I posted this thread in the sPvP, and I know it is generally frowned upon having the same post in 2 sub-sections, but I feel this strongly hits both PvE and PvP and thus, really wanted to get some input on both ends of the spectrum, so please allow it to remain. To keep feedback together, and because it is such a long post, I’ll just link the main-thread, but please take a look and become part of a discussion.
https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/pvp/pvp/If-I-were-a-Lead-Developer-during-alpha/first#post3531999
Fair warning, it IS long, but I put an awful lot of work into it. Thanks for reading.
High Warlord Sikari (80 Reaper) / Lord Siekron (80 DH)
Warlord Sikari (80 Scrapper)
Bump, some discussion has started in the main thread, and since this thread isn’t meant to take comments, I figured I’d buff to get more PVE player discussion.
High Warlord Sikari (80 Reaper) / Lord Siekron (80 DH)
Warlord Sikari (80 Scrapper)
If I were the lead developer:
- I would have kept something like a Trinity
— Same here. I don’t agree with people being Ubermen who can do everything. CRPGs are about specialization — that’s my philosophy. The current “Nerf the Zerker” issue is a direct consequence of Anet’s No Trinity Policy. And I don’t necessary want a tank/dps/healer trinity, but I want something similar so that people are able to specialize. It doesn’t even need to be a trinity, it could a square or pentagram or whatever.
- I would keep Downed State
I don’t know why people hate Downed State. Downed State isn’t Dead, Dead is Dead, and Healers should be able to “Phoenix Down” people who are down.
- Damge heals supporters, etc.. — there should be classes good at Self Heals. And there should be those that suck at it. The reason why Warriors and Guardians are the most in demand class in this game is because they are the ones favored by a no-trinity system, same reason why Zerker is the most efficient set to use in PVE. All conditions should hit all monsters including bosses.
- Adding additional modes to to PVE – I never though of it, I guess it would be nice.
And some other things:
- I would have VOIP built into the game. This is probably not done for bandwidth reasons though. Makes me feel ghetto.
- Precursor mania — I would put a hard ceiling for prices in the Trading Post. Then I would get Precursor Crafting/Questing/Scavenging done asap, because it’s ridiculous
- Skill System — I would trash the stupid “skills are locked to weapons” skill system and let you slot in weapon specific skills to your weapon skill slots. Give us some flexibilty in the system. Anet keeps whining about how there is no build diversity, well duh that’s because all our classes are “pre-built” with this stupid weapon skill system. If the excuse is “it’s too hard to balance” the reply is “even with your current weapon skill system balance is a joke so there’s no problem.”
- Traits — there’s not enough. Give us more. More points to use, more traits to choose from. That will give us more build diveristy as well.
- I would get rid of cooldowns and introduce a resource like thief initiative for everyone. Yes, I miss mana bars. Cooldowns are lame. So is timegating. Guild Wars is not a monthly subscription game; it doesn’t need Cooldowns and Timegating.
- Grind. Get rid of the godkitten grind. Grind, cooldowns and timegating are things born of the standard/WOW MMORPG model where they want to delay your progress in teh game so that you don’t finish everything in a day, so you stay for months and pay subscription fees. Since Guildwars never did that model, there is absolutely no reason to have these dinosaur concepts that belong in a monthly sub model.
For all of ANet’s “We don’t make grindy games” blather, they kept a surprisingly high amount of grind and timegating in this game. It befuddles me why, when they expressly state one of their design philosophies is not to! They tried to differentiate themselves from WOW, but didn’t quite go far enough.
Perhaps part of the problem though is the playerbase. Originally GW2 didn’t have Ascended Armor or that stuff, and was “kind of” true to the “no grind” policy. It’s player behavior and desire that perhaps steered GW2 to the grindy game it is today, what with things like overpriced items in the TP (and that is nothing but player greed, plain and simple) to never-ending clamor for “endgame content” (which I never quite understood) which prompted Anet to introduce farm/grinds to “stall for time” on these players who have nothing better to do.
Strange isn’kitten IMO “endgame content” isn’t necessary. A good fun game can be played over and over (like WVW for me).
#ELEtism on Eredon Terrace
There’s not much grind compared to other games, that’s what they meant.
I’d say actually the grinds are longer here, there are just fewer of them. Wow for example, every 2-3 months you grind a new set of armor but it doesn’t take long. Here it takes a long time to get a legendary or full ascended armor set, but once you do, you’re pretty much done. There are no real winners because in WoW grind you can usually get caught up to speed but nearing the end of expansions it isn’t as easy to get into the flow of content and you miss a lot of outdated stuff. In. GW2 grind, any progress you make lasts but it takes a long time, gets boring and in the end doesn’t amount to much and you end up in an mmo with no goals. I have no real preference but I do miss seeing group roll loot drop from hard instanced bosses. Everything being based on collecting good to buy 250 of various mats is quite honestly a bad design. Its so dull. If you could realistically grind the 250’of each material it would be better than now. Its gold grinding for mats and a prerequisite weapon and farming non-tradable items. There’s no epic feeling to that. It’s essentially all numbers. That’s the part that makes the current implication of armor-grabbing boring. Even full exotics don’t drop from the dungeons you run! You farm gold and buy some exotic berserker gear…
Where is the fun in that?
High Warlord Sikari (80 Reaper) / Lord Siekron (80 DH)
Warlord Sikari (80 Scrapper)
There’s not much grind compared to other games, that’s what they meant.
I’d say actually the grinds are longer here, there are just fewer of them. Wow for example, every 2-3 months you grind a new set of armor but it doesn’t take long. Here it takes a long time to get a legendary or full ascended armor set, but once you do, you’re pretty much done. There are no real winners because in WoW grind you can usually get caught up to speed but nearing the end of expansions it isn’t as easy to get into the flow of content and you miss a lot of outdated stuff. In. GW2 grind, any progress you make lasts but it takes a long time, gets boring and in the end doesn’t amount to much and you end up in an mmo with no goals. I have no real preference but I do miss seeing group roll loot drop from hard instanced bosses. Everything being based on collecting good to buy 250 of various mats is quite honestly a bad design. Its so dull. If you could realistically grind the 250’of each material it would be better than now. Its gold grinding for mats and a prerequisite weapon and farming non-tradable items. There’s no epic feeling to that. It’s essentially all numbers. That’s the part that makes the current implication of armor-grabbing boring. Even full exotics don’t drop from the dungeons you run! You farm gold and buy some exotic berserker gear… Where is the fun in that?
Although written in a wall of text, +1.
Platinum – Guardian
Technical Strength – Engineer
Dungeon Master – FotM 46
Haha, sorry George. That wasn’t intended to be as long as it was.
High Warlord Sikari (80 Reaper) / Lord Siekron (80 DH)
Warlord Sikari (80 Scrapper)
No in beta it was said to have a trinity, dps, utility and support. It had ground works to take what worked and IMPROVE on it. Instead their pride got the best of then and they made a shoddy game. I’ve played this since near release and followed it since it was announced. What they discussed and what happened is not the same. They didn’t advertise “You can only play dps because if you don’t plAy a zerker warrior no one will want you, and the other roles are baked into dps so there’s no real team play! Of course we fixed the lack of team play by you needing to pick up your dead friends from the floor because we had to line the game with 1-shot abilities!”
And quit the WoW bullkitten. I’ve played basically every mainstream US mmo (and some not US) that has been out since like 2002. Wow wouldn’t be the top 3 for me. But the model has reasons for existing. It worked. Also I don’t even want wows trinity. I want the trinity gw2 had going for them and blew it. So take your smug remarks and keep them to yourself, please. I didn’t invite ignorance here.
High Warlord Sikari (80 Reaper) / Lord Siekron (80 DH)
Warlord Sikari (80 Scrapper)
Why are you even playing this game, to me this game is the best video game I’ve ever played in my life. I come from WoW and this game makes me compliment it everyday with how much it surprises me and how much fun I have on it. If you were the dev during alpha, I fear this game wouldn’t have been a god like it is now.
What specifically makes it a god? Doing the same dungeons you have forever while being forced into dps? You’d probably like ANY hack and slash game more, truth be told.
High Warlord Sikari (80 Reaper) / Lord Siekron (80 DH)
Warlord Sikari (80 Scrapper)