Guild Wars 2

Hey everyone,
I was thinking would ppl enjoy a “survival-ish” aspect in guild wars 2, e.g. making the crystal desert an actual desert where the days are extremely hot, the nights just as cold, having to learn masteries on surviving, finding water, maybe even temp. shelters etc
maybe even places to fight over resources against other ppl as a group or solo
what are your guys’ thoughts on this

I would not want this at all. This sounds extreme for a game that has food provide bonuses,to characters instead of requiring characters to eat and drink otherwise they will die. This sounds either like an extremely niche mmo or a survival game. You’d have to teach players that their old way of exploring the game is now gone, and a new way of fighting for survival every moment they are within a map is too much of a shift in gameplay for even veteran players. Besides, how does that work with the current downed/defeated system. If I can just be randomly downed by not having,enough water, then what’s the point of even trying to explore? If I can be downed but heal myself back up, then there’s no point. If it goes straight to defeated then you’re being punished by the game for something that was essentially not your and that you weren’t adequately taught about beforehand.

This is a bad idea, especially for a game focused on more casual content. Especially since they had the opportunity to do that in the bitterfrost frontier and they didn’t do it. You,never froze to death if you were far away from kodas flame. Kodas flame protected you from attacks that would freeze you, that’s all. It doesn’t protect from chilled or from other attacks. So yeah, mechanics akin to survival games have no place in GW2, not now, not ever.

This would be like Black Desert’s “desert zones”. I think it’s a nice concept that you need to deal with your environment to be successful there.

In Black Desert you need to craft tea that warms you up in the night, you need to take water with you and drink regularly etc. when you are in the desert – that’s a really nice, immersive concept I’d like to see somehow in GW2.

@castlemanic the same thing could have been said about raids, yet here we are and a great deal of players love it
and saying it would force ppl to learn a new system is the point of doing it??
if anet only gives us more of the exact same more and more ppl will start leaving, if they introduce new mechanics and masteries similar to what Nyel told us about black desert then i don’t see why it would have an impact on how we use “BUFF”-Food, it’s 2 entire different concepts
your biggest argument is that it would be something new and either you can cheese it by using heal skills or you can’t and you might find it too hard, i think that’s not a good direction for guild wars 2, not trying out new systems and mechanics will kill the game. Not trying to beat you down personally, i respect your opinion, i just don’t think staying safe and not trying out new ideas, as you seem to have put it, will not benefit the devs or the community

Raven.8941:

@castlemanic the same thing could have been said about raids, yet here we are and a great deal of players love it
and saying it would force ppl to learn a new system is the point of doing it??
if anet only gives us more of the exact same more and more ppl will start leaving, if they introduce new mechanics and masteries similar to what Nyel told us about black desert then i don’t see why it would have an impact on how we use “BUFF”-Food, it’s 2 entire different concepts
your biggest argument is that it would be something new and either you can cheese it by using heal skills or you can’t and you might find it too hard, i think that’s not a good direction for guild wars 2, not trying out new systems and mechanics will kill the game. Not trying to beat you down personally, i respect your opinion, i just don’t think staying safe and not trying out new ideas, as you seem to have put it, will not benefit the devs or the community

My biggest argument is that it doesn’t fit the game mechanics that are currently established. This is NOT about “trying something new”, this is about not changing what is core to the game.

As much as I despise raids personally, they still fit within the context of GW2 as “difficult group content”. Raids and completely changing the way we interact with the world are two ideas so separate, there is NO comparison between them. GW2 does NOT need survival elements in it. GW2 was NOT sold as a survival MMO. There’s no NEED to drastically change the way players interact with the world in the current game as it is.

Masteries, as they are now, do NOT drastically change the way we interact with the world, except for gliding. But gliding and other masteries are about exploration, they still have the core pillar of exploration that GW2 has always had. Adding survival elements to GW2 is NOT ‘exploration’. It’s a completely different method of interacting with the world, so much so that there is an entire game genre out there for people to try out survival games if they wish. GW2 is NOT a survival game, just like GW2 is NOT a game with mounts or flying (true omni-directional flight, not gliding), thus GW2 cannot have survival elements built into it.

Doing this would literally change what genre of MMO GW2 is, and it does not need that. GW2, arguably, has an identity crisis as is, doing this would drastically add more problems than it would add ‘enjoyment’, especially for the larger casual crowd who came to GW2 under the pretense that this is NOT a survival game.

Trying new things out is fine. Changing the genre of the game is not.

I would argue that they have already introduced survival mechanics in a way that fits GW2’s flavor when they had you make the bitterfrost potion to survive the cold. I could see something along those lines being tied to a mastery. I do agree that the game mechanics of most open world survival games has no place in GW2 (which is really hunger bars, temperature bars and the like – watching a meter slowly deplete until you use resource to top up the bar) but the concept if done correctly could work fine.

Moonyeti.3296:

I would argue that they have already introduced survival mechanics in a way that fits GW2’s flavor when they had you make the bitterfrost potion to survive the cold. I could see something along those lines being tied to a mastery. I do agree that the game mechanics of most open world survival games has no place in GW2 (which is really hunger bars, temperature bars and the like – watching a meter slowly deplete until you use resource to top up the bar) but the concept if done correctly could work fine.

The potion was specific to a story step, so it’s not a good example. It’s not used anywhere else and wears off after 24 hours. once it wears off, you can still go into the cave that you fight the icebrood in. Same thing for the disguise you wear in episode two, again it’s specific to a story instance and not needed for the map itself.

Koda’s flame is a better example, but even then you didn’t really need the mastery, you just needed to pick up a torch to avoid getting frozen. You couldn’t fight without the mastery, which is probably the whole point of it, but atleast you’d be protected from being frozen by enemy attacks in bitterfrost.

There simply isn’t a good example of ‘survival’ mechanics akin to what you are talking about, Moonyeti. And there isn’t any example at all for what the OP is talking about.

another “core” mechanic of guild wars 2 the non existence of healer dps tank, well it used to be, now we need healers and tanks
gliding is not only used in exploration, it is used as an offensive and defensive tool as well
the guild hall was a huge change to the way the core guild system worked
you could argue legendary crafting changed the core method of aquiring legendaries

saying that a system that would (not change to be honest, that is a false statement) implement a new system, it doesn’t change any existing one, would be bad for the game, is worse for the game than actually trying it imho
if anet would never try new systems, mechanics etc etc we would still be at the launch state of the game, different kind of gear, specs, no masteries, no elites, a lot of missing buffs, e.g. alacrity is a huge change to the way core gw2 worked, was that a mistake? a lot of ppl argue it should have been in the game from the get go

the survival aspect would not make gw2 into a survival based mmo like arc or conan etc (wich arent mmos i know) it would give new niche content to players, if implemented correctly it wouldn’t be too challenging, could provide a nice amount of team based coordination e.g. lets say there is a mastery for building improvised shelters for up to 5 ish ppl, one of your friends learns that first, while the other learns how to find water, or make fire, yes very simplistic but oyu get the idea
if anet never tinkers at the “core” build of gw2, the game is going to fail, badly
and aren’t mmorpg games supposed to introduce more and most importantly different content bit by bit, to appeal to a wider array of ppl?
if they add content that in general is pleasing to a good amount of ppl but not to you, you can’t call it a bad concept for the game in general, just like raids are not a bad idea even tho it “completly changed core gw2 group content”

lets put it this way, say next or the dlc after that we get crystal desert, what masteries would you like to have? HoT had 5 masteries in it, so let’s make it around that
gliding is out, already done that, or do you want sandstorm gliding? more of the same, just a reskin of updraft?
2nd lore of the ppl that live there, not gonna get around that but again, just a reskin
3rd ? 4th? 5th? another raid mastery prob, but again reskin hm :/
we might get a beast taming thing with the worms (forgot the name sorry) that anet leaked by accident
would new and interesting concept would you bring to the game?
if anet just reskins the same thing from HoT ppl will leave, fast, in masses
I’m just curious what kind of system they could implement that does not in any way “change core gw2”

Like I said.

castlemanic.3198:

Trying new things out is fine. Changing the genre of the game is not.

So if you can stop saying that I’m against Anet trying new things, that would be great.

Raven.8941:

another “core” mechanic of guild wars 2 the non existence of healer dps tank, well it used to be, now we need healers and tanks

IN RAIDS. Healers and tanks are NOT needed elsewhere in the game. This is a false equivalent. What YOU are talking about is an open world survival system. Healers and tanks are not needed in the open world. It still sucks that raids require healers and tanks, but that’s not a core world exploration mechanic.

gliding is not only used in exploration, it is used as an offensive and defensive tool as well

But it all still falls within the mechanics that GW2 has taught us from the beginning. What you are asking for does not.

the guild hall was a huge change to the way the core guild system worked
you could argue legendary crafting changed the core method of aquiring legendaries

Those don’t impact the way you play the open world parts of the game. The guild hall system provides an instanced version of content available to guilds. Acquiring legendaries is still acquiring legendaries.

saying that a system that would (not change to be honest, that is a false statement) implement a new system, it doesn’t change any existing one, would be bad for the game, is worse for the game than actually trying it imhoif anet would never try new systems, mechanics etc etc we would still be at the launch state of the game, different kind of gear, specs, no masteries, no elites, a lot of missing buffs, e.g. alacrity is a huge change to the way core gw2 worked, was that a mistake? a lot of ppl argue it should have been in the game from the get go

Like I said, implementing new systems is fine, changing how we fundamentally interact with the game is not. This game does not need survival elements and is far better off without them. As for alacrity, that’s still an effect, it’s still part of the core combat system. The system itself hasn’t vastly changed because of it. Alacrity reduces recharge time, it doesn’t suddenly provide in game omni-directional flight.

the survival aspect would not make gw2 into a survival based mmo like arc or conan etc (wich arent mmos i know) it would give new niche content to players

If placed in the open world, players would have no option to avoid that content and be forced through it. Atleast raids have the decency of being instanced content that is not necessary for progressing through the story. What you’re suggesting would be forcd onto all players in an open world map. Big difference.

if implemented correctly it wouldn’t be too challenging, could provide a nice amount of team based coordination e.g. lets say there is a mastery for building improvised shelters for up to 5 ish ppl, one of your friends learns that first, while the other learns how to find water, or make fire, yes very simplistic but oyu get the idea

Not really, What you’re suggesting is more akin to dynamic events and meta events rather than masteries. Which, fine, add dynamic events that spawn certain npcs once shelter is built and enough water is found to distribute among npcs. Don’t force my survival to be tied to how often I go back to that camp to recollect supplies. This specific suggestion can be built with systems already in place. Hunger bars, thirst bars etc. have no place within GW2.

(part 1 of 2)

if anet never tinkers at the “core” build of gw2, the game is going to fail, badly
and aren’t mmorpg games supposed to introduce more and most importantly different content bit by bit, to appeal to a wider array of ppl?

Like i’ve said a million times, trying new things is fine, changing the genre of the game is not.

if they add content that in general is pleasing to a good amount of ppl but not to you, you can’t call it a bad concept for the game in general, just like raids are not a bad idea even tho it “completly changed core gw2 group content”

Raids were never a requirement for being able to progress through an open world map. What your suggestion would do is force players to go through survival mechanics in an open world map to progress the story.

lets put it this way, say next or the dlc after that we get crystal desert, what masteries would you like to have? HoT had 5 masteries in it, so let’s make it around that
gliding is out, already done that, or do you want sandstorm gliding? more of the same, just a reskin of updraft?
2nd lore of the ppl that live there, not gonna get around that but again, just a reskin
3rd ? 4th? 5th? another raid mastery prob, but again reskin hm :/
we might get a beast taming thing with the worms (forgot the name sorry) that anet leaked by accident
would new and interesting concept would you bring to the game?
if anet just reskins the same thing from HoT ppl will leave, fast, in masses
I’m just curious what kind of system they could implement that does not in any way “change core gw2”

Not adding survival mechanics would be a great start for things that don’t change core tyria. Not forcing thirst or hunger to affect survivability would be a great start.

The sand worm thing is actually a great mechanic, it’s an exploration mastery that doesn’t drastically change the way that we interact with the world and it doesn’t contradict our current ability to survive in the game.

Dynamic event style base building is a neat idea that I could see happening. Ascending as a mechanic could be very cool. Riding sand worms sounds pretty cool. Forcing me to look at my hunger and water bars in a game that never had them is a terrible idea.

(part 2 of 2)

Raven.8941:

Hey everyone,
I was thinking would ppl enjoy a “survival-ish” aspect in guild wars 2, e.g. making the crystal desert an actual desert where the days are extremely hot, the nights just as cold, having to learn masteries on surviving, finding water, maybe even temp. shelters etc
maybe even places to fight over resources against other ppl as a group or solo
what are your guys’ thoughts on this

There’s zero chance that GW2 will ever deliberately allow competition over resources, let alone encourage it (when it’s happened, ANet has gone out of its way to fix it).

As for requiring masteries to survive harsh environments, we already have that in HoT: there is the Itzel Poison mastery, the necessity to learn gliding, mushroom & nuhoch movement options, etc. Some people found that fun; a lot didn’t.

I’m not against a harsh desert that requires finding water and shade; I just don’t think it’s likely to go over that well.

Sounds a bit like open world PvP. Or maybe like Southsun Survival. I’m not sure how popular Southsun Survival is; if one can become a wisp with no drawbacks, I guess it would be…well, actually, if there is open world PvP involved, I vote no.

Good luck.

The genre of the game has already undergone some degree of alteration. I am not certain that tying story progression behind another such change would be well received. If this was delivered outside of main story progression I would be fine with the survival elements.

Sounds like it could be a new WvW (ish) map.

all points made by Castlemanic are valid and I agree on that end of the argument- Core mechanics were not altered, they were expanded. Raids aren’t much of a departure and that argument is moot. Gliding is only after you purchase the expansion and isn’t required outside of HoT Maps but they gave it to us out of request. Instances overshadow most of the counter arguments in this thread as it’s not open world forced. Additionally, we have something like this in, OH RIGHT

SOUTH SUN SURVIVAL

We have something similar to what is requested in a Daily Activity- not in as broad of a spectrum but at least to a point that is still there.

we already have a similar thing in the ice map where we need an elixir to survive in the coldest zone, or venom mastery to be able to stand in the venom, so it’s not like it’s something that hasn’t been done before.

coso.9173:

we already have a similar thing in the ice map where we need an elixir to survive in the coldest zone, or venom mastery to be able to stand in the venom, so it’s not like it’s something that hasn’t been done before.

Like has been mentioned before, the elixir in bitterfront was a specific story step, it was not needed for open world exploration. The poison mist mastery IS a good example, but it’s still not enough. There is barely any areas that are required for main map exploration and story progression that WAS originally tied to needing the mastery removed the need for the mastery to begin with. Thus, the only attempt to require a survival mastery for something core like story progression failed, and failed very quickly from what I remember.

Also, your examples are vastly different from what the OP is suggesting, which is truly similar to having survival elements being map-wide instead of in specific isolated areas that aren’t core to the progression of the zone. So the points previously established stand, there’s no place for survival like elements being a key factor to progressing within the maps, especially those similar to hunger and thirst bars that require constant management.

the system is already in the game. it just applies to a small zubzone instead of a whole map. that’s the difference.
I’m not saying I like the idea btw, just saying the system is already in place and it’s alreayd been done in the game before, more than once.

coso.9173:

the system is already in the game. it just applies to a small zubzone instead of a whole map. that’s the difference.
I’m not saying I like the idea btw, just saying the system is already in place and it’s alreayd been done in the game before, more than once.

Did you read my post? Cause I addressed the points that you made in this post.

For clarification:

The systems beforehand were either specific to individual story instances, and thus did not affect core map progression, or were in specific sub areas of the maps that did not truly affect core map progression. We’re talking about a system that would affect core map progression. Simply saying “it’s been done before” does not mean it would work for core map progression, and it especially does not mean that it will work across an entire zone/map.

In fact, as I said in my previous post, the one time that something survival related DID impact story progression, it was removed. Specifically for the reason that something survival related impacted story progression (also had to do with how difficult it was to acquire that specific mastery).

Also, the mastery is completely unlike the suggestion in the OP in another way I hadn’t touched on before.

The examples you specifically gave, the elixir in bitterfrost and the poison survival mastery, are simply an immunity on/off switch. In the case of the potion, the potion created in story (aka NOT via mastery) is an invalid point, since it ONLY affected story progression and was not a mastery. The poison mastery is, well, a mastery, but instead of providing a bar that would allow you to survive for a limited time, you either would die nearly instantly without the mastery, or you could afk for a year in the poison areas without taking a single point of damage.

What the OP is suggesting is an ongoing learning how to constantly survive mastery that has no place in game and has no precedence in the game either, so it’s entirely false to equate what the OP is suggesting to what is already in game.

for someone who claims others don’t read your posts, you really don’t do it much either do you?

coso.9173:

for someone who claims others don’t read your posts, you really don’t do it much either do you?

I’ve read both your posts several times and I’ve addressed the points that you brought up. I’m not even sure what this post is attempting to accomplish.

You said

coso.9173:

the system is already in the game. it just applies to a small zubzone instead of a whole map. that’s the difference.

I countered this specific point. Twice.

Unless you’re talking about the second half of your post which is

I’m not saying I like the idea btw, just saying the system is already in place and it’s alreayd been done in the game before, more than once.

Which, well, continues the first half of the post with the caveat of you not saying that you like the idea.

Thus, you still leave the point to be countered. Whether you like the idea or not is irrelevant, considering you defended the point. That was what I was countering.

Unless you’re talking about something else entirely, I don’t understand the point of your post.

Not happening. Shouldn’t happen. Won’t happen. There are games for that, but this isn’t one of them. Changing the core of the game is just a bad idea.

You should probably have a relevant argument to your topic if you plan to spew out “new” mechanics.
Might I suggest to go play the ample supply of early access “survival” games that are already out there?
It wouldn’t be fun, sounds more for people with gold than the average player.

It depends how exactly it would be designed, I would like it very much or wouldn’t at all. Personally I like such mechanics in games and I think it would fit to Guild Wars 2, if designed properly. And I don’t think that it would screw up game, because why? This mechanism, if added, would be avaiable only on new expansion maps, not everywhere. We have seen it already in HoT expansion, it too added new mechanics to its maps, gliding for example. This game need such changes, otherwise it will be dead very soon.

Nyel.1843:

This would be like Black Desert’s “desert zones”. I think it’s a nice concept that you need to deal with your environment to be successful there.

In Black Desert you need to craft tea that warms you up in the night, you need to take water with you and drink regularly etc. when you are in the desert – that’s a really nice, immersive concept I’d like to see somehow in GW2.

Needing to craft something daily to avoid freezing? Gee, maybe we should try it as that is something really new and I am sure it would go down well.

coso.9173:

we already have a similar thing in the ice map where we need an elixir to survive in the coldest zone, or venom mastery to be able to stand in the venom, so it’s not like it’s something that hasn’t been done before.

Neither of which was well-received.

castlemanic.3198:

Moonyeti.3296:

I would argue that they have already introduced survival mechanics in a way that fits GW2’s flavor when they had you make the bitterfrost potion to survive the cold. I could see something along those lines being tied to a mastery. I do agree that the game mechanics of most open world survival games has no place in GW2 (which is really hunger bars, temperature bars and the like – watching a meter slowly deplete until you use resource to top up the bar) but the concept if done correctly could work fine.

The potion was specific to a story step, so it’s not a good example. It’s not used anywhere else and wears off after 24 hours. once it wears off, you can still go into the cave that you fight the icebrood in. Same thing for the disguise you wear in episode two, again it’s specific to a story instance and not needed for the map itself.

Koda’s flame is a better example, but even then you didn’t really need the mastery, you just needed to pick up a torch to avoid getting frozen. You couldn’t fight without the mastery, which is probably the whole point of it, but atleast you’d be protected from being frozen by enemy attacks in bitterfrost.

There simply isn’t a good example of ‘survival’ mechanics akin to what you are talking about, Moonyeti. And there isn’t any example at all for what the OP is talking about.

The potion has to be made to go back in that area after 24 hours, even after the story step. I went back after the story to map a few more POI’s so I learned that one the hard way But in any case, it was just an example of the type of mechanics that could be used for survival-ish features. GW2 would have a bad time if it actually implemented proper survival mechanics, as survival games are about limited resources and competition between players, which is exactly the opposite of how GW2 was designed. Having mechanics with a narrative veneer of survival is as close as this game will get without changing the core philosophy. A long winded way of saying I agree with you, GW2 isn’t a survival game. However, there are ways where they can put in the illusion of survival like systems via masteries.

As a desert dweller, this concept of going from broiling hot to freezing is exaggerated. Even if the temperature drops fifty degrees (F), if it is that hot during the day (say 120) then it still only gets to 70 at night. Hardly requiring both extremes. Of course, this is a fantasy setting, so I suppose a game designer could exaggerate such a place.

Still, since we can carry vast amounts of food, beverage, and materials with us, a survival setting seems highly unrealistic. Right now we can go endlessly, no need to stop for dinner or sleep, so where does “building a shelter” fit? Now, if there were fantasy elements, like poison gas, quicksand, etc that could be overcome with masteries, then maybe. But that seems like boring masteries.