Guild Wars 2

Now, GW2 is said to be an innovative MMO, but I sat down and thought about it for a while, and I want to share some thoughts with you (and feel free to do the same, if you have a different perspective with me to share).

GW2 offers a stylized Open World and prides itself with not being like any other MMO, and if we look at the game design, then yes, they do bring in some new ideas that are very cool.
- I look at it more as in terms of concept sometimes in which we have:

• Open World (and it has been improved with these Jumping Puzzles, which I look upon as a reward in itself, as the adventurous player ventures out and discovers a place he did not expect. Kudos to ANet for those. I enjoy stumbling upon them to be one of the most satisfying PvE experiences I’ve had in MMO’s)
• Combat (ANet found that they wanted it to be more Dynamic, which they’ve made. I’d still like more skills to play with, since I find having a favorite weapon becoming stale over time. Room for improvement, but generally the dynamic combat makes for a fresh and awesome change to how MMO’s would design combat)
• Quests (they are quests, but the game design is different, and calling them something else doesn’t really make it any different concept-wise)
• Public Events (Dynamic Events is what GW2 is calling it, but a general term has become Public Events)
• PvP (in this case a Massive PvP was introduced with WvW, but it is still players against each other)
• Dungeons (which for some reason is restraining itself to only five man dungeons. Raids would do better anytime over these zergfest Living Story events, provided they’d be designed for players to organize and structure themselves)

All the concepts are pretty basic stuff, and GW2 has taken out some parts that MMO’s would have because they were about playing together (such as Raids). In terms of concepts, GW2 doesn’t invent something new, really.
- Concepts can be referred to as ideas, what the Devs want their players to be able to do. The Game Design, as the name suggests, is how these ideas gets designed and implemented into the game.

Now, many other MMO’s that are on the way, others already out, have made use of many of these concepts, and GW2 looks to be falling a bit behind. I don’t mean to say that GW2 is a bad game or that it will die, nothing of the sort. Rather, I’d like for you, the players (that includes me as well) to look at GW2 and say: Which idea (concept) would be tremendously awesome to see implemented? What could really kick this game into its second year?
- I’d like for many of you to snap out of the fanboy’ism and look at the game with constuctive criticism. Look at it and think to yourselves “This game is great. How can it become even greater?”

- As for me, just to get things started, I’m no fan of Aetherblades with their huge ships coming out of nowhere (never met them on my journeys through Tyria, but suddenly, there they were), however, I try to look positively on the situation.
- I’d love to see them take the idea and put it to use.
Give players (or guilds) the opportunity to get a hold of such a magnificent piece of equipment. They are there, what possible reason can you think of why your character or guild wouldn’t acquire an airship?
- Don’t be afraid to think big, ANet! I would’ve loved to be given the opportunity to ride along one in Orr and fight off dragons in the skies (I’ve wanted that before Aetherblades) or drive a tank while some of my friends occupied the cannons and we’d fight our way through Orr.
- I don’t see any radical thinking on the suggestion page really, so I’d like to spread the word to all of you (the devs included): Think innovatively!

I’m not sure we can talk about if Guild Wars 2 is innovative or not, without first defining innovation.

I don’t think any MMO can just change everything and be accepted. The innovation behind Guild Wars 2 isn’t so much, in my mind, what they’d done…so much as what they haven’t. My favorite example of this is dynamic events.

Rift had dynamic events before Guild Wars 2 (and Warhammer had public questions before that. From this point of view, one can say that dynamic events are not innovative, because other games have had them. However, it’s what Guild Wars 2 did that made dynamic events an innovation.

Rift and Warhammer didn’t make a game about dynamic events. They kept the old quest system, with quest hubs and the events were simply added on after. What difference does this make? It has mostly to do with the results of failed events.

I played Rift from beta 4 and during that time, if an invasion succeeded and took an outpost…it stayed that way until players changed it…and it was a problem. Why? Because for some people, doing their traditional quests, that was the only quest hub they could use, because they had to hand in quests to get rewards. Their entire progress in the game was stalled if that quest hub was down. So Rift made a change before launch and if no one fought an invasion, it was just sort of evaporate in 45 minutes or so. It would go away by itself. It had to be this way, because though Rift threw dynamic events in their game, they never took that final step of getting rid of traditional quest hubs.

In Guild Wars 2, if a town falls, it falls until players take it back. In addition to this, events chain. In Rift, events were all stand alone. They might have been related to a theme of a zone or event, but each event had nothing to do with the event before or after it, except in theme. Again, it didn’t need events to chain…why? Because it had quest chains. They filled that “ecological niche” for lack of a better word.

And the dynamic events in Rift certainly didn’t branch. It wasn’t like if you fail the risen chicken event in Orr you get one event, but if you succeed you get another.

Did Guild Wars 2 innovate? Sure they did. By having faith in their plans, they didn’t fall into the trap of just changing things a bit, but hedging their bets by keeping all the old stuff in place.

They took a risk that other games weren’t prepared to take…and sometimes, that’s all innovation is.

In certain things
-Successful removal of the trinity
-Questing (event) system which responds to and creates for the players
-Action oriented combat
-Removing PvE dependence from PvP

In others…
-Loot system the exact same crap as every previous MMO… ever…
-Same with the crafting system

And then…
-Combat still too targeting and auto-attack dependent
-Event system, though innovative, was just not taken far enough
-WvW would be innovative, were it not a strategyless zergfest.

I think it started out that way. I feel like they’re at a loss now.
I would argue the removal of the trinity as being “successful”. With no trinity or class specific roles, they just want to throw us into zergs. It doesnt matter what class you are, if you have skills, if you’re levelled or if you’re even wearing gear at all doing world events.
The main core of gameplay is coming down to how many people we can throw it at something at one time. With new MMO’s coming….its not a good mechanic to have at your core. I’ve been a fan of GW2 for a long while…..and I’m starting to look at whats coming up from other developers.

Conncept.7638:

In certain things
-Successful removal of the trinity
-Events which respond to players
-Large scale open world content (done before, but not for some time…)
-Action oriented combat
-Removing PvE dependence from PvP

In others…
-Loot system the exact same crap as every previous MMO… ever…
-Same with the crafting system
-Combat still too targeting and auto-attack dependent
-Event system, though innovative, was just not taken far enough
-WvW would be innovative, were it not a strategyless zergfest.

The loot system is completely different from most MMOs, because you’re not rolling against other players. That, to me, is a major upgrade. Everyone rolls for loot if everyone participated.

I’ve been playing Guild Wars 2 for a year now, and we haven’t had one fight over someone rolling greed instead of need. lol

The combat system is really interesting—-I just wish they actually made it more actiony like you aim to shoot arrows and your auto attack does some cool combo animation other than 3 simple hits.

Vayne.8563:

The loot system is completely different from most MMOs, because you’re not rolling against other players. That, to me, is a major upgrade. Everyone rolls for loot if everyone participated.

I meant more of the RNG part, would have loved to see a harvesting system or something that would allow the players, who are actually participating in the economy, to decide the influx of goods, rather than influx being controlled by some hidden percentage decided by a developer who is but one person in that economy.

Conncept.7638:

Vayne.8563:

The loot system is completely different from most MMOs, because you’re not rolling against other players. That, to me, is a major upgrade. Everyone rolls for loot if everyone participated.

I meant more of the RNG part, would have loved to see a harvesting system or something that would allow the players, who are actually participating in the economy, to decide the influx of goods, rather than influx being controlled by some hidden percentage decided by a developer who is but one person in that economy.

What I’d love to see is logical loot. I don’t want to kill a deer and get a longbow. I want to kill a deer and get meat, and hide. It’s just silly.

I had actually expected this game to be more immersive than it is (and immersion is what I wanted). I like the game…but there are far too many things that pull me out of it to make it great.

Vayne: I’m not saying they didn’t change certain things for the better, though if I may hold you up on “if a town falls” comment there, I have experienced saving Nebo Terrace but I didn’t get further than selling the trash loot and getting to the exit of the town before it was under attack yet again.
- I like the idea behind the Dynamic Events and that they chain, however, there are two flaws right now. As with Nebo Terrace, if there’s no alternative to the town being under attack after it is saved, it will be attacked again shortly after, thus removing that we as players really have an impact. Adding more Dynamic Events to the place would, if nothing else, add variety.
- The second flaw is that Dynamic Events, while awesome, only tells you what is going on right now. I know that there are books and such to learn about different lore and such, but Quests would also work as a storytelling aspect. Often, since it would be unrealistic that your character would be present for ALL the wrongs that happened in the world, the quest-giver would explain his problem.
- Some quests that used to be in older games would have done better as Dynamic Events, such as the ones where some baddies that are just standing around chilling are called a threat by some quest giver, and I’m happy that they have made this change, but there are potential stories that could be told through a quest (or rather in GW2’s case: a triggerable dynamic event) that could send you out to recover an artifact that would later be used to uncover secrets deep inside some jumping puzzle.

Anyhoo, my point was more to get people thinking that GW2, while making some innovative changes to the design to some not so innovative concepts, could make some even larger steps towards being a unique and one of a kind experience.
- Some online games focus on certain aspects. A friend of mine suggested “Wings of Icarus” I believe he called it, where you fight other players on airships (not unlike those we have in GW2) in the skies. I am still looking for the MMO that has implemented something like that to its gameplay.
- I would love to see some people thinking out of the box instead of being satisfied with the status quo… I mean, that’s the innovative thing to do, right?

Vayne.8563:

I had actually expected this game to be more immersive than it is (and immersion is what I wanted). I like the game…but there are far too many things that pull me out of it to make it great.

Agreed. The immersion aspect is one I find missing in GW2, and it’s something that can be attained by something as simple as ships sailing to and from port, instead of using wp.

My opinion is that the while the game appears innovative it is only superficial in nature.
- Anet originally said they thought carrot on a stick ie gear treadmills to keep people playing is a bad thing, and while there is no real gear treadmill they still use the carrot on the stick in the form of time gating or rng to keep people playing.
- The combat while different from a typical mmo lacks an appreciable depth, what I mean is that once you have it figured out the only thing that really matters is completely negating damage through some means. It becomes a fairly one dimensional experience since the encounter design usually revolves around large healthpool mobs with the only mechanic you need to be aware of being when to negate damage.
-Going back to rng, much of the content is designed to be built around farming/grinding by over inflating the number of a particular item needed in order to create or obtain another item. It is presented slightly different here as it is usually a group situation compared to other games but it is still farming/grinding none the less, a staple of all mmo’s since forever.

These are certainly not all the things I could think of but they stick out in my mind as the the most prominent. So to wrap this up for now, while GW2 is attempting to be innovative it has achieved it only on a superficial level by bringing together elements that are present in every mmorpg but just changing how it is presented. This of course is my opinion and I don’t expect everyone or probably even most will agree with me so please keep the flames in check.

MrRuin.9740:

I think it started out that way. I feel like they’re at a loss now.
I would argue the removal of the trinity as being “successful”. With no trinity or class specific roles, they just want to throw us into zergs. It doesnt matter what class you are, if you have skills, if you’re levelled or if you’re even wearing gear at all doing world events.
The main core of gameplay is coming down to how many people we can throw it at something at one time. With new MMO’s coming….its not a good mechanic to have at your core. I’ve been a fan of GW2 for a long while…..and I’m starting to look at whats coming up from other developers.

So am I, but I’m still a huge fan of GW2.
- I wouldn’t say that they successfully removed the trinity.
The trinity was supposed to create structure in a group, so you’d know what your role was.
- ANet should somehow teach players from the beginning how their mechanics in battle works. The possibilities with combo fields and such. Have friends from the start of the Personal Story teach ones character the basics.
- They should also make mechanics that kinda punishes zergs instead of letting people getting away with it. The Karkas was great at doing this with their rolls and such, spreading people out. I think the combo fields could make for some awesome teamwork, but if players are not aware that these are crucial, or even worse, if these are not crucial in group content in GW2, then the concept of combo fields goes to waste.

I hope to see them improve their mechanics in the near future. If they have the mechanics under control and players understand them, they can make content that is both challenging and fun without being punishing (games can be either challenging or punishing).

Sinifair.1026:

Vayne: I’m not saying they didn’t change certain things for the better, though if I may hold you up on “if a town falls” comment there, I have experienced saving Nebo Terrace but I didn’t get further than selling the trash loot and getting to the exit of the town before it was under attack yet again.
- I like the idea behind the Dynamic Events and that they chain, however, there are two flaws right now. As with Nebo Terrace, if there’s no alternative to the town being under attack after it is saved, it will be attacked again shortly after, thus removing that we as players really have an impact. Adding more Dynamic Events to the place would, if nothing else, add variety.
- The second flaw is that Dynamic Events, while awesome, only tells you what is going on right now. I know that there are books and such to learn about different lore and such, but Quests would also work as a storytelling aspect. Often, since it would be unrealistic that your character would be present for ALL the wrongs that happened in the world, the quest-giver would explain his problem.
- Some quests that used to be in older games would have done better as Dynamic Events, such as the ones where some baddies that are just standing around chilling are called a threat by some quest giver, and I’m happy that they have made this change, but there are potential stories that could be told through a quest (or rather in GW2’s case: a triggerable dynamic event) that could send you out to recover an artifact that would later be used to uncover secrets deep inside some jumping puzzle.

Anyhoo, my point was more to get people thinking that GW2, while making some innovative changes to the design to some not so innovative concepts, could make some even larger steps towards being a unique and one of a kind experience.
- Some online games focus on certain aspects. A friend of mine suggested “Wings of Icarus” I believe he called it, where you fight other players on airships (not unlike those we have in GW2) in the skies. I am still looking for the MMO that has implemented something like that to its gameplay.
- I would love to see some people thinking out of the box instead of being satisfied with the status quo… I mean, that’s the innovative thing to do, right?

Choosing nebo terrace is a single example. But there are events in other parts of the game that are rarer or take longer. I’ve been in Harathi where every single outpost was under enemy control.

Of course events are going to cycle. There’s no way any dev can create enough scripted content to have enough events to keep things fresh. They were always going to cycle. Anet said so before launch.

But still, in Rift those events were completely meaningless. In Orr, those events aren’t meaningless, because people want to unlock temples. There’s a definite difference.

Here’s another one. There’s an event you have to beat to finish exploring Metrica Province. It’s not always up. You might not even know it’s there….but it’s an event.

And there’s an event you have to beat to get into at least one of the mini dungeons and another you have to beat that opens a portal to a jumping puzzle.

I get that it’s not realistic that outposts keep going back and forth, but innovation doesn’t have anything to do with success. They’ve made a change for others to build on.

Innovation doesn’t mean I’m changing everything. I means you’ve don’t something differently. And yes, after watching invasions just evaporate in Rift, I feel a keen difference playing Guild Wars 2.

Particularly if you want to get into CoF. lol

I would say the game was innovative on launch.

They have done nothing to build upon that reputation since then however. There are so many things I would love for them to build upon and expand, but instead we get boring bi-weekly patches introducing new shallow loot piñatas that have no place in the Guild Wars universe except for the fact that some guy with a steampunk fetisch who probably don’t even play the game over at Arena Net says so.

I have never seen a game company violate their own lore and reputation so hard in my entire gaming career. There’s nothing dynamic about Arena Net telling us exactly what a patch will contain a week before it’s released, and then whacking a “dynamic” event for two weeks before the next “dynamic” event is released.

Vayne.8563:

Choosing nebo terrace is a single example. But there are events in other parts of the game that are rarer or take longer. I’ve been in Harathi where every single outpost was under enemy control.

Of course events are going to cycle. There’s no way any dev can create enough scripted content to have enough events to keep things fresh. They were always going to cycle. Anet said so before launch.

But still, in Rift those events were completely meaningless. In Orr, those events aren’t meaningless, because people want to unlock temples. There’s a definite difference.

Here’s another one. There’s an event you have to beat to finish exploring Metrica Province. It’s not always up. You might not even know it’s there….but it’s an event.

And there’s an event you have to beat to get into at least one of the mini dungeons and another you have to beat that opens a portal to a jumping puzzle.

I get that it’s not realistic that outposts keep going back and forth, but innovation doesn’t have anything to do with success. They’ve made a change for others to build on.

Innovation doesn’t mean I’m changing everything. I means you’ve don’t something differently. And yes, after watching invasions just evaporate in Rift, I feel a keen difference playing Guild Wars 2.

Particularly if you want to get into CoF. lol

Hehe, I know of those examples. Also the mob in Mount Maelstrom that opens the portal to that secret garden. Done it, and it was an awesome feeling.

- I know that you can’t make an endless stream of Dynamic Events, but they can add more, or (hopefully) the Living World will change some things drastically and add new Dynamic Events on those places. Such a change to the world I can assure you that people would notice.

I’m not saying that Dynamic Events are bad or inferior in any way. I like them, but they do have their limits to what they can do.
- Or rather: You use the Dynamic Events to give players a certain experience, but it cannot provide all the experiences you might want the players to have.

I’m not saying that I disagree with you, mate. What I’m trying to say is that it has its limits.
- Actually, what I want is more dynamic events, along with more ways to do combat, like riding a tank in Orr with friends, or a Hazmat suit or an airship where you fight off dragons.
- ANet could add more skills for us to use, or they could add these above stated elements to add more variety to how we do combat while at the same time providing more skills for us to play with (I’d like more skills… but I’d also be satisfied if they just took advantage of vehicles in the world to add to our experience. Much like when you break a branch of a treant and can use it to fight with).

Vayne.8563:

Conncept.7638:

Vayne.8563:

The loot system is completely different from most MMOs, because you’re not rolling against other players. That, to me, is a major upgrade. Everyone rolls for loot if everyone participated.

I meant more of the RNG part, would have loved to see a harvesting system or something that would allow the players, who are actually participating in the economy, to decide the influx of goods, rather than influx being controlled by some hidden percentage decided by a developer who is but one person in that economy.

What I’d love to see is logical loot. I don’t want to kill a deer and get a longbow. I want to kill a deer and get meat, and hide. It’s just silly.

I had actually expected this game to be more immersive than it is (and immersion is what I wanted). I like the game…but there are far too many things that pull me out of it to make it great.

I have to agree completely…probably for different reasons though, but nonetheless the result makes me sad, I wanted to LOVE this game.

Sinifair.1026:

Vayne.8563:

Choosing nebo terrace is a single example. But there are events in other parts of the game that are rarer or take longer. I’ve been in Harathi where every single outpost was under enemy control.

Of course events are going to cycle. There’s no way any dev can create enough scripted content to have enough events to keep things fresh. They were always going to cycle. Anet said so before launch.

But still, in Rift those events were completely meaningless. In Orr, those events aren’t meaningless, because people want to unlock temples. There’s a definite difference.

Here’s another one. There’s an event you have to beat to finish exploring Metrica Province. It’s not always up. You might not even know it’s there….but it’s an event.

And there’s an event you have to beat to get into at least one of the mini dungeons and another you have to beat that opens a portal to a jumping puzzle.

I get that it’s not realistic that outposts keep going back and forth, but innovation doesn’t have anything to do with success. They’ve made a change for others to build on.

Innovation doesn’t mean I’m changing everything. I means you’ve don’t something differently. And yes, after watching invasions just evaporate in Rift, I feel a keen difference playing Guild Wars 2.

Particularly if you want to get into CoF. lol

Hehe, I know of those examples. Also the mob in Mount Maelstrom that opens the portal to that secret garden. Done it, and it was an awesome feeling.

- I know that you can’t make an endless stream of Dynamic Events, but they can add more, or (hopefully) the Living World will change some things drastically and add new Dynamic Events on those places. Such a change to the world I can assure you that people would notice.

I’m not saying that Dynamic Events are bad or inferior in any way. I like them, but they do have their limits to what they can do.
- Or rather: You use the Dynamic Events to give players a certain experience, but it cannot provide all the experiences you might want the players to have.

I’m not saying that I disagree with you, mate. What I’m trying to say is that it has its limits.
- Actually, what I want is more dynamic events, along with more ways to do combat, like riding a tank in Orr with friends, or a Hazmat suit or an airship where you fight off dragons.
- ANet could add more skills for us to use, or they could add these above stated elements to add more variety to how we do combat while at the same time providing more skills for us to play with (I’d like more skills… but I’d also be satisfied if they just took advantage of vehicles in the world to add to our experience. Much like when you break a branch of a treant and can use it to fight with).

I want more dynamic events too…and different ones…but the question is are they innovative. To me they are, because no one else has done with DEs what Anet has done.

Vayne.8563:

Conncept.7638:

Vayne.8563:

The loot system is completely different from most MMOs, because you’re not rolling against other players. That, to me, is a major upgrade. Everyone rolls for loot if everyone participated.

I meant more of the RNG part, would have loved to see a harvesting system or something that would allow the players, who are actually participating in the economy, to decide the influx of goods, rather than influx being controlled by some hidden percentage decided by a developer who is but one person in that economy.

What I’d love to see is logical loot. I don’t want to kill a deer and get a longbow. I want to kill a deer and get meat, and hide. It’s just silly.

I had actually expected this game to be more immersive than it is (and immersion is what I wanted). I like the game…but there are far too many things that pull me out of it to make it great.

That’s very much what I meant. Imagine a system where when you kill something, you are able to loot a certain amount of things from it based on your level compared to its, and you choose those from a list of everything it has. Kill a deer and a list comes up of 2 Antlers, 26 Bones, 2 Venison Rib Racks, 2 Venison Round Steak, 2 Venison Shank Steak, 2 Venison Backstraps, Deer Hide, Deer Skull, Deer Hooves.

An auto-select system would be set up with what items you prefer.

Each item belongs to a category (bones, meat, hide) and if you choose that item you will either get it or get a fragment which can be combined with other fragments for the actual item. As you loot items of the same category your skill at obtaining those items will increase, and you will get larger fragments and more whole items the higher this skill gets.

Top level items however would still not be guaranteed drops. Say you kill tons of shattered minions, and ‘harvest’ for crystal loadstones on every one. Even if your skill on getting stone is topped out you are still going to end up with fragments on your average mob. Go for more veterans and they will give larger fragments, champions yet larger, legendaries and bosses finally ‘harvest’ for complete loadstones.

Conncept.7638:

Vayne.8563:

Conncept.7638:

Vayne.8563:

The loot system is completely different from most MMOs, because you’re not rolling against other players. That, to me, is a major upgrade. Everyone rolls for loot if everyone participated.

I meant more of the RNG part, would have loved to see a harvesting system or something that would allow the players, who are actually participating in the economy, to decide the influx of goods, rather than influx being controlled by some hidden percentage decided by a developer who is but one person in that economy.

What I’d love to see is logical loot. I don’t want to kill a deer and get a longbow. I want to kill a deer and get meat, and hide. It’s just silly.

I had actually expected this game to be more immersive than it is (and immersion is what I wanted). I like the game…but there are far too many things that pull me out of it to make it great.

That’s very much what I meant. Imagine a system where when you kill something, you are able to loot a certain amount of things from it based on your level compared to its, and you choose those from a list of everything it has. Kill a deer and a list comes up of 2 Antlers, 26 Bones, 2 Venison Rib Racks, 2 Venison Round Steak, 2 Venison Shank Steak, 2 Venison Backstraps, Deer Hide, Deer Skull, Deer Hooves.

An auto-select system would be set up with what items you prefer.

Each item belongs to a category (bones, meat, hide) and if you choose that item you will either get it or get a fragment which can be combined with other fragments for the actual item. As you loot items of the same category your skill at obtaining those items will increase, and you will get larger fragments and more whole items the higher this skill gets.

Top level items however would still not be guaranteed drops. Say you kill tons of shattered minions, and ‘harvest’ for crystal loadstones on every one. Even if your skill on getting stone is topped out you are still going to end up with fragments on your average mob. Go for more veterans and they will give larger fragments, champions yet larger, legendaries and bosses finally ‘harvest’ for complete loadstones.

From an immersion stand point it will be great from a gameplay stand point it would be bad. Because certain mobs would be farmed more so than other mobs.

It would be nice to play an MMO where the mob you kill will drop something similar to what they are wearing though or own.

The Living Story was also touted as a continuous, innovative way to keep the game fresh without waiting for it stagnate, then release an expansion.
While this was and could be a good idea, it has fallen into something like a poorly scripted syndicated fantasy TV show. You have your run-of-the-mill new bad guy every episode, the good guys destroy him/her and nice and timely in the 2 week span, rinse and repeat.
I had thought the Living Story was going to impact the world in some meaningful way and progress the real story. Instead we get faceless new badguys we know nothing about, don’t know their motives or history. Don’t even care because we know they’re going to be replaced with the new flavor of the update bad guy in 2 weeks.
This links back to what Vayne said about it not being immersive. I don’t care about these nothing badguys and even goodguy characters that are ‘famous’ for a week. There’s nothing to care about……they will be replaced with more paper thin characters in the next update.

silvermember.8941:

Conncept.7638:

Vayne.8563:

Conncept.7638:

Vayne.8563:

The loot system is completely different from most MMOs, because you’re not rolling against other players. That, to me, is a major upgrade. Everyone rolls for loot if everyone participated.

I meant more of the RNG part, would have loved to see a harvesting system or something that would allow the players, who are actually participating in the economy, to decide the influx of goods, rather than influx being controlled by some hidden percentage decided by a developer who is but one person in that economy.

What I’d love to see is logical loot. I don’t want to kill a deer and get a longbow. I want to kill a deer and get meat, and hide. It’s just silly.

I had actually expected this game to be more immersive than it is (and immersion is what I wanted). I like the game…but there are far too many things that pull me out of it to make it great.

That’s very much what I meant. Imagine a system where when you kill something, you are able to loot a certain amount of things from it based on your level compared to its, and you choose those from a list of everything it has. Kill a deer and a list comes up of 2 Antlers, 26 Bones, 2 Venison Rib Racks, 2 Venison Round Steak, 2 Venison Shank Steak, 2 Venison Backstraps, Deer Hide, Deer Skull, Deer Hooves.

An auto-select system would be set up with what items you prefer.

Each item belongs to a category (bones, meat, hide) and if you choose that item you will either get it or get a fragment which can be combined with other fragments for the actual item. As you loot items of the same category your skill at obtaining those items will increase, and you will get larger fragments and more whole items the higher this skill gets.

Top level items however would still not be guaranteed drops. Say you kill tons of shattered minions, and ‘harvest’ for crystal loadstones on every one. Even if your skill on getting stone is topped out you are still going to end up with fragments on your average mob. Go for more veterans and they will give larger fragments, champions yet larger, legendaries and bosses finally ‘harvest’ for complete loadstones.

From an immersion stand point it will be great from a gameplay stand point it would be bad. Because certain mobs would be farmed more so than other mobs.

It would be nice to play an MMO where the mob you kill will drop something similar to what they are wearing though or own.

Why is that a problem from a gameplay aspect. It’s actually the opposite. Think of it this way.

Some people want meat, because they need meat, because they’re cooks. Some people need leather because they are leatherworkers so they need hide. Those are natural things. You can create a system by which those things are needed.

So if someone did need hide, they could go kill deer…or boar. Or something that had hide.

The same thing, if you kill a guy, you get a chance to get HIS weapon. Why might you not? Because when you’re fighting someone their weapon could actually break for be damaged. Or maybe it’s not a great weapon.

The bottom line is, if you give people the opportunity to fine tune their drops. they’ll fight what they want to fight to get those drops. But it’s better than everything being completely random. And it would get people into different zones again.

I don’t really see this as a problem. I see it as a solution.

Looking at this thread exhausts me. But I will try to place my points concisely.

DEs are good, but mask the same old run of the mill type of quests.
Invasions are a poor copy of Rift’s Rifts/Invasions. The adds sit there and don’t even attack towns.
Living Story is a poor substitute for actual story telling and substantial meaningful and impactful content.
The trinity was removed, but slowly most people(not all) flock to more berserker builds because it is straight up more powerful and useful.
While there is no traditiona treadmill, having new ascended slots released every 3-4 months is the same thing as a new raid tier. It takes as long to obtain one or two new ascended slots compared to an entire raid tier in WoW. Masked, again, but the same thing.

Unique snowflake? No. They get a B- for effort, the game is fun. But stupid decisions are stupid decision and Im really getting tired of it.

Great, SAB…more fluffy kitten

silvermember.8941:

From an immersion stand point it will be great from a gameplay stand point it would be bad. Because certain mobs would be farmed more so than other mobs.

It would be nice to play an MMO where the mob you kill will drop something similar to what they are wearing though or own.

That’s kind of the point, certain mobs are already farmed more than others, and there will always be such a mob or group of mobs. But with RNG it’s not likely to drive prices down by much if at all, so the mobs are farmed for those current ‘top-tier’ drops until the devs decide to make major changes to the system… which seems to happen every other month under the current system.

Guaranteed categorized drops would allow a control of influx, if a lot of players farm for an item it’s going to go down in price without fail, eventually it won’t be the top tier item, and the economy will flux towards a new one.

cesmode.4257:

Looking at this thread exhausts me. But I will try to place my points concisely.

DEs are good, but mask the same old run of the mill type of quests.
Invasions are a poor copy of Rift’s Rifts/Invasions. The adds sit there and don’t even attack towns.
Living Story is a poor substitute for actual story telling and substantial meaningful and impactful content.
The trinity was removed, but slowly most people(not all) flock to more berserker builds because it is straight up more powerful and useful.
While there is no traditiona treadmill, having new ascended slots released every 3-4 months is the same thing as a new raid tier. It takes as long to obtain one or two new ascended slots compared to an entire raid tier in WoW. Masked, again, but the same thing.

Unique snowflake? No. They get a B- for effort, the game is fun. But stupid decisions are stupid decision and Im really getting tired of it.

Great, SAB…more fluffy kitten

I hated Rifts “rifts”. I really really hated them. They turned an open world potential into a game. It had waves that it annouced as waves. They were almost silly. The gimmicky ones, like the werewolves were okay the first time,. but it took me out of the world and made me completely aware I was playing a game.

Rift’s zone wide events were better, except for the fact that they interrupted everything else and no one did them, at least when I was playing. They simply weren’t rewarding enough. Everyone was at their planarite cap and so events kept failing.

I don’t know what happened after I left, but if Guild Wars 2 implemented DEs like Rifts, I’d probably stop playing.

MrRuin.9740:

The Living Story was also touted as a continuous, innovative way to keep the game fresh without waiting for it stagnate, then release an expansion.
While this was and could be a good idea, it has fallen into something like a poorly scripted syndicated fantasy TV show. You have your run-of-the-mill new bad guy every episode, the good guys destroy him/her and nice and timely in the 2 week span, rinse and repeat.
I had thought the Living Story was going to impact the world in some meaningful way and progress the real story. Instead we get faceless new badguys we know nothing about, don’t know their motives or history. Don’t even care because we know they’re going to be replaced with the new flavor of the update bad guy in 2 weeks.
This links back to what Vayne said about it not being immersive. I don’t care about these nothing badguys and even goodguy characters that are ‘famous’ for a week. There’s nothing to care about……they will be replaced with more paper thin characters in the next update.

I definitely think they did a better job with the villains in GW1. The Lich was a bit off, the Vizier helping you, he was a shady character, never trusted him, weren’t surprised when he turned out as the bad guy.
- Shiro Tagachi, on the other hand, had a story, and one that we got told as we went along. We saw how he was a good person, a respected bodyguard of the Emperor but also how a soothsayer foretold how the Emperor feared his strenght, which in the end would lead to him being killed… unless he acted, which he then did. He had depth. He was evil, but then again, you couldn’t blame his reasons when they started.
- The corruption of this otherwise “good” character creates the anti-hero/villain, and I enjoyed the story a lot.

I think Scarlet is poorly written when held up against other villains, even villains seen before that have had agendas such as herself.
- I hope that the writers take the criticism as something good, and use it to better themselves. When we say that we need more background on these, they should use more chapters to get the story told right, instead of using the short stories they post on the website.

- But suggest improvements on the suggestion page. Ignore the flamers, because there will always be those kinds of people. Haters and fanboys are the worst, they either don’t appreciate ideas unless it’s from the devs, or they just hate and offer no constructive criticism that can lead to improved development.

Is Guild Wars 2 innovative? Yes.

Is Guild Wars 2 REALLY innovative? No.

Pretty much every “innovation” they have is lifted from another game. They just took it a bit further, which isn’t always a good thing.

Let’s take “Removing the Trinity” as an example. I don’t know of any other games that have gone so far to prevent people from making a healer or tank so as to remove the trinity. (If there is such a game, I’m sure someone will feel free to tell me.) It’s a big, somewhat risky step, and we’re seeing both the upsides and the downsides of it right now.

City of Heroes had the trinity…at first glance, at least. Yes, you could make a tank (One of the archetypes was “Tanker”, after all). And yes, you could make a healer. But the tanks could stand on their own to do damage, and the support characters could do more than just heal. Some of the support characters couldn’t even heal at all, they did OTHER things to make everyone unstoppable. Crowd control was awesome as well, allowing them to actually replace support or tankers in damage mitigation. The toughest team content in that game was taken down by teams composed entirely of glass cannons, and teams of only tanks, and only support, and even only crowd control characters. Same goal of not needing the trinity, but they got it by empowering the players, NOT by restricting them.

Guild Wars 2 has taken steps towards innovation. But not all of them have been steps forward for MMOs, some have been to the side or even backwards. Some of the supposedly most important features of this game fall flat when compared to what other games have already done, despite ANet’s attempts to try new things. They need to take a long, hard look at their precious baby and realize what isn’t working, then change it. It WILL hurt, and it will take time, but if they don’t improve off of themselves, someone else will.

Vayne.8563:

I want more dynamic events too…and different ones…but the question is are they innovative. To me they are, because no one else has done with DEs what Anet has done.

Then we actually agree.
- I’d like to see them try to expand it, try out some new things rather than the escort, fetch, defend and assault DE’s that there are. Or maybe just adding more of them for variety.
- One thing I find that quest hubs did well was keeping you in, say, a village. I’ve had some nice, casual and cozy times getting acquainted with villages in other MMO’s, where I find that doing the Task (Heart) there along with some DE’s just has me rushing through them… even though I want to take it slow.

- To add to that, I’ve begun getting into the “taking it slow” and casual mindset as I’m levelling alts up, and I’m having a blast, because I level up without noticing, which is an indicator that I’m having fun, or that I’m not “grinding” through levels.

If we examine the basic components of any game, we will notice that they share many similarities with other games. That however is not how one judge if a game is “innovative” or not.

Similar to baking a cake. The basic ingredients are mostly the same, sugar, butter, flour, eggs, etc. It is the mixture that makes that makes them unique. A simple change to the proportion often yield greatly different results.

IMO, the mixture of GW2 is innovative as a whole. The individual components, the basic ingredients not so much. This innovation yielded a game that plays and feels quite different than other MMO while other MMO plays and feels more similar to one another. Is this special mix a good one or a bad one? That depends on individual player.

p/s: Airships… awww. My guild in DDO (Dungeons and Dragons Online) had one. Brings back memories.

As for the whole Trinity thing… that I have to say is poorly done. It does not take a rocket scientist to realize that (assuming that the formulas in the wiki are somewhat accurate): 2000 armor basically reduces damage by 50%, 3000 armor reduces damage by 67% and 4000 armor reduces damage by 75%.

Berserker gear on the other hand increases critical damage by about 60% (Armor set + Ascended).

At level 80, everyone will have 2000 Armor. I dunno if one can get 4000 armor but who is crazy enough to pick 25% more damage reduction over 60% increase in critical damage? Also, to get 4000 armor, I believe that traits and runes must all be taken into account. 60% Critical damage on the other hand is simply vanilla berserker armor and ascended.

Due to this fundamental flaw in the core of the design – the old trinity is not entirely abandoned, they simply remove tank and healer. Control and Support are basically skills that root the enemy in place to receive the dps.

GuildWars is a innovative, outstanding and unique game. GuildWars2 however, is not.

Conncept.7638:

In certain things
-Successful removal of the trinity

Yeah, now we have the full zerker DPS “unity”. Some people actually loved to heal or tank, believe it or not.

I’D LIKE FOR ALL if you haven’t already: Read through my post, especially the last two parts!
- I’d like to get you guys started on thinking about stuff from GW1 that we can get (and not GvG and Guild Halls, because ANet are aware of those), new ideas that you’d just like to see an MMO take up, or find stuff in the already implemented features of GW2 and think on how it can be improved!

- I just find that the status quo gets stale, and since everyone is saying that there’s room for improvement, I’d like to suggest that we give them some feedback on our experiences with certain aspects of the game.
- As an example, you can start a thread called “Your Experiences with: <InsertAspect>” and let people share their experiences with the game.
Granted, some might just need some advice as to how to play the game, others might actually have valuable feedback – something which these forums should be booming of.

woeye.2753:

Conncept.7638:

In certain things
-Successful removal of the trinity

Yeah, now we have the full zerker DPS “unity”. Some people actually loved to heal or tank, believe it or not.

You can still support or tank, just not through an entire fight while contributing nothing else. I play support all the time in WvW groups, dungeons, and open world PvE. Though yes, I will admit, it is neither the fastest nor most efficient way of playing any content. But some (read: most) people play for fun rather than efficiency.

woeye.2753:

Yeah, now we have the full zerker DPS “unity”. Some people actually loved to heal or tank, believe it or not.

Yeah. It’s true, and I think that with combo fields and such, GW2 could have vastly improved how we did these things, but things does look like they do right now.
- In defense of GW, I’d like to say that I’ve gotten a kick out of combo’ing up skills with my friends, experimenting and seeing how we could compliment each others abilities.

The combat system has potential, but I think that they need to make enounters harder, or maybe that it pays off to use combo fields and structure ones playstyle and abilities.
- I’m no fan of the zerging that is going on right now. Definitely something that ANet wants to work with.
The trinity created structure in a group. I get that ANet wanted to move it so players would not have to wait for a tank or a healer, but removing the structure it provided without implementing something that structured groups as an alternative was not the most prudent move they’ve ever made… or maybe they should provide tutorials in the start of the game that gives players the basic knowledge of how they can structure their playstyle in groups and with multiplayer content.

Conncept.7638:

But some (read: most) people play for fun rather than efficiency.

Actually, while they may be doing it unconsciously, most will actually go for the most effecient way. Especially if they are working towards a goal, like a piece of gear.
- I will say, though, that GW2 gets way more fun when you do it the proper (or fun) way. I’m taking it slow when levelling my alts up, and while I’m not being very effecient, probably, I’m having a blast, and it seems to go quicker, even though it might not (how something seems is actually way more important than what it really is. For further understanding, I suggest you look at the JCPenny’s effect. These guys explain it very well: http://www.penny-arcade.com/patv/episode/the-jc-pennys-effect)

Molch.2078:

GuildWars is a innovative, outstanding and unique game. GuildWars2 however, is not.

Guild Wars definitely offers a quality at certain aspects that no other game can provide, at least for me.
- In each campaign they released, they stayed true to the original game design, but expanded upon it. New classes, rewards for additional tasks in the story missions, and all such things.
- I didn’t find exploring an aspect that I’d do in GW1. Other MMO’s have provided a better experience at that for me. It did, however, offer something that I can’t quite put my finger on. I think secondary professions and that it was skill based made it a more fun experience for me. I could feel when I had improved my skills or a build, and it was an awesome feeling.

I think that GW2 is sometimes too caught up trying to not be like other MMO’s instead of focusing on what makes it unique and how they can improve those things and expand to become an even greater game.
- Many games fall into that trap. They want to be different… but different is not always equal to being better. Some concepts are a good foundation to build upon, but that doesn’t mean that a game can’t offer something more, something unique.

Sinifair.1026:

Conncept.7638:

But some (read: most) people play for fun rather than efficiency.

Actually, while they may be doing it unconsciously, most will actually go for the most effecient way. Especially if they are working towards a goal, like a piece of gear.
- I will say, though, that GW2 gets way more fun when you do it the proper (or fun) way. I’m taking it slow when levelling my alts up, and while I’m not being very effecient, probably, I’m having a blast, and it seems to go quicker, even though it might not (how something seems is actually way more important than what it really is. For further understanding, I suggest you look at the JCPenny’s effect. These guys explain it very well: http://www.penny-arcade.com/patv/episode/the-jc-pennys-effect)

The average player is going to play the way they want as efficiently as possible, but still the way they want. And that’s why the trinity system was removed in the first place. Not many like to play support or tank, in any game, and now they don’t have to.

And no, I’m not saying it’s perfect, it’s annoying when you have people that do not even want a tanky or supportive character in their party, but that is the speed clearer mentality and not the norm. It’s not that hard to find a party that will take anyone.

And that article just mislabels a cultural phenomenon which has been around so long it has no definitive beginning, time flies when you’re having fun. Why was it even written in the first place?

The innovation seen in GW2 is the successful integration and improvement of existing ideas. Of course, the ideas of jumping puzzles, open world events, and action combat aren’t new. But, they’ve added a very graceful combat system and use it as a benchmark for some many ideas in the game, such as siege weapons and environmental weapons. The game satisfies, or at least attempts to, several different playstyles. It rewards exploration, it rewards cooperation, it provides competitive areas, and it has a pretty flexible trait system.

Of course, there are areas where it can improve. Crafting could be more meaningful, which is being looked at, along with the trait system. However, the core of the gameplay feels so much more fresh than its peers.

Destai.9603:

The innovation seen in GW2 is the successful integration and improvement of existing ideas. Of course, the ideas of jumping puzzles, open world events, and action combat aren’t new.

Agreed.

Destai.9603:

But, they’ve added a very graceful combat system and use it as a benchmark for some many ideas in the game, such as siege weapons and environmental weapons. The game satisfies, or at least attempts to, several different playstyles. It rewards exploration, it rewards cooperation, it provides competitive areas, and it has a pretty flexible trait system.

Not agreed so much.

It’s a matter of opinion but I do not think the combat system is very graceful and I don’t consider the trait system that flexible. I often find that a trait line combines the wrong stat bonuses and don’t always jive with the weapon selection either. In essence they took away freedoms by deciding how you should play certain classes.

I often find myself cursing when leveling a character because I need a certain trait line for one thing that is essential but the rest of it I don’t want at all or a trait line that makes sense mostly has a stat boost that I don’t need etc.

Somehow, the way the skill bar, weapon choice and trait system interact makes it feel like a rather rigid and limiting experience to me.

I don’t think it was ‘largely’ innovative, but it was ‘hugely’ evolutionary. Just as WoW took a lot of pieces from it’s predecessors and became a staple, I think there are things in GW2 that took from it’s predecessors that in my opinion ‘should’ become a staple moving forward.

The biggest thing for me, and it can be lumped into one big category, is the removing of competitive interaction with the environment which invariably was used from game to game through the years as a griefing tool, or at the very least, a ‘mini game’ of sorts for people who derive their sense of accomplishment as directly proportional to someone else’s loss.

So that was a mouthful, and warrants a ‘what the heck?’ without some context, I suppose.

I’m talking about things like individual resource nodes. There’s no node stealing. There’s no mob stealing. If you tap something once, you get credit, as does anyone else. This last one is super important because, other than in dungeons and other special instances, the concept of a ‘party’ can go the way of the dinosaurs. I suppose it’s still useful if you need to follow 4 other blue dots around on the screen, it still has a mechanical usefulness from that purpose as well. But ultimately it’s not important with respect to adventuring in the world and consuming content together. I love this.

I haven’t in the past year felt compelled to be angry that someone beat me to some ore. That someone ‘moved in’ where I was farming and started ‘stealing’ my mobs. That someone was out damaging me and I wasn’t getting any loot.

Then you throw in something like the downed state (which some people hate, but I love), it’s another neat social tool.

I don’t party hardly at all in this game, but I have had far more social experiences with strangers in the past year than I ever had in any preceding game.

I think every game moving forward should have these types of mechanics. It’s why I like to think of GW2 as a largely ‘evolutionary’ game vs innovative or revolutionary.

Of course! Who could disagree with that? Arena Net made the claim themselves, they aren’t Blizzard, they would never lie to us

Gehenna.3625:

Destai.9603:

The innovation seen in GW2 is the successful integration and improvement of existing ideas. Of course, the ideas of jumping puzzles, open world events, and action combat aren’t new.

Agreed.

Destai.9603:

But, they’ve added a very graceful combat system and use it as a benchmark for some many ideas in the game, such as siege weapons and environmental weapons. The game satisfies, or at least attempts to, several different playstyles. It rewards exploration, it rewards cooperation, it provides competitive areas, and it has a pretty flexible trait system.

Not agreed so much.

It’s a matter of opinion but I do not think the combat system is very graceful and I don’t consider the trait system that flexible. I often find that a trait line combines the wrong stat bonuses and don’t always jive with the weapon selection either. In essence they took away freedoms by deciding how you should play certain classes.

I often find myself cursing when leveling a character because I need a certain trait line for one thing that is essential but the rest of it I don’t want at all or a trait line that makes sense mostly has a stat boost that I don’t need etc.

Somehow, the way the skill bar, weapon choice and trait system interact makes it feel like a rather rigid and limiting experience to me.

Fair enough. I doubt I’d say that if I started with a different class. For me, the Guardian felt so natural and well put together; it set the bar for my combat expectations in many other games. Had I started with the ranger, my second character, I may have disagreed. Yet, in comparison to say a game like Rift or even WoW, it’s more natural. Of course, it can easily be improved. Aside from traits – which stand to have a lot of work done – the combat itself is pretty responsive. Cast times are minimal, skills are responsive, and most are tactile – offering some feeling response. The problem I see is that traits forget once principle – a class should be fun from the start, not starting at 40, 50, or max level. Some professions in this game still struggle under that.

YES it is! How do people not realize this yet?

Superfast.5901:

YES it is! How do people not realize this yet?

I suggest you read the OP first, if this is your reply.
- Taking old concepts and applying new designs to them are the evolution of these ideas.

But if I say: “I want a MMO, where I can explore an open world, experience awesome stories and lore, do dungeons and PvP.” then GW2 is not the only available answer. I think that they added some nice new designs to an otherwise stale and boring system, but I also think that combat grows stale here.
- I went back to WoW to finish an RP story arc with a friend of mine, and I found myself wanting the more dynamic combat that GW2 offers. The thing is that there are not enough skills for me to play with, if I have a favorite weapon I get stuck with some least favorite abilities at times.

- The thing is that a lot of new MMO’s are on the way. Some shows a lot of promise, others have yet to really impress me, either way I’m not hyped up about them.
- The one thing they have in common is that all the design ideas that was supposed to make GW2 great are not going to cut it.
- WoW’s system is almost ten years old and somebody was bound to try and improve it so it wasn’t stationary but more dynamic. GW2 aren’t the only ones doing that and saying that GW2 really offers a unique experience would be a lie (granted, that is my opinion, I don’t expect everyone to share it, but I hate to see the ignorance of fanboy on any forum).
- Some of the things that GW2 offers that no other MMO really do is the Personal Story and the WvW content (I don’t really do WvW so I won’t pretend to have or fake any insight) but the Personal Story was such a huge disappointment to me. If the things that really have to make GW2 a unique experience you can’t get anywhere else isn’t shining through and has players getting the word of mouth out to each other, then it hasn’t been done right.

When I talk about GW2 to my friends right now I say: “I like it, I’d love to have you join me again, but man, it really needs to step up a notch and make changes to where it really matters. (Much of that being the mechanics)”
- And this requires proper suggestions. Read the last two paragraphs especially.

No, not really.