Guild Wars 2

Tiered reward is a good idea also. But it is still not implemented in the game. Will it be?

Rage.9723:

End game content? Solo Arah path 2

self imposed limitations, Like tackling what is meant to be 5 person content, doesn’t let Anet off the hook.

Just three quick questions as I’m working my way through 10 pages.

• What do you the players see as end game play?
• What level of player skill is required for this end game? (low skill end game, mid skill end game, high skill end game)
• Should players be exclude for end game either through skill level or play style?

Bezagron.7352:

Should players be exclude for end game either through skill level or play style?

Only if warriors. (/sarcasm)

Bezagron.7352:

• What do you the players see as end game play?
• What level of player skill is required for this end game? (low skill end game, mid skill end game, high skill end game)
• Should players be exclude for end game either through skill level or play style?

These are tough questions, Bezagron!

1. Endgame is what players do once they’ve finished the game. A SP game ends once you’ve finished it. MMO’s don’t. Given the nature of MMO’s as an “endless” cycle of play, I’d like to offer the idea that Endgame is a progression from one piece of new content to another. The best endgames offer new things to do at reasonable intervals, although no interval is short enough for some players. Since new content cannot come fast enough for everyone, endgame content is usually stretched by adding rewards that players might desire, and requiring repetition to get those rewards.
2. Endgame pursuits should offer something for everyone. MMO’s generate more profits if more people play. Even if they don’t all pay, they provide the “massive” that will keep some of those who do pay interested in logging in. However, a game can also bend over too far trying to please everyone — which usually means they don’t please anyone. The best games will try to find a balance between catering to different groups while trying to retain a consistent philosophy of development.
3. While exclusion should never be a developer’s s goal, egalitarian content development always ends up catering to either the low-end or the mid-range of skill. As with any distribution, the mid-range (skilled) is likely to be larger than either the high end (extreme skill) or the low end (barely skilled). Since I believe that content should be provided to cater to all demographics, it would be necessary for players to recognize that, “Hey, this content isn’t aimed at me, but that’s OK.” Unfortunately, many players are not going to accept this.

Tobias Trueflight.8350:

And to laboriously get back on topic before I clock out of this, the few questions for others:

- If they decided to add something similar to the Elite Areas in GW1, what’s the threshold for “properly rewarding”? I think the answer on whether “just” skins and gold is okay has just been established in the last few exchanges I made (it is). Where can it be set where it’s rewarding enough, but not enough where it unbalances things in favor of those who farm it for the gain?

Let’s keep it on a rare chance (not extremely extremley rare, but rare!) for that ‘skin’. However I would rather not name it skin because it can also be a mini or a special recipe or who knows in the future a mount or something for your home or guild hall.

Then if you manage to get the item you can always sell that if you want the gold. Meanwhile you can keep the token system as an extra to get armor set based on that content. But that should be more of a side thing, not the focus.

Bezagron.7352:

• What level of player skill is required for this end game? (low skill end game, mid skill end game, high skill end game)

Pretty much what IndigoSundown says.

You can have some activities that require some hard skills but a specific easy to kill mob (or group of mobs) can also have a drop people like. Just put specific rare rewards behind all sorts of content. Easy content and hard content and there is something for ‘everybody’ to do. If it comes to end-game.

Devata.6589:

Bezagron.7352:

• What level of player skill is required for this end game? (low skill end game, mid skill end game, high skill end game)

Pretty much what IndigoSundown says.

You can have some activities that require some hard skills but a specific easy to kill mob (or group of mobs) can also have a drop people like. Just put specific rare rewards behind all sorts of content. Easy content and hard content and there is something for ‘everybody’ to do. If it comes to end-game.

Yes, most definitely. This pretty much comes under the heading of “Sensible”.

IndigoSundown.5419:

Bezagron.7352:

• What do you the players see as end game play?
• What level of player skill is required for this end game? (low skill end game, mid skill end game, high skill end game)
• Should players be exclude for end game either through skill level or play style?

These are tough questions, Bezagron!

1. Endgame is what players do once they’ve finished the game. A SP game ends once you’ve finished it. MMO’s don’t. Given the nature of MMO’s as an “endless” cycle of play, I’d like to offer the idea that Endgame is a progression from one piece of new content to another. The best endgames offer new things to do at reasonable intervals, although no interval is short enough for some players. Since new content cannot come fast enough for everyone, endgame content is usually stretched by adding rewards that players might desire, and requiring repetition to get those rewards.
2. Endgame pursuits should offer something for everyone. MMO’s generate more profits if more people play. Even if they don’t all pay, they provide the “massive” that will keep some of those who do pay interested in logging in. However, a game can also bend over too far trying to please everyone — which usually means they don’t please anyone. The best games will try to find a balance between catering to different groups while trying to retain a consistent philosophy of development.
3. While exclusion should never be a developer’s s goal, egalitarian content development always ends up catering to either the low-end or the mid-range of skill. As with any distribution, the mid-range (skilled) is likely to be larger than either the high end (extreme skill) or the low end (barely skilled). Since I believe that content should be provided to cater to all demographics, it would be necessary for players to recognize that, “Hey, this content isn’t aimed at me, but that’s OK.” Unfortunately, many players are not going to accept this.

Hey Indigo, my suggestion for having content for ALL skill levels, is simply adding Hard Mode to certain game modes (dungeons mostly), with exclusive but untradeable rewards (so as to not create another monopoly on the market).

“Endgame” might not literally mean “what happens at the end of the game”, but instead be thought as a form of progression (not only for rewards, but for difficulty or content unlock) that functions like a climax: everything you’ve learned until that point is put to test, for a satisfying and rewarding resolution. It makes players feel like they’ve acchieved something, but then they’ll ask for more, so “endgame” never ends up being truly “the end”.

This description might contrast with the idea that endgame is the place where you get the bet rewards, or where you fight the hardest battles, but that’s actually what I meant when I called it a “climax”.

The problem with GW2’s endgame, is that at some point early in the game, after you get the hang of the battle system, it stops challenging you. So, after the initial shock, the game becomes predictably easy until the very end, few exceptions aside. This removes a sense of “difficulty progression”, and prevents casual or “bad” players from ever becoming “better”. There are other problems, like how easy it is to break PvE, which teaches bad habits that are highly rewarding, and also with how random rewards are in this game, to the point where everything is only consistently obtained from the TP, which in turn means that all you need to do is farming gold wherever it is easier and faster to farm.

This means that, when anet adds endgame content, it comes at the risk of having many faults: being easy to break, due to innate problems with pve’s design; being unrewarding, due to the rewards in GW2 being heavily (and negatively) influenced by the existence of the TP; the community not being able to handle it, because it comes at the risk of being too hard in a game that is too easy, with no proper middleground inbetween.

For GW2 to have proper endgame, Anet must do the following:

• Gradually increase the difficulty of content anywhere first. The concept of more challenging acchievements in LS2 is cool, and hopefully, the new maps will also have some zones that are harder than others;
• Creating a reward system that works outside of TP, by being consistent, reliable and unique;
• Finally, at some point, make sure the difficulty is high enough for some content, tie it to an improved reward system, and make sure it offers excellent rewards in exchange of player’s effort <- this will be GW2’s endgame until a new endgame content is introduced in this never-ending cycle;

Nerelith.7360:

I think I said this In another thread. The reason Guild Wars cash shop did not bother me, was because I wasn’t aware of it, until I started playing Gw2. And found out from reading the forums in Gw2 , that Guild Wars had a cash shop.

So no… Guild Wars’ cash shop did not bug me one bit.

I was able to play through the three complete games, without ever seeing the cash shop, or being influenced by the cash shop.

The reason why Gw2’s cash shop bothers me is, that while the game gets VERY Little in terms of upgrades or fixes, every week, there is something new on the cash shop.

A lot of the sexy skins …cash shop…. weapon skins,….cash shop…

The game’s innate Gold farming is nerfed … so that people are Broke..then they remind people they can buy gems, and trade them for gold…On the cash shop.

a LOT of game content is monetized, and ability to repeatedly earn gold through farming in the Open world…. nerfed… but hey Gold is for sale for gems, and if you need gems… use the credit card.

So ya… 4 years or so of Gw1… wasn’t even aware they HAD a cash shop… but m in gw2… the cash shop actually influences design decisions.

Just cause you’re not aware of something doesnt mean it didnt exists and all that you say for gw2 was true for gw1

costumes you could only buy from the cash shop and in my opinion at least looked way better then any armor you could get in game. Worst you had to use real money no way to convert ingame gold and acquire them simply by playing the game like you can do in gw2.

As for gold farming I believe you got it backwards. The exchange between gold and gems changes based on much gold is converted to gems vs how much gems are converted to gold. When there is more gold in the economy naturally more people will convert more gold to gems driving that ratio up. If you check historical data on gw2spidy you’ll see 100 gems have always traded between 30mins – 1hr worth of gold per hour rate at the time. So nerfing gold farming is actually a good thing in this regard as it will hopefully bring the rate down again putting it back in reach of people who just dont farm gold and rather enjoy the game.

Perception bias. Nerfing happens in every game, its required to keep a healthy economy. Gw1 didnt have gems → gold conversion yet they nerfed lots of farms during its time. So ask yourself, why are you fine when it happens in that game but a gem shop evil when it happens in this game?

I think this new hard achievement system has a lot of potential coupled with these being permanently accessible. What would be a great idea is to have a season teamed armor set you could unlock every living story release tied to these hard achievements. They already set doing whole armor set requires a lot of work but if there are 24 release they only need to create a piece every 2 months essentially to create the 5 “cosmetic” pieces needed for the set plenty of enough time. Because they’re infinitly repeatable even though hard to achieve they’d not be considered out of reach for anyone. I mean with enough time probably everyone can ultimately master liadri too I suppose. And players would have something to show for conquering the hard achievements.

Finishing all of them might then be used to perhaps unlock an awesome weapon skin too. If we want to add replayability this could also be done per character. So I could essentially get all 12 weapon skins provided I have 12 alts (which I dont but well you know its possible)

This would be all in addition to regular meta rewards you get for finishing the regular living story episode which might be a backpiece, pet, dye set, whatever.

I think this has a ton of potential and makes me pretty excited. Cant wait to see what they came up with.