Guild Wars 2

“In GW2, you can still outclass people by being the better player. In a communist society, people can’t get ahead of anyone by being better. The incentive in GW2 is to be the better player, so don’t tell me that there is no incentive to improve or work hard.That’s why the sports analogy is more spot on than the communist analogy.”

In that sense of being better, you can do the exact same thing in communism with the exact same types of rewards (if we go by your analogy).

Doolio.1865:

“In GW2, you can still outclass people by being the better player. In a communist society, people can’t get ahead of anyone by being better. The incentive in GW2 is to be the better player, so don’t tell me that there is no incentive to improve or work hard.That’s why the sports analogy is more spot on than the communist analogy.”

In that sense of being better, you can do the exact same thing in communism with the exact same types of rewards (if we go by your analogy).

Not true, because in GW2, the better player wins more rounds, kills mobs quicker and therefore gets more karma/gold, completes their dailies and monthlies faster, earns their world points in WvW etc. In a communist state, you would not get these rewards.

Dvojce.2486:

Focksbot.6798:

Dvojce.2486:

…LOL? of course its a question, which you obviously misread completely.
Can someone else answer me?
“If you’re not a role player then you should stay away from this game?”
And don’t give me “oh there’s pvp for non role players”. I’m speaking for ones who just want pve.

So let me get this straight: you’re asking: “Should non-role players stay away from this game?”

My answer is no, because there’s plenty to do for at least the first 50 hours or so, probably more if you don’t rush it. After that, there’s a more limited range of things to do.

Ok, I’m not posting as a smart kitten or anything, but besides pvp and costume collection (craft) and I guess completing the maps.. What else is there to look forward to?
I’m obviously missing something, no?

Well, for starters you’ve missed the whole pre-level 80 experience, which involves taking part in a story and doing events for the first time. That’s reason enough to play the game for the first 50-60 hours.

As to whether players should stick around after level 80, well, here’s what I plan to do:

• Level up a completely different character. (I’ve deliberately left large sections of world unexplored so that I’ll see them for the first time with this character).
• Join a friend in completing their story mission.
• Hold myself out as a gun-for-hire for anyone who wants help.
• Take a well-earned break until a content update.

[To CJAncients.6907, I won’t entertain people anymore who refutes “what communism is like” and claim to know it better than another. Let’s face it. Everyone perceive it differently. I shared my knowledge and I respect people for sharing their knowledge of it too. But no one can make fun of each other’s knowledge. That’s why I put a stop to answering people’s refutes because they’re pushing their ideals while making fun of another’s knowledge. It just feel that it’s not respectful and created unhealthy discussion – that made me literally lose a meal after reading it.]
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We can see there’re two groups here which view mmorpg in different ways.
Both are not false.

Group A : Characters are thrown onto the open-world of mmo as avatars. Avatars are treated like “pokemon or digimon”. You named it. You breed in the open-world. You train it. You evolve it. You compare with others in PVE. You put dedication with your avatars. You grow attachment with them. You feel happy when you login to see your avatars after school/work. You are the ownership of that avatar. You control it and explore the open-world through your avatar.

Group B : Characters are thrown onto the open-world of mmo as players. It’s like throwing an “arcade’s street fighter” character onto the open-world of mmo. It’s treated like a fixed character which you play it with skills. There’s no growth and progression on the character itself. It’s all about the skills of the players. You can only compare your characters with others in PVP. You come in to explore the world as yourself, the player.

There’s really no right or wrong in both groups.
We can see that me, topic creator, some others are in group A. That’s why I start to feel it became meaningless to give arguments to each other because both groups have different playing styles. Only group A are able to give and understand analogies (e.g. communism, single player etc) which group B will never find them logical because of their different playstyle towards games.

My view of mmorpg links very towards group A. In my personal opinion, role-playing games is all about the avatar because it’s role-playing the avatar, not playing as yourself, the player. This is just my playstyle, preference and ideology of all rpgs. There should be character progression. It does not have to be gear progressions or level progressions. Character progression is can be anything. Gear cosmetics grinding doesn’t make a good progression because every mmorpgs have made them the 2nd priority. That’s why people in group A feels like there’s a big hole left behind towards progression after removing gear progression and scaled-down leveling. As doolio said, there should be something to fill up that hole after the gear progression was removed.

Topic starter also brought it up. MMO needs a grind but not for fluff.
It can be interpreted in many ways, not just gear progressions. There’re many more types of character progressions instead of just gear cosmetic that can be added into this game.

While there’s nothing wrong with seeing (or wanting) the things to go either way, I have to point out that your concept A is actually a key element in a RPG genre, where concept B isn’t and it can actually push the game out of the genre, so to speak. It would definitely do that if it was a P’n’P RPG.
I think it’s essential for your stupid barbarian to not know the answer to a riddle, even if you, as the “owner”, do know it. Also, your intervention should be more similar to that of a chess player than to that of a football player, for example. And finally, character progression is one of the core elements of the genre.

Now, I am aware that CRPG’s tend to mix concept A with concept B. For instance, in a pure RPG, combat should be turn based, which it isn’t in majority of CRPG’s. Your intervention is far more direct and also far more limited (due to the scripting restraints and overall platform limit).
BUT, I think if the things are pushed too far in the B direction, your game simply gets thrown out of the genre. That doesn’t have to mean it’s a bad game per se, but you won’t see quake or street fighter advertised as RPG’s
Even if they would have skill distribution or less direct control, they would still need the progression part. Character progression is one of the key elements of a RPG. Player progression is something else and it’s not a mandatory thing for the genre. Don’t get me wrong, I absolutely LOVE games that emphasize player progression, but for a RPG game, character progression is mandatory. For a MMORPG even more, as it’s supposed to be an ongoing game experience, so character progression should strive to be constant, as you shouldn’t be able to “finish” the MMORPG. By “not being able to finish” I am not talking about “you can roam the world” (which you can do in some single player RPG’s also) but about actual character progression.
It doesn’t have to be gear, it doesn’t have to be leveling, but it HAS to be something that affect your CHARACTER in a meaningful way, not just the player.

Doolio.1865:

It doesn’t have to be gear, it doesn’t have to be leveling, but it HAS to be something that affect your CHARACTER in a meaningful way, not just the player.

Any ideas?

I agree. Some people see concept B as mmorpg which I don’t know why.
I feel the same way that character progression is the key elements of a RPG.

Tosha Daydreamer.9251:

Doolio.1865:

It doesn’t have to be gear, it doesn’t have to be leveling, but it HAS to be something that affect your CHARACTER in a meaningful way, not just the player.

Any ideas?

Hmm.. I don’t know about this idea I’m going to share. One idea I could thought that can replace gear progression is house progression. It may still be cosmetic but can affect the avatar in meaningful way. It’s like whenever someone else click my avatar, he have the option to move into my instanced home. I can show off how much effort I put in towards my avatar through my house to anyone in pve. It’s not only “buy a house and stay” like in skyrim. There must be endless progression. New crafts skills especially for building homes and furnitures. You have to hunt for materials from pve, dungeons and champions. Level-up on those avatar skills and make your avatar grind for materials to make a more bigger/better homes. Something to compete and grow endlessly in pve for playing for long term years.

Decorating itself is very fun and endless. The items are interactive too. The more effort placed in our homes, it gives us certain buffs in pve. They can also put in buffs for better health regeneration, toughness and hp in PVE the more you grow your house. Better buffs for bigger homes and better furnitures. Players can choose or not to have that buff in PVE with a personal choice.

GW2 made stat balance in pve because they didn’t want players to overkill or steal other players fun. Then, it would not be a problem if they don’t restrict the growth of health regeneration, toughness and hp only in PVE. It doesn’t disturb other players and you won’t 1 shot the mobs. It actually makes the avatar grows. It can go in this direction through house progression.

Tosha Daydreamer.9251:

Doolio.1865:

It doesn’t have to be gear, it doesn’t have to be leveling, but it HAS to be something that affect your CHARACTER in a meaningful way, not just the player.

Any ideas?

Yes, and they’ve given it to us in the ways of rare skins. I know for a fact that if I see someone run past me with an epic weapon out I’ll bow down to them in game with a hardy “I’m not worthy “ considering what it takes and the dedication you have to put into it to get one.

Just like top end Raid gear I think this community will come to respect the effort that it takes to get one of these things and I’m sure many are dedicating themselves to this achievement.

I would say that affects your character in game in a meaningful way. It may not tick a number up on your stats sheet but let’s be honest for a second the 0.342387772329% DPS you get out of an epic in other MMO’s is barely noticeable in comparison to the
“ Wooooo dude ….where you get those shoulder pads dude`` when you get to town.

How many times do you hear
``Woooooo dude …. What do those add to your DPS dude``,….. not much right?

I do like the idea of player housing. I would love it even more if it wasn’t instanced but rather like an entire new city made solely by players houses. You could walk through that city, admire other peoples homes (nice to brag about your home ), and even enter other peoples home, but unfortunately I don’t think that would be viable for GW2 for technical reasons. But a girl can dream

One thing about the buffs though: how would you make sure the buffs weren’t too OP? Okay, you would not be able to one-shot everything. But where is the challenge is for example dungeons would be like a walk in the park because you cannot die anymore? I guess you could turn your buffs off, creating a challenge for yourself. But if you form a group with others, you could very easily fall into the “elitism trap” – ie “you need to have X otherwise we won’t have you in the party” crap.

It’s difficult to find a good balance.

If the gear progression treadmill only affected PvE and not WvW or sPvP, would people complain as much?
If they are, its not about “skill in pvp > gear” its about them not beeing able to get everything that people that spends more time gets, which is kinda absurd.

Guys really, stop this already.

We know you’re used to get stat-chasing as a long-term time sink from traditional MMOs but Anet made it a point to not have this.
They will not delude 99.9% of their playerbase, going against everything they said just because some people was so used to this obsolete mechanic that they can’t see beyond it in a MMO.

Every type of MMO has a few concepts and rules unique to it, call them fundaments.
No stat-treadmill is a pillar of GW2 and is here for the long run.
If you feel you need a long gear-treadmill that gives advantages over other players just realize it will never happen here so perhaps you might want to go back playing MMOs that work this way.

All the talk about progression and getting bored comes down to 1 thing:

GW2 simply isn’t that fun to play for people who are good at mmos. There is no depth to the classes and there is no character building (you work with very limited presets). The vast majority of the content is auto-win easy.

These things cause people to get bored. GW1 didn’t have stat progression but people were not getting so bored so quickly because the complexity of the classes allowed for a much bigger variety in gameplay. There were also elite areas to challenge larger groups (8 players).

I think this is the real problem with GW2. They over streamlined to the point where everyone is just wandering around going through the motions with classes that offer very little variety.

TLDR: If the game was more fun people wouldn’t be struggling to find reasons to log in.

MrThebigcheese.2014:

All the talk about progression and getting bored comes down to 1 thing:

GW2 simply isn’t that fun to play for people who are good at mmos. There is no depth to the classes and there is no character building (you work with very limited presets). The vast majority of the content is auto-win easy.

These things cause people to get bored. GW1 didn’t have stat progression but people were not getting so bored so quickly because the complexity of the classes allowed for a much bigger variety in gameplay. There were also elite areas to challenge larger groups (8 players).

I think this is the real problem with GW2. They over streamlined to the point where everyone is just wandering around going through the motions with classes that offer very little variety.

TLDR: If the game was more fun people wouldn’t be struggling to find reasons to log in.

Te-He, ….what is being good at MMO’s mean?

Is that to say your good at all MMO’s ….UO, EQ, War, Vanguard, Rift, EvE, … World of Tanks?

Or are we just interchanging WoW to mean MMO, has WoW become a genre?

Do we really need another MMO that ends with a gear treadmill and gated content for the upper 10 to 15 percent of the games population?

I think based on how many people I see in game every night and how slow these forums are, I would surmise that the vast majority of players are happily playing the game with only a small fraction of players bothering with this forum at all.

Tosha Daydreamer.9251:

Doolio.1865:

It doesn’t have to be gear, it doesn’t have to be leveling, but it HAS to be something that affect your CHARACTER in a meaningful way, not just the player.

Any ideas?

Well, there is always vanity stuff, as something that comes to mind instantly. It’s a fail-safe principle which doesn’t affect the game mechanics in any way, thus allowing the player to remain character-competent even if he doesn’t want to chase the vanity carrot.

Some things have already been mentioned. I could add a popular gasp:) WoW concept of hard to get titles, which are displayable next to the character’s name. Personally I think this is a great concept, it’s grindy, it’s carroty and it’s vane:) It’s also interesting and fun – given that there would be many titles with various difficulty and time investment. There would be grind based titles or skill based titles or time invested based titles etc.
I think the concept is archetypal in it’s appeal, because in the gear driven WoW, people still invest time and resources to get some of the more “nolifing” titles.
I am still new to GW2, so I don’t know if there’s something similar, I have seen titles in achievements tab, but I guess they are just a statistical checkpoints more or less.
This concept would give them more of a “fleshy” feeling, IMHO.

I am not very good in “one brain brainstorming”, I often block when I need to think of bunch of concepts at once, but generally, the established vanity concept is, in fact, a way to go. But, i will need to elaborate on this, as there are factors which make or brake the concept.
For instance, like I said earlier, if there’s no gear treadmill, that’s one MMORPG element lacking. I have also said that it’s not a bad thing per se (just different), but it’s still an element lacking. So, it has to be replaced or compensated with remaining elements. That means that those remaining elements need to excel in order to cover the absence of that particular element. They have to excel in quality, as well as in quantity – as this is a MMORPG, we need quantity.

That said, let’s go back to the vanity carrot. Since it doesn’t change the game mechanics, there are virtually no limits to what can be implemented and in what quantity and form. There is practically no danger of kittening things up, as the gameplay remains the same, no matter what.
So, if vanity kind of character progression is the way to go, it has to be EXTREMELY EPIC and numerous.

For instance:

-already mentioned titles

-LOTS of vanity skins

-specific vanity items (sword of John Doe – an extremely rare rng sword). As an addition to more generally defined weapons, as “sword of frost” would be.

-vanity item creator – an insane-grind skin customizer. For example, if you were to create a sword for you, you could design/paint/choose the hilt and the blade separately, color it, add the type and color of particle effect and glow (fire, acid etc) and all that kind of stuff, and you can name it. That would make your weapon truly unique. Of course, it would need to be extremely grindy, so it would reward only the most dedicated players.

-unlockable content – again, without tampering with mechanics. These could be gameplay-content related things (areas, elite dungeons etc) or this too could be vanity-restricted thing. For example, you could unlock additional strange or epic or funny voice sets for your character.

-If character did a remarkable act (and I mean remarkable, not downing all bosses or exploring the world – it could also be something that’s been done for the first time in the game), server could announce or display it for a week or month, on a daily basis. For example, “on the day xy John Doe has slain the marshmellow dragon” or “on the day xy John Doe has donated a thousand gold to the charity, let’s remember him for centuries to come”. For extremely epic, rare and hard achievements, there could even be an altar or poster which would have the description written on it, which would stay in game forever.

-various forms of property, like the already mentioned houses. These wouldn’t have to be physically present server-wide, they could be instanced.

Then, we could have items that not change the in-game mechanics, but benefit players indirectly. Those are kind of things that generate profit, for example, which benefits the player, but doesn’t put him mechanically (for instance in PvP or PvE) above other.

These could be:

-houses that you buy could be upgraded with rooms, which could be rented to some imagined NPC’s. The more upgraded the house, the more expensive the rent. The profit shouldn’t be too high, but at the same time it would have to pay off for the owner.

-some feat which you can accomplish, which in turn lowers the prices of NPC things. For example, I am really just making quick imaginary examples, the title “benefactor” which is gained by “giving x money to the Divinity’s Reach orphanage” allows the player to have the 30% discount on using waypoints.

etc etc etc

Like I said, I am not very good at brainstorming, but I think the idea is clear. These things need to be exceptional in quality and in quantity, so the players could chose their personal path or branch of interest and everyone could pursue what he likes and it would take years of hc playing for a player to accomplish all of the things.

So, if a hc player invests effort, he could, in a year for example, run around with character “John Doe the benefactor”, who has his name in an in-game plaque of heroes which stands in Divinity Reach square. John Doe has the sword called “blackie”, which is matte black with black flames. He has a house in Hoelbrak, which he rents and a house in Divinity’s Reach, where he lives. He has great reputation among Asura and humans, which allows him to trade more favorably with asurian and human NPC merchant. His voice is deep and he rarely screams and shouts in battle, taunting opponents with snidy remarks instead. He also has the title “gambler” and access to the secret gambling society, where he can gamble with other members or NPC’s. On january 14. 2013. he participated in first downing of the boss X, which yielded him boss X-related skins and a very prestigious rare title “slayer of X”, which is reserved only for the first group that downed the boss.

etc etc etc

Of course, half of these things are poorly implemented in my examples, but you get the idea.

For the love of god, someone close this thread.

Obsidian.1328:

For the love of god, someone close this thread.

Why?
Isn’t a discussion what forums are about? This thread has also been quite civil so far. Let it continue. If people want to post their thoughts why would you or anyone else have anything against it?

My thoughts exactly. People actually discuss things and communicate in this thread, which we know is ironically a rare thing in any forum.
I don’t have that nauseous “I am writing a post, tomorrow when I open the topic, I will see bunch of flaming answers” feeling while writing in this thread, which is a good thing. I don’t find it hard to write wall of texts and read other users’ posts, no matter if they agree with me or not.

So, yea, why?

Pilusilm.5682:

Focksbot.6798:

Dvojce.2486:

…LOL? of course its a question, which you obviously misread completely.
Can someone else answer me?
“If you’re not a role player then you should stay away from this game?”
And don’t give me “oh there’s pvp for non role players”. I’m speaking for ones who just want pve.

So let me get this straight: you’re asking: “Should non-role players stay away from this game?”

My answer is no, because there’s plenty to do for at least the first 50 hours or so, probably more if you don’t rush it. After that, there’s a more limited range of things to do.

What if I’m done with the map and crafting and the story, what is there left to do other than PvP..? Get cosmetic stuff.. Oh wait.. That’s for roleplayers.

I’ll answer that for you. If you did everything you described, you’re pretty much done, short of rolling a new character. Believe me I know how you feel. The alternative is to keep playing and exploring with that character.

The problem with that is that you will make the content stale for your alts fast. By the time my scond character was significantly leveled, I was getting regulary content deja vous. Other than the starter areas, everything overlaps. Also your chosen profession doesn’t really change up strategy much, because the mechanics are so simillar.

Well, because it’s rehashing the same two opposing viewpoints over and over and over again ad nauseum. I agree it’s been somewhat civil…but 8 pages on this?? I like the forums too, but this feels like beating a dead horse.

Although, on reflection, it’s not my place to say that. So I apologize.no sarcasm

lacrimstein.5603:

Shootsfoot.9276:

Obsidian.1328:

For the love of god, someone close this thread.

Agreed.

Yep, let’s close down this thread to shut up the dissendants, they’re not letting me pretend the game is perfect and that everyone loves it and is happy

It’s not that there are dissidents, it’s that the thread has apparently devolved into not only comparing a game to communism, but bickering about who better understands what a communism is.

And just to throw a curveball in, the textbook definition of a communism is a government who controls all the methods of production. If the company that develops an MMO are the ones who govern it then technically all MMO’s are communist

Oh, come on, that communism story is like two pages old:) No, seriously, the thread hasn’t been perfect, but it’s among better threads in the forums, from various aspects.

As for rehashing the same opposed aspects, that’s not true, we are talking about improvements in a very gw2-ish way, so to speak, for at least last several posts. Which you can see for yourself if you read the posts. The “evil discussing” is mostly done on those other couple of threads.

So I am going to throw something out there for discussion.

The main core difference between GW2 and “gear tredmil” MMO’s is GW2 removed the stats progression and replaced it with skins.

If the above is true then…how is this not like every other MMO just with a different wrapper around the grind?

Maybe I just dont understand this game and maybe its not for me…which I am totally fine with because obviously a lot of people love this game. I just don’t see how this game is any different than other MMO’s…other than everyone can do everything by default.

Thoughts?

Maxxian.3980:

So I am going to throw something out there for discussion.

The main core difference between GW2 and “gear tredmil” MMO’s is GW2 removed the stats progression and replaced it with skins.

If the above is true then…how is this not like every other MMO just with a different wrapper around the grind?

Maybe I just dont understand this game and maybe its not for me…which I am totally fine with because obviously a lot of people love this game. I just don’t see how this game is any different than other MMO’s…other than everyone can do everything by default.

Thoughts?

Maxxian.3980
There is a huge difference,

In a gear stat driven endgame continent has to be made with increased power levels so players are challenged. This effectively creates a tier level of endgame content that locks players out until they grind up the gear in order to unlock it and become powerful enough to survive it.

This content in turn hands out its gear rewards so players can unlock the next tier of content, and the process continues from expansion to expansion.

So along with ever progressing higher gear stats you also end up with content the majority of your player base doesn’t see.

This also creates the problem of gear inflation, where at some point the developer needs to fast path new players or returning players into epic level gear or no new players will join the game. They also do this to maintain a critical mass of players needed to make this gear locked out content viable.

Over time a disparity in gear level develops and you have players judging other players worthiness to group with and interact with based on what gear there wearing.

Now, providing a long term challenge for epic looking skins will mean we all remain eligible for the same content however you might look all decked out and I might still look like I’m in rags but it doesn’t get in the way of us running a dungeon together.

So in short, one system divides players and the content they can enjoy together and the other system keeps us on the same playing field and enhances the “Massive” part.

Red Falcon.8257:

Guys really, stop this already.

We know you’re used to get stat-chasing as a long-term time sink from traditional MMOs but Anet made it a point to not have this.
They will not delude 99.9% of their playerbase, going against everything they said just because some people was so used to this obsolete mechanic that they can’t see beyond it in a MMO.

Every type of MMO has a few concepts and rules unique to it, call them fundaments.
No stat-treadmill is a pillar of GW2 and is here for the long run.
If you feel you need a long gear-treadmill that gives advantages over other players just realize it will never happen here so perhaps you might want to go back playing MMOs that work this way.

I always love when people start throwing around made up statistics. If you actually open your eyes and read the forums, and see whats being said in game, the community is pretty much split in half on this argument. So yes it is completely valid, and Anet has never stated that no gear progression was part of their business model. In fact, there actually is gear progression in the game, most of it just takes such little effort that everyone is bored by now.

Please try and bring some constructive comments to the thread, there are tons of ways that anet could appease both sides of the argument. Also I never understand why people say to just go back to another MMO, because trust me its not fun watching an MMO you love die and servers get merged.

@Logun (For the sake of not quoting a long post)

I started typing out a very long dragged out explination on how the the skin desparity has already started and is thus in essence no different than a gear treadmill but…I just dont have the patience at this time.

Anyways I think we are both in agreeance a core difference is that people have access to all the content of GW2 once you hit a certain level as opposed to a gear check in other MMO’s.

All in all that is what I was trying to elude to in my posed question is that in fact the only real difference between GW2 and other gear MMO’s is access to content.

I say that I disagree on the that the gear system divides players where this system does not…just look at the some of the posts in the Halloween event forums. We already have people stating skins need to be “rare” and only allow a small number of people have access to these skins to keep them “special”. Kitten look at all the threads for legendary skins. Like I said different item, same mentality.

Also like every other MMO you can do whatever you want. No one is forcing you to do the gear tredmill. Most MMO worlds are quite large and have plenty to do. Now of course a main difference is that GW2 has DE, Vista’s, etc where other games have the golden “!”. However, ultimately how is this much different? IN GW2 a lot of the DE events are “defend by killing”, “gather X of Y and give it to person Z to then kill ABC”. Yes some events do lead to other events but usually one quest leads to another. Same concept, different wrapper.

Also, it is really that bad that you cant do everything right now? I personally never saw a problem with not being able to see everything because I was too focused on playing a game the way I want to, not the way others did and knew I would get there eventually. My only problem was the number of people required to do it which this game definetly got right at 5 people.

In closing I do want to note that I am not bashing GW2 in any way. I think its a good game with a good solid foundation to become what everyone thinks it is. But as it stands right now I feel its for the most part just another MMO with a different wrapper suggesting it is what it is not.

Flame away

Edit: I eagerly await to see what ANet does…like I said…strong foundation.

This also creates the problem of gear inflation, where at some point the developer needs to fast path new players or returning players into epic level gear or no new players will join the game. They also do this to maintain a critical mass of players needed to make this gear locked out content viable.

Lotro for example solves that quite nicely with new story chapters (books) in each new expansion, that gives you items that are better then the previous expansions raidgear or just as good.
Once you have finished the books, your pretty much ready to do the dungeons or raids.
GW2 story rewards are crap, but the basic “get gear while doing story” is a nice way to bridge the gap between raiders and nonraiders between expansions.

If the gameplay isn’t enough to keep me in a game, I don’t play it. This is exactly what I hate in so many mmo’s. They try to keep me doing boring things with the promise of some special reward, but once I have it all that means is there’s no reason to keep going.

PvP being neutral in terms of gear and player level was a smart decision, and one of the best things the game has going for it (same with zone level scaling). PvP itself is still rather imbalanced, and always will be due to how MMORPG’s operate.

The grind in other games isn’t so much about getting an edge, but whether or not that grind is fun. You can present players with a difficult to obtain ‘iWin’ button.. but if the process of acquiring it, on some level, isn’t fun, folks aren’t going to bother with it.

@Maxxian.3980

It is hugely impactful to the game that access to content is not blocked by gear. In most MMO’s with a gear and content tiered endgame a developer ends up locking away their best work behind a tiered gear power advancement system. This right away locks out about 70 to 80 percent of your player base from your best work.

As soon as you replace leveling with gear power progression as your advancement scheme you need to continually add to this content and this sucks up your resources for other features and content you could be putting out for the bulk of your player base.

As it is now in GW2, the highest level gear can be obtained in a number of ways, crafting, Karma, and Dungeons, each has their own look but players can choose the path they want to take to get it. That path also lets them play the game the same way they did to get to level cap, so the game doesn’t in the end pigeonhole a player into a specific type of content to get the best gear.

In a tier gear system the arguments abound regarding how players should obtain said gear, by default most games make you do one specific task over and over again as in the raiding endgame. The problem with that is it fundamentally changes the game from how players leveled and some players just find trying to schedule a play time with 10 to 24 other players to be a difficult thing to do.

The common problem with MMO’s that adopt a tiered gear progression endgame is they end up relying heavily on instancing to segregate this tiered content. This ends up subtracting from the open world and often giving the game a feeling like the open world is nothing more than a giant lobby we wait in for our meat counter number to come up and finally join a group.

Now, for skins players may argue about how rare a particular skin should be to get but at the end of the day regardless of what skin they have on their armor everyone can still play together because there’s no disparity in the power of their gear sets. This solves a number of endgame social issues related to the power of the gear you’re wearing and also helps to maintain a critical mass of same power level players available for the massive endgame battles.

The main difference and theme of GW2 is this, we essentially are in a group of players from the second we log in. The Dev’s have designed the game this way so the game plays better the more players you have around you. Multi-player interaction doesn’t require a group. In combat we can combo off of each other’s skills, when a player goes down others automatically pitch in to lend a hand and players spontaneously come together for the events because the quest log has been replaced with a dynamic event prompter.

Groups of players magically start working together as naturally as if you see your next door neighbour trying to lift a heavy box into his trunk and automatically without saying a word start giving him a hand.

That in itself I have not seen in an MMO before and I hope they continue to grow the push and push back ecology of the game.

That all being said, I do agree they need to enhance the reward systems for players I just would not like to see it done in instanced off areas of the world or with gear progression. That game is out there and its been done to death.

Selo.1250:

This also creates the problem of gear inflation, where at some point the developer needs to fast path new players or returning players into epic level gear or no new players will join the game. They also do this to maintain a critical mass of players needed to make this gear locked out content viable.

Lotro for example solves that quite nicely with new story chapters (books) in each new expansion, that gives you items that are better then the previous expansions raidgear or just as good.
Once you have finished the books, your pretty much ready to do the dungeons or raids.
GW2 story rewards are crap, but the basic “get gear while doing story” is a nice way to bridge the gap between raiders and nonraiders between expansions.

That’s not a fix for gear inflation, that’s a band aid. Nearly all MMO’s with a gear based endgame do the same thing. The problem is how do you feel as a raider who spend 200 plus hours with their guild night after night grinding out the same content to get there guild geared up for the next expansion when a new player joins the game the day of said expansion comes out, solo’s his story content and then has gear on par with your raid gear.

Developers are forced to do this sort of thing with gear progression endgames as the game ages. They have to give new players a way to leap frog into the new content to keep the endgame at a critical mass of players. Could you imagine the time it would take to catch up in a game that’s been out for 7 years and had 15 tiers of gear sets.

I am going to leave comments on the gear topic for later because I am still absorbing your comments. But before I move on I will state that I have never seen such an explanation showing an inherit flaw to tiered gear games before. So respect on that.

Actually never mind as I realized last night that GW2 is not the game for me because as I read your comments I realize there is a core difference in how we view the same situation.

It may have something to do with me being extremely anti-social but I cannot stand the zerg mentality of this game. As you stated the Dev’s have stated this game plays more with the more people around you and it’s very obvious in several dynamic events. However unlike you I don’t view this as a good thing because in general I see people competing with each other than helping each other minus the resurrection assist.
Maybe I am doing it wrong but I really don’t feel this game has a strong community as some would suggest. All I see is the herd mentality jumping from one event to the other with little to no interaction. To me this isn’t community; this is farming at its worst.

Anyways good luck to you Logun I hope this game becomes everything you want it to be.

P.S. I think I know why the tiered gear system never bothered me…and that was because I was never one of those who was locked out of content unless it was the uber uber high tier hard stuff. Guess that makes me an elitist ?

@Maxxian.3980

No, that doesn’t make you elitist, you’ve just always lived in the MMO culture of the top 25 to 30 percent of players.

In my 15 years at this hobby I’ve been all over the map. Hell I played MMO’s before there was instancing, gear progression after leveling, and the idea of raids were just some wet dream on a white board somewhere.

I’ve played hard core in my younger years and I’ve played casually so I’ve built up empathy for MMO players across the board.

If you’ve always played in a gear centric progression driven manner where endgame achievements have been your only driving motivator then you may need to find a game that supports that.

Players in PvE are never competing in GW2. There is no node jacking or kill stealing, if a player runs up and hits the same mob as you their helping you. ANet have simply removed competition between players in the open world, it’s us against the environment.

For me it’s so refreshing to have these multi-player moments in the open world environment again, in so many games today players pass each other by on their solo quest with their attention focused on whatever quest is in there log. In GW2 the world plays the players much like the real world. An event happens and everyone in the area is drawn in to the smoke, it’s truly an awesome way to do MMO content IMHO.

Anyway, sorry to hear you’re done with the game.

It’s been two months and it’s obvious we, players, have split into two groups.
One wants more gear, even gear grinding if necessary, but gear that helps them feel their character is growing. Gear that gives them something to work for besides changing how you look.
The other group wants gear to not be the decisive factor in combat. They don’t mind only cosmetic gear changes and don’t need such detailed character development. They don’t want gear grind and gear>skill.
What about the system where you get the top gear set if you choose so? Or you can work for it if you choose so?
sPVP gives you the gear set you then use for playing. Why not something similar in PVE as well?
All those that don’t mind gear grind and gear disparity would work on getting gear via grind, quests, dungeons or some other way.
All those that don’t like that can choose to get entire set for free and continue playing with new set without having to do something they don’t like. They would even have an option to change the looks of this new gear to be the same as it was before they opted for gear change (they don’t look any different with new gear if they don’t want to). Or they can choose to use the same gear they already have, but to change the stats on their current gear to be the same as stats on this new and better gear.

The amount of stat changes on this new gear would thus become meaningless to non-gear grinders, number of different gear set levels would become meaningless to them as well and both parties would be able to play the way they want.

I know there is more to be said about gear and leveling, but I think it would not be such a huge amount of work for them to do, since they already have the system to award you with full set of gear for free. I think it could work.

What do you think?

That’s not a fix for gear inflation, that’s a band aid. Nearly all MMO’s with a gear based endgame do the same thing. The problem is how do you feel as a raider who spend 200 plus hours with their guild night after night grinding out the same content to get there guild geared up for the next expansion when a new player joins the game the day of said expansion comes out, solo’s his story content and then has gear on par with your raid gear.

Im fine with new expansions giving better gear, it just means i can progress my character further.
The main “problem” lies more in that your guild will stat focusing on the new raid, and the old one only becomes a “collect the set” instance, something like GW2 Dungeons.
And that some that havent completed their set from previous raid gets a hard time getting their remaining pieces.
Once you collected the set you want in GW2, every other dungeon becomes a meaningless grind and something you avoid.

Just want to chime in here.

I guess I fall into the B group – I have no interest in chasing carrots.

As a matter of fact, when I hit level 80 I bought a full set of Rares (because it’s what I could afford), and I had no intention of working towards anything else.

Granted, I’ve picked up quite a few exotic pieces since then… but I can’t see me earning a Legendary anytime in the next 12-18 months.

Now, my opinion is if you add anything to the game system that prevents me from continuing to play this way (by restricting access, or presenting a very un-level playing field in WvW), I will just stop playing.

I’ve been playing MMOs since before they had graphics. Ultima Online is where I have the most fond memories. EQ, AC, WoW, AoC, Rift, DAoC, FFXI, and more.

I’ve had quite enough of games that start to feel like a second job. I want to play, and have a good time. I enjoy occasionally getting a new skin just to change things up.

I 100% don’t give a kitten what someone else spends their time chasing or attaining or whatever – AS LONG AS it doesn’t force me to do the same in order to be on equal footing.

So my opinion is now as it has been since before GW2 was released: Add as much grind as you want, as long as it does not provide more maximum potential than the current Legendary levels in PvE/WvW or Exotic levels in PvP.