laurel exclusive.

5. Items sold in the gem-store do not offer advantages when facing other players, and gem store currency can be bought with in-game gold.
On the flip side, currency can be converted into gold, used to buy siege, boosters and other upgrades that can be used in wvw again other players. Again another fib.

7. End-game gear progression is mainly for cosmetic looks, with ascended gear only adding minimal stats above exotic gear, and legendaries having the same stats as exotic gear. This puts an end to constantly ‘needing’ to get new gear, and allows you to do what content you find fun.
yeah a 10% stat gain is “minimal” improvement, wait til ascended weapons come out and tell me if the damage output is just minimal or not. It be interesting to what the a fully geared ascended with basic infusions character compares to a exotic gear character.
But besides that, everything else is true.

Jemmi.6058:

9. Super Adventure Box provided infantile mode which allowed those who do not enjoy jumping puzzles but still wanted to see the content the opportunity to do so.

Haha yes this was good, however I think infantile mode sounds a bit condescending.

Silly bookah, the Super Adventure Box was designed by an asura to empower students to reach their potential while building character through interactive play experience. Calling the first level Infantile Mode fits the arrogant superiority of the asura race.

OP, I agree with your post – brilliant design decisions.

Karizee.8076:

Jemmi.6058:

9. Super Adventure Box provided infantile mode which allowed those who do not enjoy jumping puzzles but still wanted to see the content the opportunity to do so.

Haha yes this was good, however I think infantile mode sounds a bit condescending.

Silly bookah, the Super Adventure Box was designed by an asura to empower students to reach their potential while building character through interactive play experience. Calling the first level Infantile Mode fits the arrogant superiority of the asura race.

OP, I agree with your post – brilliant design decisions.

:P Definitely, and I totally get that. I did not find it offensive, but I remember reading some posts by people that did.