Guild Wars 2

Hello, fellow Tyrians!

On June, 2014 an MMO cousin to GW2 was released: Wildstar. Although the game didn’t shine much post-launch it did leave lessons, one of which you witness today: telegraphs, or AoE marks which expand over time to convey area damage.

There’s also a system that has really pulled my attention, although not so well executed in the game aswell: paths. It’s advertised in their website as:
“Choose from among four unique Paths, each of them chock full of custom content designed for your personal playstyle. Better get moving! This planet ain’t gonna tame itself.”

Simply put: you have custom places/interactions in the world which provides new active gameplay experience, and each one has their identity. The system behind paths isn’t something overly complex or ground-breaking in the way they crafted it, but it adds depth to the personal experience which expands the game horizontally.

You see, there’s an explorer path which allows explorers to unveil secret locations in the world which could lead to nice loot, or more lore about the game. In GW2 we have something loosely comparable: jumping puzzles with a chest at the end. There’s also soldier path, that’s about being able to trigger area events with crowds of mobs and bosses to kill (figure most would prefer this), which is loosely the same as automated dynamic events triggering in the world. Continuing there’s the settler path that allows players to build shops, roads, and overall temporary architecture with useful service (merchants? BLTP? crafting stations?). Last, but not least, the scientist! Scientists keep records of all creatures in the world, and has access to lots of interactions which change objects/creatures in the world.

WS made it so paths intersect, allowing for deep interactions between different players. The same interactions could be expanded in large scale for complex puzzles/challenges which don’t revolve only around combat or puzzles, but a mix of both. We currently have mini-dungeons, but they feel much like an addon rather than a full-fledged expandable exploration system.

Finally, I know this is not everyone’s tastes much like raids were/are not. I believe the more content we get the better, and I tend to believe small updates are better because it gives us something fresh to do while not pulling huge amounts of resources. Another idea I suggested almost an year ago is about tales (or small instanced content), and I’m glad the current events somewhat implemented that.

Not standing in the red circles is an MMO deal going back ages and as an old MMO raid/pvp healer I’m not sure I’d credit them with telegraphs.

As for paths I think WoW did it best with professions like Archeologist, fishing, cook, and basically the roles your not locked in.

Gw2 from my perspective has adopted WoW’s method as seen with the scribe they craft the things that guild halls need in order to thrive. While everyone is all about the elite specialization in the next expac and lesser talk about a new race or class which I don’t think is going to happen at all. The focus should be on what new profession would be added to the game as their is no need to lock people into set paths.

For starters what if in the new expansion we had a new profession that was a cross between a scientist and a explorer who would scour the maps in search of ancient techniques used to fuse items or something. The crafting discipline would require exploration and open air functions but its main goal would be to fuse low level green sigils, runes, armor and so forth into the next teir up to a maximum of exotic. This would raise the price of trash level sigils and give them a use as well as drain some of the lesser mats in the TP all while giving people an alternate perspective on the game.

The path system in some cases were so boring and bland i died… If i were to bring a sustem to gw2 would be the counter play to stuns etc like when you get stunned smash x key to get freed or get back up if you get knocked back etc i liked the dynamic this gave me while playing

wildstar introduced a couple good quality features to the mmo genre – great housing and i agree the paths, it was lost in a riot of crass noisy poorly paced content but they were good all the same imo.

vesica tempestas.1563:

wildstar introduced a couple good quality features to the mmo genre – great housing and i agree the paths, it was lost in a riot of crass noisy poorly paced content but they were good all the same imo.

i can agree housing would make gw2 great if only we were able to cosumise our home instance to that lvl or idk be able to have home isntance maps where multiple ppl have theor houses and you can see each other house and their owner. But yeah if they even do that that would be an exoansion selling point. But paths for me were uninteresting explorer was simply jp and some races aswell as vistas which the fact that it forces you to do that didnt sit well with me while soldier was mostly defend the point against the mobs which was meh.

Yeah, I think that the paths sounded great but in reality just meant a bit less content for everyone.

you could say that about absolutely any good content in a mmorpg. in GW2 however it would be likely that everyone would have access to the paths so exclusivity is not an issue.

Though still nascent, we are seeing a little bit of this “customizing” — except it’s by profession, not by area of interest. We are getting obstacles, eg a locked door, that are approached differently depending on whether you’re playing a thief or other, or whether you are in the Whispers order or not.

I like that kind of shout-out more; everyone has a way through the puzzle (could just be brute force if you’re not one of the fortunate featured professions at that spot), no one is barred from getting through based on a broad brush gameplay choice.

i really like the class based aproach would really like to see it in more raids fractals and open world cant think of why it woildnt be cool.

I can see locked-in content for subsets of your playerbase being an unfulfilling option to develop, actually. If you split 3 ways, you have to work 3 times as hard, while reducing viewership of each part to 1/3rd. I can see why you would prefer to do that only for things players like enough to play through multiple times, like the racial storylines in GW2.

I say that, but I would love to see a bit more lore for our professions. Not as much as the racial storylines, but a few little quests where we explore the meaning and philosophy and heritage of our professions would be really cool.

Sister Saxifrage.7361:

I can see locked-in content for subsets of your playerbase being an unfulfilling option to develop, actually. If you split 3 ways, you have to work 3 times as hard, while reducing viewership of each part to 1/3rd. I can see why you would prefer to do that only for things players like enough to play through multiple times, like the racial storylines in GW2.

I say that, but I would love to see a bit more lore for our professions. Not as much as the racial storylines, but a few little quests where we explore the meaning and philosophy and heritage of our professions would be really cool.

dont hide it little kitten ^^ u would die for elite specs having a “shadowstone or caladbolg” type of quest made for them ;3 . Maybe the next expac could have this

Well, yes! I really enjoy the elite spec weapon scavenger hunts, and I LOVED the Caladbolg quest (getting an ascended weapon as a prize really sweetened the deal of course). But even just some profession lore would be pretty exciting.

vesica tempestas.1563:

you could say that about absolutely any good content in a mmorpg. in GW2 however it would be likely that everyone would have access to the paths so exclusivity is not an issue.

If everyone has access to the paths then aren’t they just dynamic events, jumping puzzles and adventures?

Pifil.5193:

vesica tempestas.1563:

you could say that about absolutely any good content in a mmorpg. in GW2 however it would be likely that everyone would have access to the paths so exclusivity is not an issue.

If everyone has access to the paths then aren’t they just dynamic events, jumping puzzles and adventures?

I haven’t played Wildstar, but I heard a little bit about this. As I understand it, players chose from one of 4 paths: explorer (who focused on finding new areas), soldier (who focuses on killing enemies), settler (who focused on building up the landscape and collecting resources), and scientist (who studied the land; think any asura). Like how any race can be any profession, each path is open to all characters.

However, aren’t all these paths already open to our characters? You gain experience for uncovering a new part of the map, hitting a new waypoint and viewing a new vista, so the explorer types are satisfied. There are a ton of enemies to kill, and lots of events focus on either surviving a wave or defeating all the enemies in an area, so the soldiers are satisfied. Anyone can collect all three resource types and learn any crafting profession (although how many at a time depends on the licensing agreements), so the settlers are (mostly) satisfied. I’m not as familiar with the scientist M.O. so I can’t really draw a parallel for that, but I’m sure there’s something that can satisfy that playstyle, too.

Honestly, as far as personalized storytelling goes, I prefer how it currently is. If more instances in the future can be like Confessor’s End, where playing a specific profession makes a certain part of the encounter easier, then let’s do that. I remember when I was running around on my necromancer and I found a tomb by the Serenity Temple ruins. I forget what I did, but a ghost popped up. I went to the wiki an I was surprised when she wasn’t already listed, so I added her. I only learned later that only necromancers can actually interact with her, which is actually kind of neat. Similarly, rangers can get all excited when a new pet gets released, something that the other classes have to glare at with envy. Maybe we’ll have a point where being a specific race will similarly split something off in the story in a noticeable way, rather than something most people will miss.

Imo, Wildstar’s path system was, like almost anything outside of raids/instances and housing, a pretty severe failure. It was just uninspired, boring and added close to nothing to the game.

@Rognik I played it at the start and that’s exactly what the paths were. I only played it up to about level 35 (before deciding that guild wars 2 frankly did it better and without a subscription. Haven’t gone back since it went free 2 play) so maybe they branched out more later on but they with the exception of some of the Explorer path jump puzzles they were like very simple, repetitive quests or events. Maps in GW2 encompasses these features and don’t lock some of your characters out of doing the tasks because they chose a different path.

(Scientist basically involved gathering specimens or finding data cubes to unlock lore, that kind of thing.)

Great posts here, and valid opinions. I know GW2 encompasses almost everything, but they way it is laid out don’t provide depth for exploration. That being said, I love GW2 exploration, and I wish they could invest more into systems tied to it. From a certain point of view they sort of tried changing things with HoT (verticality), but people really complained and I don’t know why, the only map difficult to navigate is Tangled Depths.

The intention of paths in a GW2 style is to expand what we currently have and provide a more robust framework for content creation, much like how they did for dynamic events. I believe creating beautiful and intriguing maps, with jumping puzzles, is an awesome formula but you can’t say they’ve reached the maximum potential for exploration with these alone.

Lastly, I know creating content is hard. Actually it can get ridiculously hard and may require a plethora of iterations. I just believed paths could inspire something for GW2… we have so many gameplay systems spread out and not so popular, which could be merged into something absolutely stunning.

Well, I did a little more research after my last post, and realised the 4 Wildstar paths followed the 4x logic: explorer is explorer, soldier is exterminate, settler is expand, and scientist is exploit. They might not line up perfectly, but they are on a similar vein. The problem I feel with the paths, though, is that you’re dedicating yourself to just one of those facets, rather than letting yourself freely switch between them.

Honestly, I think adventures was an attempt to make something like this, but it went it a more arcade-like formula rather than satisfying any of these ideas. Like, you try to kill as many vines as you can in a minute (or however long that adventure is), or see how quickly you can make it through this pass. Perhaps if there were hidden little side quests, if you will, it could fulfill the idea of a path without giving a path. For instance, one could be finding X fragments scattered in a certain area, that needs to be done so fast; or fight in a pit for as long as you can possibly stand; or, I dunno, a semi-random puzzle to study a sample a krewe collected.

I think choosing a path is a mistake as it locks you into that, and then you can’t do any of the others. GW2 has always been styled on the change-on-the-go freedom concept, so putting these as optional side activities would work better than saying “you only get one of these four special activities, so choose wisely!” Even the crafting professions aren’t locked, so long as you’re willing to pay a bit to swap which ones are active.

God ,please no.. that would divide only more the playerbase

However, there are other things from which Anet should get inspirement from Wild Star to improve GW2 as the game has made other things better, than GW2, where GW2 is behind still until today:

• Proper Skill Telegraphings
• A Faction System included that feels like Factions, the Factions that GW2 basically has are totally meaningless for the Game so far
• WS has Player Housing – GW2 still not after soon 5 years, when it would have been the best chance to add it with HoT as Guild Halls are basically the same mechanics
• Much better and more Emotes
• Positioning and Movement play alot more an important role in combat like what one would expect from GW2s combat too
• Has/d GvG like battles (40v40) with customizable battle maps
• Has Optional Subscription Model and runs well with it together with Free to Play, what GW2 could do too, but just better
• 2v2, 3v3, 5v5, 15v15, 30v30 PvP Arenas (despite PvP being already closed in WS due to underpopulation)

Simple said, if devs would learn more from the things what the competition on the market did well and would improve their own products based on inspirations they can receive from other games, we could have a much better GW2 by now by just adopting on things, that other games have made by now better than GW2 and improve these things further.