Guild Wars 2

I had to think for a while before posting something, maybe what I write will spring up some discussion.
Disclaimer: I’m not overly concerned with vertical or horizontal gear progression, level cap increase or what A-Net has planned for GW2. After 13 years of MMO’ing around (EQ, EQ2, WoW and others less lasting experiments), having been a “hardcore” player as well as a “super-casual” player, depending on age and free time at disposal, I honestly don’t care anymore, I just apply a simple rule “If I’m not having fun, I stop playing”. I’m approaching the age of 40, still a gamer at heart, but I see things in a different way nowadays from most youngsters, in terms of commitment, fanboism and all that jazz.

I quote an extract from a person who posted this on another board some time ago, while talking about another game (yep, it’s WoW), but I think it can be applied to every game in this genre, more or less. It has been a hot topic of discussion among my friends for a while.

While GW2 could be actually excluding itself from this dissertation, thanks mostly to the existence of WvWvW and maybe, just maybe high level DE (but that’s stretching it quite thin), in a way I think it can still be included in this discussion.

Here it is:

[i]_The biggest problem with MMOs today is that the incentive to chase the carrot has been cut.

This is a result of the decision by WoW and its clones to reverse the motivational link between character progression and play style progression.

In WoW and every one of its clones, raiding is the end, not a means to the end. Your goal in WoW is not to increase your character’s capabilities, but to raid harder content.

The implication of this design decision is that you are never able to exploit the rewards you gain from raiding, because there is nothing to do with your character except to raid harder content, and harder content, by virtue of being harder, makes you feel weaker.

For those who enjoy the challenge of raiding and for whom the feeling of having defeated challenging encounters that others have not is a rewarding pursuit, that’s a sufficient incentive.

For every one else, it is not, and the transparency of WoW’s carrot lies in this – the sole incentive of raiding 3-4 hours a day in WoW is to get +betterer on your character sheet. The +betterer does nothing for you aside from opening up harder raid content that then pussifies your character, resulting in an experience that is equivalent to going in circles – you start off getting owned, then you gear up and obtain parity, and then the game throws you into the next tier and you get owned again.

It is a sadistic exercise in endlessly torturing the player, whereby the only reward is that you get to say that you’ve gone through more tortures than the other guy.

Nobody plays games to be tortured, and yet that is exactly what the end of game of every MMO that copies WoW does. Instead of asking the question – why do players want to raid and, better yet, why do they want to game – MMO developers today assume that players are willing to put themselves through whatever hardships they throw in order to get +betterer on their character sheets, ignoring the concept that nobody gives a kitten about whether they have +10000 betterer – it’s what you’re able to do with it that matters.

This is the first thing that has to change._[/i]

This is primarily due to an enormous skinner box effect by which the existing MMO playerbase has become conditioned to need and expect certain things.

The real problem is a temporal one. The speed at which one can create content is always outstripped by the speed at which some players will complete it. This means that you (whether ‘you’ is the player or the developer) must accept one or more of the following premises:

• End-game is just a permanent revolving door, treadmill, insert other endless staircase analogy.
• People will stop playing your persistent world when they reach the end and come back when you add more content.
• Provide some form of tools for player-generated content of some form, from trading to crafting to PvP to building, and accept that end-game is significantly more generic, but player-driven.

The game doesn’t need to be a sandbox to do the last one; arguably anyone running around in GW2 to find all crafting recipes and become the best crafter of raspberry pie ever is providing self-player-generated motivation if not actual content. EVE’s economy alone provides a huge source of player-generated content ignoring all of the other ways in which that game provides player-generation tools.

Actually, there are two problems, of which the first is temporal. The second problem is that people play games for entertainment, and other people aren’t necessarily the best entertainment. Thus we have seen a significant rise in ’it’s an MMO, but I’m doing my thing over here which is only indirectly affecting you over there’. EVE’s economy is again a classic example. One can play EVE entirely solo and yet have enormous impact on the game world.

Specifically in the case of GW2, I would say the game failed to make good on the dynamic event system and where it might have gone. The events are small-scale, localised, and exist solely for the purpose of giving XP & providing quick gratification. If instead the world was a simulation, and the players perturbed that simulation, then we’d see a lot more indirect involvement & players out ‘just doing stuff’ because it changes things for their benefit.

I think that developers have seemingly forgotten a major part of an RPG; it’s a role playing game.

It seems that most online RPGs have become lost in combat mechanics and defeating the next big thing that rears its head from development. The role playing elements just seem eclipsed in comparison. Give the players difficult decisions to be made, have repercussions for making that choice, and don’t hold their hands in making those choices.

Miele.6537:

Nobody plays games to be tortured, and yet that is exactly what the end of game of every MMO that copies WoW does.

You are very wrong. I can say that after 13 years of playing MMOs, the only things that I remember from the previous games I have been in are the good times during hardships.

Hardships bond you with the game than rather being a filler to your free time that you could also spend just staring blankly to TV or just a white painted wall….

That is exactly why I think so fondly of EQ1….not just because it was my first one…but due to the hardships the game had. For example WoW was my second one and yet I have no fond memories of that game when I left back in 2006 rather games that proved to be harder (in every possible way, yes even grindwise) and challenging after it. It has nothing with which game was first, which second etc.

To make it simple, I can still remember the first time I managed to buy a Jagged band or a BIBS in Feymart by shouting in the zone. Even that was difficult and wasn’t a one button purchase but required quite a bit of a bargaining. I can tell you that after trading over 600g of things in GW2 I cannot even remember what the hell I have traded.

Hardships bond people with what they are spending their time on. If you think people don’t want hardships then you are probably an FPS player or a WoW generationer. Sorry for the generalization beforehand….but I try to make a point.

There is a more basic reason people don’t like GW2, it’s a bad game.

The content is bland, the classes are shallow and the pvp stinks. The “dynamic world” was pure sales hype.

GW2 isn’t fun plain and simple.

Gohlar.3671:

There is a more basic reason people don’t like GW2, it’s a bad game.

The content is bland, the classes are shallow and the pvp stinks. The “dynamic world” was pure sales hype.

GW2 isn’t fun plain and simple.

I won’t comment on the rest you said, but classes are far from shallow. It takes me about 30 mins on the tree calculator to estimate my build close to 90% of what I play in release before I even play the said game. Yea….that didn’t work with GW2. I had to consider a lot of factors in order to determine my build.

That also has to do with the fact that it is not just a rotational game….which also makes it far from bad game as you claim.

Well considering the nose dive the population took I think it’s safe to agree most think it’s a bad game.

The classes are incredibly shallow btw. It’s such a giant step backwards for the genre, it’s like mmo lite. There are no rotations because the classes are too dumbed down to have one.

Gohlar.3671:

Well considering the nose dive the population took I think it’s safe to agree most think it’s a bad game.

The classes are incredibly shallow btw. It’s such a giant step backwards for the genre, it’s like mmo lite. There are no rotations because the classes are too dumbed down to have one.

There is no rotation because the game has a different more action oriented approach to its combat. There is no point in the term rotation or DPS when you are jousting mobs. And to tell you the truth it is a good thing.

Gohlar.3671:

Well considering the nose dive the population took I think it’s safe to agree most think it’s a bad game.

I think the nose dive in population (the initial drops) was caused by the people that played the game and came to the end and realized there was nothing to do. There does appear to be a lack of meaningful content.

Gohlar.3671:

The classes are incredibly shallow btw. It’s such a giant step backwards for the genre, it’s like mmo lite. There are no rotations because the classes are too dumbed down to have one.

When you say rotations… I think of set rotations and the fact you can write a castsequence macro so you can bound away on one button to play… that is a step backward.

Even WoW I think has moved most of it’s classes away from rotations and put in a priority system (at least the classes I play).

I miss character progression in GW2 and since character progression is thing driving me to log in and play the game, I have no will to log in.

Gohlar.3671:

Well considering the nose dive the population took I think it’s safe to agree most think it’s a bad game.

The classes are incredibly shallow btw. It’s such a giant step backwards for the genre, it’s like mmo lite. There are no rotations because the classes are too dumbed down to have one.

I have a level 90 hunter and a level 90 paladin in WoW.

Those rotations (priorities, now) aren’t exactly rocket science.

Looria.8019:

I miss character progression in GW2 and since character progression is thing driving me to log in and play the game, I have no will to log in.

So you have your acended and lagandary gear than?

Thanks for the post. It was thoughtful and a good read. I wish game companies engaged with the issues at a level that would move the genre forward. I think GW2 started down that path but the path got rocky and they chose what seemed a safer formulaic route. Oh well, it’s always good to know there are people out there thinking about games.

You know why games try and clone WoW now? It is because it is an amazing game. I am talking about ALL of WoW, not just the expansions people didn’t like. WoW took stuff from other mmo’s (which were very few) and made them their way and a way they thought people would like. And it was a success.

You know why people love end game raiding and the carrot on a stick? Because WoW made amazing raids that was so much fun to do, yet challenging and long enough to where they didn’t need to pump out content every other week like people keep wanting now-a-days.

Sure some hated it still, but WoW really made the end game what it is today and companies fail bad at trying to compete with how WoW did it. No other game now or in the future will ever make a raid that is better than MC, BWL, Karazhan, AQ40, ZG, Naxx40, Sunwell, SSC, TK, BT, Ulduar and even ICC. Those places were so fun and amazing and difficult. Heck even the Vanilla 5-15 man dungeons were amazing (UBRS, LBRS, VC, Dire Maul, Scholo, Strat, RFD, RFK, etc.)

Not only that but in Vanilla and BC you had to get attuned for those places (except ulduar and icc) which most required a lot of work.

I wish WoW went back to this or even another new game would do something like this. People got the gear to progress and imo I did it because I loved raiding with people and being able to complete content in a competitive fashion. The gear for me was to show that I was part of a guild who downed this content. Sure it did nothing for you beyond that, but it was about the challenge and fun.

I completely disagree with the premise of the quoted segment of the OP.

Your character isn’t getting weaker in relative terms in a progression model, because you aren’t limited in your interactions to the newest content.

Yes, the newest and greatest raid instance is harder than the last, but when you’ve geared up from it, your power relative to the rest of the game (which continues to persist) goes up leaps and bounds. The only way in which this “sadistic exercise” the OP describes exists is if the character in question restricts themselves purely to the newest content.

The rest of the game is still there when you’re latest-and-greatest raid geared. And there’s a ton of fun and profit in going back and wrecking it.

UnderdogSMO.9428:

Looria.8019:

I miss character progression in GW2 and since character progression is thing driving me to log in and play the game, I have no will to log in.

So you have your acended and lagandary gear than?

Please enlighten me. What actually makes legendary legendary? The staff looks ugly and reminds me of pony rainbow stuff. Why on earth would I want my character to have that?

Plus I already have exotic staff that has the same stats (actually much better, since legendaries stats are totally useless for majority of players) as the legendary so getting it wouldnt progress my character anywhere.

Hard to make any progress at the moment when you can’t afford even the next tier of lowbie armour because the drop rate is now pretty much non-existent..

Looria.8019:

UnderdogSMO.9428:

Looria.8019:

I miss character progression in GW2 and since character progression is thing driving me to log in and play the game, I have no will to log in.

So you have your acended and lagandary gear than?

Please enlighten me. What actually makes legendary legendary? The staff looks ugly and reminds me of pony rainbow stuff. Why on earth would I want my character to have that?
Plus I already have exotic staff that has the same stats (actually much better, since legendaries stats are totally useless for majority of players) as the legendary so getting it wouldnt progress my character anywhere.

Wrong game for you then. You wouldn’t start playing CoD if I don’t like shooters too. Every other MMO out there has vertical progression, you shouldn’t have chosen the only one that doesn’t as it was advertised as such.

I hate vertical progression.

The fact of the matter is is that whenever it’s my stats vs those of an enemy, the game is playing itself to a degree, since fights are determined more by stats. The only cure to this is a lack of vertical progression, or a ‘power plateau.’ By removing both as ArenaNet have, it means that they can never develop content designed around fixed stats. They can never create content that’s focused on challenging skill.

The only content they can create, going forward, since they plan on further tiers and level increases, is numbers vs numbers. In good game design, the player’s inputs and choices dictate success or failure. In bad game design, it’s just rolling dice to see who wins. And that’s what vertical progression is: Rolling dice.

With no power plateau, GW2 is a joke to me.

In Mass Effect 3’s multi-player, due to the horizontal progression and kitten near absent vertical progression, it means that they have to focus fights against skill. When you beat the Collectors on platinum, you really feel like you’ve achieved something. The AI in ME3 is tactical, and even punishing on platinum. It’s not the zergfest of GW2.

But GW2 it’s numbers vs numbers. This is WoW 2.0 in the making.

Have fun with it, you guys. I don’t want to play a game that’s all about a placebo effect for how a pathetic and unskilled person I am. I don’t want that. I’d prefer that a game assumes that I am at least somewhat skilled and doesn’t patronise me by holding my hand with stats in the way WoW/GW2 does.

I want to feel the -real- success of winning because I’m skilled. No placebos for me.

You dont need vertical progression to feel sense of character progression. But since there is no character progression in this game thats the reason why it wont ever attract wider range of players. Im not saying thats wrong… Im just saying that player game for fun is nice but u need to have drive to log in. I dont have that cause i lack character progression (in whatever way).

Just because you don’t like the look of the legendary that would be interesting for your spec. Then get another one, just for the look. And if you’ve really done all you can do in the game except grinding a legendary, it’s probably time to accept that a game has an end if you’re not playing just for fun (like with almost every shooter – you shoot people, that’s it, nobody complains, only with MMOs).

@Iruwen.3164

“Every other MMO out there has vertical progression […]”

That’s not the argument, though. The argument is that we accept that a game has to have some VP in order to keep people like you happy, people who need the placebo effect (and I do feel sorry for you because of that, that you’ll never be good at anything because you rely on stats).

The argument is that there are good games out there which have a power plateau, like GW2 originally promised to have. Except GW2’s power plateau has now been cast aside. To ArenaNet it doesn’t exist any more. But that doesn’t mean that there aren’t games out there which did embrace it.

MMORPGs that do:

- Champions Online
- Star Trek Online
- Guild Wars 1
- Dungeons & Dragons: Online
- Marvel Heroes (out soon)
- Neverwinter (out soon)

Champions Online is one of my favourites. It never promised a power plateau, but it’s been true to that element of game design. And to be honest, the Nemesis Confrontation content at level 40 is far, far more interesting than anything GW2 has to offer. And that’s because it’s content designed around player builds and skill, rather than the “I have no skill!” placebo of vertical progression.

I guess for those who have no skill and want to stagnate forever, never having any skill, the placebo effect of vertical progression is fine. But I like having skill, blast it all! And I like getting better at things. And the only way that can happen is if a game challenges my skill, rather than opting for the placebo effect of vertical progression. This is why the best games out there, hands down, don’t use vertical progression.

There’s a reason that Grand Theft IV, for example, doesn’t do vertical progression.

(Edit)

Let me explain this to you. The reason vertical progression is a bit of a cancer is because of the placebo effect which removes skill. Okay, take Super Mario Bros. What if you had stats which increased the length of the invulnerability star, that allowed you to take more hits before shrinking, and allowed you to double jump up to 8 times.

Now, imagine how easy Super Mario Bros would then be, since you’d often be invincible, you’d take a lot of hits, and you could double jump to save yourself from pits and dangers. Sure, you’d feel awesome, but it’s a hollow thing. It’s just mitigating the fact that you’re horrible at the game. So it’s replacing your need for skill with stats.

That’s the “placebo effect” of vertical progression. I’m not a fan.

I have the best looking gear and weapons for my profession and gameplay i can get in the game (imo). Spending hundreds of hours to get something which useless stats and ugly look is not something I would call fun.

They designed the legendaries wrong. After all that farming you do, you can still only use the legendary for certain spec and certain gameplay.

But anyway, thats for another discussion. The problem is that farming hundreds of hours for an item look doesnt give you sense of character progression. It just pleases your eyes. It doesnt tell you, yea..my character progressed now and is one step closer to…something.

Looria.8019:

UnderdogSMO.9428:

Looria.8019:

I miss character progression in GW2 and since character progression is thing driving me to log in and play the game, I have no will to log in.

So you have your acended and lagandary gear than?

Please enlighten me. What actually makes legendary legendary? The staff looks ugly and reminds me of pony rainbow stuff. Why on earth would I want my character to have that?

Plus I already have exotic staff that has the same stats (actually much better, since legendaries stats are totally useless for majority of players) as the legendary so getting it wouldnt progress my character anywhere.

To some people, that is progression though.

But people need to realize… gamers are different and the online gamer pool is bigger then it has ever been.

That’s why developers have all sorts of varieties of carrots to dangle in front of the players. They aren’t just limited to vertical progression gamers.

For me, if the skin looked cool, I would go for it and probably enjoy it and be happy (like I do hunting down transmog pieces in WoW). My wife… she’d just keep doing what she always does… looks like a ragtag mismash in the best gear she gets and laughs at me for playing dress up and called me a nerd.

Looria.8019:

Please enlighten me. What actually makes legendary legendary? The staff looks ugly and reminds me of pony rainbow stuff. Why on earth would I want my character to have that?

1. Looks are subjective. What’s ugly to you might be good looking to someone else.

2. How does a rainbow staff named Bifrost remind you of ponies? Either you have ponies on the brain, or you’re not up on your Norse mythology.

I think the problem is because of all of the recent MMO’s with gear treadmill, everyone associates ‘progression’ with ‘getting better stats’. However, this shouldn’t be the case, since everyone’s aims are different, and don’t just amount to ‘becoming stronger’:

• As Sollith said, developers forgot the role-playing aspect. If your character works hard to gain ranks in an organisation, then technically your character is progressing.

• If you have a particular skill, and you work on improving that skill to give it additional effects, that’s also a form of progression (since the skill would be made stronger).

• With these new Fractals, gaining access to higher levels of difficulty is a form of progression (higher skilled players will be able to progress further without requiring Ascended gear, due to avoiding skills that cause Agony).

• If you have 70 Trait points, and you go out into the world, and then earn another in a long and arduous journey, then you’ve progressed. Same with finding Traits (which I’m still convinced should have been left in).

• If you enjoy the housing aspect, then increasing the size of your house / adding stuff to it ect would be a form of progression.

• If you enjoy crafting, then increasing your skill in crafting / learning new recipes ect could be a progression path.

• If you enjoy exploration, then finding new places (even if they don’t count towards anything) can be a form of progression.

• If you’re a PvP player, increasing your rank / rating on the ladder is a form of progression.

TL;DR – Anything that someone can advance in can be considered progression, since everyone has different motivations.

There is such a wide variance in game addictions that no single game will ever satisfy everyone. GW2 appears to be trying that, but I wonder sometimes if thats the right approach. I understand that they are attempting to garner as wide a market segment as possible.

But its naive to think that everyone is going to appreciate attempts to make it right for everyone.

They ought just choose a style that fits thier vision and go with it. And let the game sift out those who don’t like it.

And even things that aren’t stats/numbers advancement works. If (for example) we could train mini-pets to do basic actions and have them put on shows, that would be progression. Different minipets do different things, different classes train different actions. Soon you can have a whole circus going. That was a random example, but there’s all kinds of things like that where people can do something fun and get an impressive result.

The bones for that kind of play – town clothes, non-violent DEs, emotes, pets, etc – are all in the game. Hopefully ANet will get the time to start putting some together. Maybe when they make the racial cities more important.

My idea of progression is improving my game play, not grinding dungeons to get a piece of gear with 20-50% higher stats than my current piece.

TheDaiBish.9735:

TL;DR – Anything that someone can advance in can be considered progression, since everyone has different motivations.

I won’t quote and run through the whole thing, but you had good examples of both vertical and horizontal progression, as well as meaningful and unmeaningful progression.

You can put something in the game that players can progress then. Players don’t want just blind progression. I think most people want meaningful progression (unfortunately, what is meaningful changes greatly between one player and the next).

And putting meaningful progression into the game… is the hard thing… because it is so individual.

So, as a developer, it appears you try to cast your net out as wide as possible to catch as many of the average players as you can… trying to capture the extremes to each side I think is the surefire way to alientate a lot more.

Columba.9730:

My idea of progression is improving my game play, not grinding dungeons to get a piece of gear with 20-50% higher stats than my current piece.

What does that mean exactly?

Can you give me an example of what is meaningful progression to you.

I think ArenaNet should focus on making a game for the people who actually LIKE the game. GW1 had the same kind of progression as GW2. I played that on and off for more than five years. I strictly did PvP in that game for the last few years.

I love GW2 to death and I think the PvP is super engaging and requires a lot of skill to truly master. I have played a ranger since head start and I have just NOW mastered ONE build.

If you don’t like the game, don’t play it!! GW2 is different than all these other mmo’s with progression you are used to. Just because it offers a different way to play does NOT make it a bad game.

I look forward to ArenaNet’s features/changes for sPvP and especially WvW. I will be playing this game until I am not allowed to anymore.

Very well said OP
I still think there is big market out there for the group that enjoys the open world and horizontal progression just too bad GW2 decided to follow the group and now they need to find a niche that so many others before them found to survive or continue to loose players

xiede.8543:

I won’t quote and run through the whole thing, but you had good examples of both vertical and horizontal progression, as well as meaningful and unmeaningful progression.

You can put something in the game that players can progress then. Players don’t want just blind progression. I think most people want meaningful progression (unfortunately, what is meaningful changes greatly between one player and the next).

And putting meaningful progression into the game… is the hard thing… because it is so individual.

So, as a developer, it appears you try to cast your net out as wide as possible to catch as many of the average players as you can… trying to capture the extremes to each side I think is the surefire way to alientate a lot more.

The thing is with a lot of forms of the ‘meaningless progression’ (i.e. nothing that makes you stronger / more efficient i.e. ‘fluff’, I’m going to assume you’re referring to. Correct me if I’m wrong though), as long as you put a solid system in place for it, it’s something you can easily add to over time.

The Fractals are a good example of this: random dungeons in which more can be added to when and where.

Housing (going by my assumption you’re referring to as meaningless) is another one: we already have a Home Instance. With a bit more work, adding:

- Somewhere that you can display accolades (i.e. HoM)
- Redecorate to your liking
- Expand upon (i.e. Asura could get new lab equipment, while Norn could build their own Brewery)

Is something that can be done over time, when they have time, and therefore doesn’t alienate someone.

TL;DR – Well thought-out and constructed systems make expanding on various forms of progression easier, therefore increasing the ‘life expectancy’ of the game since they entertain between content patches as well.

As for your comment on ‘blind progression’, I’m not sure I follow. Are you referring to progression you HAVE to do (‘blindly following’, to use that phrase) in order to access content? Or is it progression that has no tangible evidence (for lack of a better word)?

I think vertical progression is the easiest because it’s the easiest for players to set a goal and strive towards it. It’s also easiest in giving the player a reward for striving towards it and eventually achieving it.

Horizontal progression is a little more challenging to create that goal/reward because the value of that goal/reward is subjective. Horizontal progression is also a bit hollow in this game because actions, or lack of action, doesn’t create consequences.

::: I’m basically going to give a bunch of examples and suggestions below so you can stop reading if you’re not interested in my point… some of these would require a bit of a retooling of some mechanics, but entertain my imagination if you will:::

DEs don’t have any real significant impacts on their respective zone maps or the world…. and the nature of lesser rewards at lower zones combined with not really knowing what’s going on throughout the world without some website tracking major events (great, I have to tab out or dual monitor) and the high wp costs doesn’t necessarily inspire a lot of incentive when a player can put similar or lesser efforts elsewhere and get more out of their experience.

WvW success/failure only means I get harder/easier servers to fight next week… hardly any impact is noticed in the world for having a great server or not having a great server. Combined with free transfers every week, you basically have those folks “jumping on the bandwagon”.

Great, we killed Zhaitan in Arah SM, or that Ascalonian king which has no impact on Tyria… in WoW you bring Onyxia’s head to Stormwind/Orgimmar and get a neat little buff (I believe there was something for Shattrath too when you killed Kael’Thas). What if bringing Zhaitan’s head to any uncontested priest shrine gave interesting Orr-zone buffs?… potentially a reason for some groups to want to still do Arah SM; a half an hour or so of their time for a zone-buff that could last a few days.

Whatever factions you joined, you get a faction-specific weekly/monthly mission that is mailed to you (or just pops up in your achievement tab) and you can do them. They take you to some random parts of Tyria doing whatever. The reward for finishing the mission could be something like going to the LA faction representative and getting to choose an allocation of faction resources and where, which have some effect on the zone you put them in. So now in a zone, like Cursed Shore, points aren’t overrun so easily, there’s more patrols on the roads to help you out in certain places… maybe even the DEs alter slightly based on the assets in the map.

xiede.8543:

Columba.9730:

My idea of progression is improving my game play, not grinding dungeons to get a piece of gear with 20-50% higher stats than my current piece.

What does that mean exactly?

Can you give me an example of what is meaningful progression to you.

WvWvW kills, accomplishments, server wins, server progression, for example. I hate gear progression where each new treadmill requires pve grinding.

Joey.3928:

I think ArenaNet should focus on making a game for the people who actually LIKE the game.

THIS! SO VERY MUCH THIS!

I’m a huge fan of indie games because they are not polluted by the boardroom mentality. That’s not to say that an MMO should ignore getting people logged in. I’d much rather have a game that focuses on delivering a unique experience than something that is everything to everyone.

TheDaiBish.9735:

The thing is with a lot of forms of the ‘meaningless progression’ (i.e. nothing that makes you stronger / more efficient i.e. ‘fluff’, I’m going to assume you’re referring to. Correct me if I’m wrong though), as long as you put a solid system in place for it, it’s something you can easily add to over time.

Meaningful progression and unmeaningful progression are personal. Yuu can put solid solid systems in place for it, but if the player ultimately doesn’t find it meaningful, then it doesn’t matter. And what you find meaningful and what I find meaningful may be the same but they might be different.

Me and my wife are good examples of this. Me and her are polar opposites when it comes to what we find meaningul and what we are willing to do for it.

Fractals for example… I love the concept of going further and further for the challenge. The challenge alone is enough of a ‘carrot’ to make me want to do it. I don’t need anything more than that. My wife on the other hand wouldn’t just do it for the challenge… she wants the shiny at the end (that’s her carrot). Now, as long as both of us are getting are carrot, that progression there would be meaningful. But if you took the challenge out of it, if it was just infinite levels of the same difficulty, I probably wouldn’t do it once I hit the bored point. Just as if you took the shiny away, my wife wouldn’t do it.

TheDaiBish.9735:

Housing (going by my assumption you’re referring to as meaningless) is another one: we already have a Home Instance. With a bit more work, adding:

- Somewhere that you can display accolades (i.e. HoM)
- Redecorate to your liking
- Expand upon (i.e. Asura could get new lab equipment, while Norn could build their own Brewery)

Is something that can be done over time, when they have time, and therefore doesn’t alienate someone.

Housing is one of those things that I actually miss in a lot of games. My first online game a long time ago back in the 90s, was The Realm. You got a house that was your own. You couldn’t really do anything in it other then sit and drop your loot on the ground, but it was mine and I enjoyed it.

It’s been one of the draws of mine to EQ2 for a long, long time.

I’d love it for Blizzard to implement it. With Trion putting in a very nice Housing system (from what I have seen), I have hopes that Blizzard will try to copy it.

To me, it would be meaningful. To my wife? I honestly don’t know. She doesn’t really care for the whole transmog thing in WoW, so I can’t imagine she would want to decorate a house either.

Again, you would never see me starting anger threads if ArenaNet or Blizzard decided to implement Housing.

TheDaiBish.9735:

As for your comment on ‘blind progression’, I’m not sure I follow. Are you referring to progression you HAVE to do (‘blindly following’, to use that phrase) in order to access content? Or is it progression that has no tangible evidence (for lack of a better word)?

Blind progression probably was a poor word choice from me. I probably won’t even explain it any better here, but I’ll try. Blind progression is basically just progression, in a vaccuum, with no player input.. so no one to define whether it is meaningful or not. What the developer says you can do with your time to keep you playing.

But if the player in the end finds all that stuff stupid and worthless, then it matters for not.

It’s a hard road to walk to put meaningful progression into the game that catches the most amount of players… because let’s face it, they are a business and they want more and more dollars. They aren’t doing this out of the kindness of their heart…

Columba.9730:

xiede.8543:

Columba.9730:

My idea of progression is improving my game play, not grinding dungeons to get a piece of gear with 20-50% higher stats than my current piece.

What does that mean exactly?

Can you give me an example of what is meaningful progression to you.

WvWvW kills, accomplishments, server wins, server progression, for example. I hate gear progression where each new treadmill requires pve grinding.

What you list… how is that any of that different then what you already have?

And how did putting some new gear into the game prematurely (giving them credit that they are going to actually put alternative methods to get that gear at a later date) remove that from the game?

xiede.8543:

Columba.9730:

xiede.8543:

Columba.9730:

My idea of progression is improving my game play, not grinding dungeons to get a piece of gear with 20-50% higher stats than my current piece.

What does that mean exactly?

Can you give me an example of what is meaningful progression to you.

WvWvW kills, accomplishments, server wins, server progression, for example. I hate gear progression where each new treadmill requires pve grinding.

What you list… how is that any of that different then what you already have?

And how did putting some new gear into the game prematurely (giving them credit that they are going to actually put alternative methods to get that gear at a later date) remove that from the game?

I am currently forced to grind dungeons so that I don’t get curb stomped in WvWvW. They haven’t announced when I can get the much better gear outside of dungeon grinds. Until I see it live, my position won’t change.

Delolith.9645:

Hardships bond people with what they are spending their time on. If you think people don’t want hardships then you are probably an FPS player or a WoW generationer. Sorry for the generalization beforehand….but I try to make a point.

You bring up a very relevent and interesting point by mentioning the FPS genre, if only unfortunately in an attempt to deride people who play games that you apparently hold in distaste.

The “hardship” players face in games like FPSes is not derived from contrived “numerical” difficulty like Agony or number inflation, but rather from the fact that players will have difficulty besting a better player in that genre. Consider the sniper vs sniper scenario. The better sniper will almost always win if they face each other head-on. Satisfaction is derived when the “less-skilled” sniper beats the better one either by cunning, teamplay, or bettering himself so he is now as good as, or better than, the opponent.

Hopefully this post will convince you that FPS players are gamers like you are, and not some sub-human species who demand only instant gratification.

I remember watching a video (long before GW2 was out) in which ANet devs were presenting at a developer conference.

One of the key points they brought up was why Warhammer Online failed. Even though it had many good ideas, said the ANet developers, they were trying to cater to a larger audience than what was possible.

One of the examples was the Public Quest system. The ANet developers mentioned that the PQ system was great, but for some reason the Mythic developers decided to also put in the traditional quest-hub style game play.

So, instead of focusing solely on the new and fun mechanic that Warhammer Online presented, it wasted time and effort (and money!) trying to implement a system that was not as cool and new.

I see all of this happening right now with GW2. Someone above me mentioned how they thought ANet should focus on the Dynamic Events and make them the key point of the game rather than a quick way to get a reward. Yet, ANet seems like they are a mess at the moment and trying to put in all this different content. All the while they are neglecting the improvement of game systems that make GW2 UNIQUE.

In my opinion, ANet is not focusing enough on what makes GW2 unique, and instead they are focusing on implementing features that are not as unique (dungeon based endgame).

Here is the link to the GDC video:

http://www.gdcvault.com/play/1013691/Designing-Guild-Wars-2-Dynamic

Columba.9730:

I am currently forced to grind dungeons so that I don’t get curb stomped in WvWvW. They haven’t announced when I can get the much better gear outside of dungeon grinds. Until I see it live, my position won’t change.

No matter if you are BiS slot or not…

You are going to find there are people that are going to curbstomp you.

Class balance and player skill have a far greater impact on PvP then gear.

And there is never going to be class balance.

And there are going to always be players that are just flat out better players then you.

Just as there are going to be players you meet that you are going to curbstomp when you are lesser gear because you are better then them skill wise or your class has inherent advantages over them.

End game,well….before i started playing mmo’s i was playing rpg’s, my most favorite game back then was squaresoft’s ff10 before square enix started to kitten up the others that followed.For casuals there was the storyline and some minigames to do ingame and that was it,for the hardcore gamers there was much more, as it almost was disigned only for them.:)There endgame begon at getting the calestical weapen’s(that was imo easy)But then it all just begon for me"the endgame"Farming dark matters,Getting break hp limit,Getting break damage limit,Fighting the dark aeons,Finding hidden bosses completing the mosterarena and so on…For all this ya needed a kittenload of time,some effort to read things,to use your brains.
In Gw2 i treuly hope i will experience the same like i did in the game that i talked about.But at the end its all what you make of it,If you like it stay, if ya don’t like it move on.

Reply on my post from another player.

+1
Somewhere along the development of GW2, “no gear treadmill” turned into “no player left behind”. Lets give everyone the same gear! Let’s design the game so every player, good or bad, can complete all content in PvE! Let’s give everyone a choice of 3 cookie-cutter builds for their class, so that casual players don’t feel left behind! Let’s make legendaries easy, but big time sinks so that anyone could get them! As a result, the skill ceiling in PvE was made very low. There are no megabosses, there are no challenges that actually require SKILL to beat. There is nothing that only the best of the best can achieve. “Rewarding skilled players for being good” became “Rewarding all players just for showing up”, and the only measure of a player seems to be “Well did you get 100% world completion?” and “Did you get all the armor skins?”

Delolith.9645:

Miele.6537:

Nobody plays games to be tortured, and yet that is exactly what the end of game of every MMO that copies WoW does.

You are very wrong. I can say that after 13 years of playing MMOs, the only things that I remember from the previous games I have been in are the good times during hardships.

Hardships bond you with the game than rather being a filler to your free time that you could also spend just staring blankly to TV or just a white painted wall….

That is exactly why I think so fondly of EQ1….not just because it was my first one…but due to the hardships the game had.

You know, that is funny. I feel that you are very wrong.

I was there in Everquest. You know what I remember?
“Hell levels” … every what was it, 9 levels? – the 10th one would take 20x the previous level’s experience to complete. Forced grind.

“Farming for XP”. You basically had to sit there and kill the same exact 10 monsters every couple minutes for dozens of days. There weren’t quests for XP like we have in MMOs now.

Raster of Guk. I had camp a single spawn in a game for 70 hours straight, to get a single piece required for my Epic class weapon. The dude spawned rarely, in one spot, and since kill-stealing existed … people could run up and DPS him down before I did, thereby invalidating my entire time spent camping him and there was nothing I could do about it.

Loot rolls. DKP points. Officers having to stop massive drama meltdowns every time a raid got a good drop because it took 20+ people to take down a boss that would drop 1 piece of loot that multiple people wanted and the boss only spawned once every 7 days.

No instancing. It was always first-come first-served. Bosses reset and your guild didn’t get there first? Well better luck next week. Oh, one guild has your server’s bosses basically locked down on a timer in their time zone? You’ll never see those fights, ever.

Expansion after expansion that spewed out more grind … more levels … more ‘betterer’ numbers on weapons that you were required to have to be able to tackle the new content that dropped better gear that you were required to have to .. faint

I could spew a dozen more horrible things I remember.

One day I woke up and realized I was paying $15 a month for the privilege of spending more time than I spent at my place of employment being tortured by Sony Online Entertainment. I was voluntarily submitting myself to torture and paying for it too. lol

Did I have some good times? Sure. I met friends that I kept for years. We shared laughs and triumphs, but it wasn’t worth all that.

Edit: Another thing I remember … “GM Events”. At the time I liked them because they were something new to do, and a chance at loot (although almost no one got any) yet hated them because they were literally just the GMs with /godmode on dressed as the monsters, roflstomping players by the dozens.

Now I find the GM Events funny, because of the amazing level of trolling the GMs were doing … the amount of frustration those folks were taking out on their own customers is epic.

xiede.8543:

Columba.9730:

I am currently forced to grind dungeons so that I don’t get curb stomped in WvWvW. They haven’t announced when I can get the much better gear outside of dungeon grinds. Until I see it live, my position won’t change.

No matter if you are BiS slot or not…

You are going to find there are people that are going to curbstomp you.

Class balance and player skill have a far greater impact on PvP then gear.

And there is never going to be class balance.

And there are going to always be players that are just flat out better players then you.

Just as there are going to be players you meet that you are going to curbstomp when you are lesser gear because you are better then them skill wise or your class has inherent advantages over them.

My point is that I don’t like playing at a clear gear deficit. What you think I need or how well you think I play are irrelevant. They are extraneous excuses meant to make me accept the overpowered gear that currently is only available through grinding. I don’t accept it, your opinions notwithstanding.

The OP asked a question. I answered it and provided my rationale. I am not here to argue what I NEED to enjoy a game. I know what I need.

Delolith.9645:

Miele.6537:

Nobody plays games to be tortured, and yet that is exactly what the end of game of every MMO that copies WoW does.

You are very wrong. I can say that after 13 years of playing MMOs, the only things that I remember from the previous games I have been in are the good times during hardships.

Hardships bond you with the game than rather being a filler to your free time that you could also spend just staring blankly to TV or just a white painted wall….

That is exactly why I think so fondly of EQ1….not just because it was my first one…but due to the hardships the game had. For example WoW was my second one and yet I have no fond memories of that game when I left back in 2006 rather games that proved to be harder (in every possible way, yes even grindwise) and challenging after it. It has nothing with which game was first, which second etc.

To make it simple, I can still remember the first time I managed to buy a Jagged band or a BIBS in Feymart by shouting in the zone. Even that was difficult and wasn’t a one button purchase but required quite a bit of a bargaining. I can tell you that after trading over 600g of things in GW2 I cannot even remember what the hell I have traded.

Hardships bond people with what they are spending their time on. If you think people don’t want hardships then you are probably an FPS player or a WoW generationer. Sorry for the generalization beforehand….but I try to make a point.

I wasn’t against hardships per se, I quoted a comment I agreed with, where raiding in a specific game (which was inspired certainly by EQ) didn’t give you anything, but what you needed to face the next raid in line. In EQ I remember that raiding gave you an edge in doing relevant content, either with less people or with higher efficiency.

EQ was unique in having loot that lasted years, not mere hours of gameplay and heading to a dungeon, say Sebilis, to get that loot, with raid gear was considerably easier, made players feel more powerful and yelded more chances at loot in a given timeframe, or camps could be tackled with less people (e.g.: Crypt-Emp with 3 or 4 players or similar feats).

In WoW raiding gear, except for vanilla-age PvP, gave you…. 15 minutes faster daily grinding? Yay? That was the idea behind my post. Sorry if I haven’t been quite clear about that.

P.S.: I love WoW, loved it and will love it again probably. I’m a crazy with an account full of 85s (didn’t buy the last xpack yet), but I admit that I’d like to stick more to a character and do many crazy “relevant” things with it than just rolling alts after alts. to pass time.

Shootsfoot.9276:

Gohlar.3671:

Well considering the nose dive the population took I think it’s safe to agree most think it’s a bad game.

The classes are incredibly shallow btw. It’s such a giant step backwards for the genre, it’s like mmo lite. There are no rotations because the classes are too dumbed down to have one.

I have a level 90 hunter and a level 90 paladin in WoW.

Those rotations (priorities, now) aren’t exactly rocket science.

Guild War’s 2 isn’t exactly rocket science either.

Even the arguably hardest classes to play (engi and ele) aren’t overly difficult just require a lot of button presses to achieve the same thing other classes can with 6 buttons.

nofo.8469:

Shootsfoot.9276:

Gohlar.3671:

Well considering the nose dive the population took I think it’s safe to agree most think it’s a bad game.

The classes are incredibly shallow btw. It’s such a giant step backwards for the genre, it’s like mmo lite. There are no rotations because the classes are too dumbed down to have one.

I have a level 90 hunter and a level 90 paladin in WoW.

Those rotations (priorities, now) aren’t exactly rocket science.

Guild War’s 2 isn’t exactly rocket science either.

Even the arguably hardest classes to play (engi and ele) aren’t overly difficult just require a lot of button presses to achieve the same thing other classes can with 6 buttons.

Never said it was. Was saying the “rotations” in “other MMOs” aren’t all that deeper. Sure you may get a bunch of different spells, but in the end, it all boils down to 4 or 5 spell rotations.

2, if you’re an arcane mage. :P

Agreed with OP and the stuff he quoted, that’s exactly why I don’t want gear grind/treadmill to be the main gameplay in GW2.

Sadly, ArenaNet have made up their minds and are firmly in support of making the game revolve around who can endure the most boring repetitive junk.

I bought GW2 for the specific reason that they weren’t going to be doing this, and that there are no other MMOs which aren’t using this model.

I don’t see any treadmill yet in GW2. Rings n backpack, 3 items doesn’t make a treadmill, it’s just 3 pieces.

I was very much feeling that there wasn’t enough of the so-called horizontal content to keep interest, largely because WvW has turned out to be such a disappointment, and because I truly would rather not have any more dungeon gear.

Hopefully they’ll fix bugs and add more content as time goes by.