Guild Wars 2

Disclaimer: I do not mind the direction the game is going. Copying other successful games is quite common in this industry. I just feel like the development of GW2 with the new expansion is a step closer to the old-fashioned way – be it for good or bad.

Heart of Thorns is around the corner, and ANet surely tries to make it sound unique and innovative. But if you take a closer look, this expansion is a move back to the older days and away from the “rebel” image GW2 had since the Manifesto was released (no discussing the Manifesto please ^^).

While some stuff was labeled with different names, they are still just more of the same old same we have seen over the last two decades (for the better or worse).

Raids: Well, nothing to say about that. Hard content for bigger groups offering the fanciest rewards. We have seen this before in other games.

Trinity: Tank/Healer/DD, Control/Support/Damage, it is actually hard to see a difference. People will be locked into a role to make raids work. Replacing one trinity with a different one is just a camouflage. The fact that ANet is actually talking about a trinity is slightly irritating in the first place.

Gated Items: The fanciest items will be locked behind raids (legendary armor) and difficult group content (legendary backpiece). While people will tell you that you don’t need them, it is still a fact that the nicest, most convinient and most prestige items are locked behind raids and high level fractals. They are for the elite, which is being established in the process of creating raids btw.

Reputation Grind: Yeah, I know, ANet calls their reputation system “Masteries”. But hey, masteries are pretty much the same as a traditional reputation grind. You earn mastery for the frog people, they give you special rewards. You earn reputation for the frog people, they give you special rewards. Look, no difference.

Druids: Just kidding here, I love druids.

There are more additions, but I think you get the point. We are moving into the direction of most other MMOs out there.
With rep grind, raids and trinity as well as raid gated items being actually promoted as new core mechanisms of GW2, the game has moved away from it’s former image of being made for a more casuals crowd towards an elite audience. This doesn’t have to be a bad thing – and only time will tell.

But with all these additions, GW2 starts to feel way less unique, and that’s the part that sort of irks me.

Kaiyanwan.8521:

Raids: Well, nothing to say about that. Hard content for bigger groups offering the fanciest rewards. We have seen this before in other games.

Except there is no gear treadmill, which makes raids hugely different in GW2 compared to other MMOs where raids are needed to get the best gear.

Trinity: Tank/Healer/DD, Control/Support/Damage, it is actually hard to see a difference. People will be locked into a role to make raids work. Replacing one trinity with a different one is just a camouflage. The fact that ANet is actually talking about a trinity is slightly irritating in the first place.

There is a big difference actually. In GW2 characters do not specialize in Control, Support or Damage, all characters are expected to do all three (although different characters do these three things in different ways and to different extents).

Gated Items: The fanciest items will be locked behind raids (legendary armor) and difficult group content (legendary backpiece). While people will tell you that you don’t need them, it is still a fact that the nicest, most convinient and most prestige items are locked behind raids and high level fractals. They are for the elite, which is being established in the process of creating raids btw.

The important thing is that legendary items are not stronger than ascended items and that ascended items in turn are only somewhat stronger than exotic items. In addition, currently pretty much all content can be completed with exotic items. This is again different from most other mmos.

There are more additions, but I think you get the point. We are moving into the direction of most other MMOs out there.
With rep grind, raids and trinity as well as raid gated items being actually promoted as new core mechanisms of GW2, the game has moved away from it’s former image of being made for a more casuals crowd towards an elite audience. This doesn’t have to be a bad thing – and only time will tell.

The point of most of these additions (and HoT in general) is to provide us with endgame content and endgame progression, in other words they are meant to promote retention which was something that GW2 was severely lacking according to many people.

But with all these additions, GW2 starts to feel way less unique, and that’s the part that sort of irks me.

To an extent you’re right but as I pointed out, the way these additions are implemented is done in a typically GW2-y way.

Yes, and in GW1 the most prestigious armor was gated behind grinding on a scale that would not believe, because that was what there was to do in the game other then pvp.

GW1 also had you creating different party comps of support, healers, and damage dealers to meet the challenging content.

The core of guild wars pve has always been that instead of increasing the level cap to 90 and adding new level 90 gear to grind for, they add horizontal progression by increasing the number of skills available to classes and new challenges that require you to use and combine these skills in new ways.

Any steps GW2 takes towards GW1 is for the better, because GW1 is a better game in every way.

Tobias.8632:

Yes, and in GW1 the most prestigious armor was gated behind grinding on a scale that would not believe, because that was what there was to do in the game other then pvp.

GW1 also had you creating different party comps of support, healers, and damage dealers to meet the challenging content.

The core of guild wars pve has always been that instead of increasing the level cap to 90 and adding new level 90 gear to grind for, they add horizontal progression by increasing the number of skills available to classes and new challenges that require you to use and combine these skills in new ways.

Any steps GW2 takes towards GW1 is for the better, because GW1 is a better game in every way.

Except its way of story-telling / class-design / combat-mechanics / character progression are so fundamentally different that you can’t even compare them anymore.

Please make sure to mark your personal opinion as such, else people might think you try to sell us apples as bananas.

Tobias.8632:

Any steps GW2 takes towards GW1 is for the better, because GW1 is a better game in every way.

So true, so true…

Well, I give GW2 props for letting you play multiple races if nothing.

Kaiyanwan.8521:

Disclaimer: I do not mind the direction the game is going. Copying other successful games is quite common in this industry. I just feel like the development of GW2 with the new expansion is a step closer to the old-fashioned way – be it for good or bad.

Heart of Thorns is around the corner, and ANet surely tries to make it sound unique and innovative. But if you take a closer look, this expansion is a move back to the older days and away from the “rebel” image GW2 had since the Manifesto was released (no discussing the Manifesto please ^^).

While some stuff was labeled with different names, they are still just more of the same old same we have seen over the last two decades (for the better or worse).

I disagree, GW2 will always be different, they don’t have to do absolutely everything different though. I mean existing MMO’s were doing some things right or they wouldn’t exist. It doesent mean it’s becoming a wow clone. It’s ok to re-invent the wheel, but making it a square wheel just to be different would be stupid.

Kaiyanwan.8521:

Raids: Well, nothing to say about that. Hard content for bigger groups offering the fanciest rewards. We have seen this before in other games.

It’s the name given to any piece of harder , large group instanced content. Which is a thing any mmo would want at least a little of. Also in any game Harder the content = greater the rewards. Neither of which are really reinvent-able.

Kaiyanwan.8521:

Trinity: Tank/Healer/DD, Control/Support/Damage, it is actually hard to see a difference. People will be locked into a role to make raids work. Replacing one trinity with a different one is just a camouflage. The fact that ANet is actually talking about a trinity is slightly irritating in the first place.

I’ve yet to see mention of locking people into these roles, I’d continue to expect every player to provide all 3 at once even in raid content, it’s about being aware of your surroundings and reacting with what is best for your group rather than being stuck in one role.

Kaiyanwan.8521:

Gated Items: The fanciest items will be locked behind raids (legendary armor) and difficult group content (legendary backpiece). While people will tell you that you don’t need them, it is still a fact that the nicest, most convinient and most prestige items are locked behind raids and high level fractals. They are for the elite, which is being established in the process of creating raids btw.

Reputation Grind: Yeah, I know, ANet calls their reputation system “Masteries”. But hey, masteries are pretty much the same as a traditional reputation grind. You earn mastery for the frog people, they give you special rewards. You earn reputation for the frog people, they give you special rewards. Look, no difference.

These two would be hard to avoid in any MMO, the first is a core concept so you can’t get away from it. The players who play more/to a higher level/ all the content usually at a point come to expect it. Since part of the draw in an MMO is “be the hero” I doubt you’ll find an themepark MMO without at least some form of this.

On Reputation grind, I feel the masteries are slightly different, In rep grind I have to repeat the same area over and over doing the same thing, with masteries I just get them as I continue to complete any piece of new content (since they use exp not some new bar).
Again this one is hard to get away from, a Pvp reward track could be seen as a reputation grind, anything where you do a specific activity to raise a number might be seen as some, but it’s such a nebulous concept that too many things could be “like” a reputation grind.

No gear treadmills, no higher level cap, no holy trinity.

Ya what’s up with that Anet and your WoW clone.

GW2 has been out for 3 years and people still haven’t learned that an MMO can’t function without even a small level of trinity.

Guardians and warriors are tankiest
Elementalists, Guardians (and close second, Rangers) are the best healers
Thieves and warriors are the best DPS
Necros are the best at applying conditions (aka best debuffers)

There are hints of trinity in GW2 already whether you like it or not.

Sure, the game functions well enough without full-blown trinity. But it can still have the current “individual professions have control over their own healing, CC, DPS etc” whilst also boosting the healing, DPS, condition, CC abilities of certain professions to make them particularly useful, though not necessary, in certain situations.

If Anet really does want to absolutely poo-poo trinity altogether, then they might as well scrap all professions apart from the d/d elementalist and name this EleWars2.

I do think OP has a point though regarding Raids and Gated items. Sure it’s not gear progression stat-wise, but if we do see Legendary armor locked for Raids, then we’re in the same boat since it is a separate gear tier, with unique benefits (stat-changing).

Bryzy.2719:

GW2 has been out for 3 years and people still haven’t learned that an MMO can’t function without even a small level of trinity.

Guardians and warriors are tankiest
Elementalists, Guardians (and close second, Rangers) are the best healers
Thieves and warriors are the best DPS
Necros are the best at applying conditions (aka best debuffers)

Except you are wrong :P Condi engineer with sinister gear on 14th second outdpses everything in the game atm.

Necros are far from best condi applicants, Ele and Engie make them jelly in that regard.

How do you measure tankiness? Sure warriors got armor and HP but many classes got invuls and lots of blinds too and necros have Death Shroud.

Most of this is not new to GW2. They talked about their support/damage/control ‘trinity’ before release too, it just got a bit forgotten because most people settled on pure damage as the best approach.

From what I remember about the pre-release videos the main difference they saw was that all professions can fufil all the roles (without resorting to strange tricks like the 55HP monk or necro healers in GW1) so you’re not locked into a specific role based on the profession you choose.

Likewise they never said there wouldn’t be items gated behind specific content and actually gave examples of situations where that would be the case – legendaries in particular. What they wanted to avoid was the best equipment in the game being locked behind a specific type of content – which is why all exotics (and later ascended items) are equally good, so you can pick the method of acquisition which suits you. But they’ve always had skins tied to specific content – the most obvious examples being the dungeon armor and weapon sets which you can’t get without doing that dungeon (or more recently PvP tracks).

djsarcher.9263:

I do think OP has a point though regarding Raids and Gated items. Sure it’s not gear progression stat-wise, but if we do see Legendary armor locked for Raids, then we’re in the same boat since it is a separate gear tier, with unique benefits (stat-changing).

It’s a skin and a QoL advantage. It’s optional so not a gear progression. The OP have no point.

If you don’t like the skin you have no reason whatsoever to try to get the legendary armor. It will probably cost you less to craft 2 ascended armor with different stats than a legendary armor that you can stats swap. And if anything, the legendary armor will probably won’t allow you to swap runes like legendary weapons, making the stats swamping pretty much useless.

Arantheal.7396:

Please make sure to mark your personal opinion as such, else people might think you try to sell us apples as bananas.

No. Buy these small red bananas, they’re the real deal.

Until you’ve played the raids, you can’t really know that they’re the same as raids in other games. I suspect they’ll be quite different.

That said, the game is different for a lot of reasons. The fact that it doesn’t have static events is a big one. Everyone can still rez everyone else. Combo fields don’t exist on most games. The way guild halls are being done is different.

I’ve played lots of MMOs. And yes, I’ve played betas of HoT and this game doesn’t feel like most other MMOs to me.

Your mileage may vary.

Just so you know OP, people seem to think that arena net wanted to get rid of tanks an healers and have everyone dps.n people think that the trinity is having tanks and healers. What the trinity actually is is needing those things and having only certain classes able to perform that role. Gw2 isn’t about not having a trinity it’s about bringing anyone to fill the roles needed whether that be a tanky person, a healer support, or huge dps.

They’re creating optional difficult content with optional prestige rewards. It’s not any different than the dungeons we already have, and won’t impact the rest of the game any more than the dungeons we have already do.

Yes, legendary armor will have stat swapping.

No, that doesn’t make it more powerful than run of the mill ascended.

It just makes it cheaper to swap builds.

I’m sure there will be several open world-centric masteries that have equally unique rewards, though possibly not with the word ‘Legendary’ slapped on to them, and grinding those masteries will be the only way to achieve those rewards.

Some of those will have the word ‘Legendary’ slapped on them actually! The new set of legendary weapons!

Seems to me they want to make sure that if you want a full set of legendary items, you have to undertake the legendary task of mastering every type of content Open world for weapons, fractals for a backpack, raids for armor and… WvW for jewelry?

Probably not WvW for jewelry as they like to keep PvP/PvE stuff separate with only a tiny bit of overlap for legendary crafting. Maybe they’ll put the legendary jewelry in fractals as well?

Vayne.8563:

Until you’ve played the raids, you can’t really know that they’re the same as raids in other games. I suspect they’ll be quite different.

That said, the game is different for a lot of reasons. The fact that it doesn’t have static events is a big one. Everyone can still rez everyone else. Combo fields don’t exist on most games. The way guild halls are being done is different.

I’ve played lots of MMOs. And yes, I’ve played betas of HoT and this game doesn’t feel like most other MMOs to me.

Your mileage may vary.

I don’t know Vayne. I have to admit, the title is a bit of an eye-catcher, but that aside, I have raided before WoW, in WoW and after Wow. I actually love raiding if it is done right.
As you might remember from my posts in the past, I am also OK with a trinity and reputation grind is better than logging in and being without a carrot on a stick.

On the other side, combo fields are more of a curse for GW2 than a great mechanic (everyone melee stacking yay!) and everyone rezzing everyone is sort of a lame mechanic because it is trivializing a lot of things IMO. I am also not entirely sure if guild halls will be that great of a feature on the long run, I would clearly prefer personal housing.

You are right though that we have to wait and see for the full release on how much GW2 will lose identity if at all.

Killyox.3950:

Bryzy.2719:

GW2 has been out for 3 years and people still haven’t learned that an MMO can’t function without even a small level of trinity.

Guardians and warriors are tankiest
Elementalists, Guardians (and close second, Rangers) are the best healers
Thieves and warriors are the best DPS
Necros are the best at applying conditions (aka best debuffers)

Except you are wrong :P Condi engineer with sinister gear on 14th second outdpses everything in the game atm.

Necros are far from best condi applicants, Ele and Engie make them jelly in that regard.

How do you measure tankiness? Sure warriors got armor and HP but many classes got invuls and lots of blinds too and necros have Death Shroud.

I’d actually argue that necros is way more tanky.. like you said they got plenty of blinds, fear, pushback, chill all of which mitigate damage. Then they get parasitic contagion and vampirism which heal some of the damage you get. You got regen you can give yourself, conditions transfer that also mitigates some of your damage. You got lich form which gives you a small health boost that can often save your life. If all this was not enough you also get death shroud. Not only essentially it gives you a 2nd life bar but it also reduces damage you get, has fear and immobilize and also has some traits that can heal you while in said shroud. Ohh and they also come with the biggest health pool too.

I find the necro to be an excellent tank myself

Raids: Other games have raids. Other games also have dungeons and pvp. GW2 moved toward being like other MMOs from the very start when it included open world which GW1 did not have. If there was anything to complain about GW2 being like other games, it would be for that, not raids. GW1 had raids. Colin directly referenced a handful of them in his presentation. GW1 was talked about in a positive light while with other games, the focus was on the negatives. So there’s no need to invoke the WoW name here.

Trinity: C/S/D was talked about since the very beginning. The difference between it and the traditional holy trinity is huge. The latter consists of hard roles. Tanks tank. Healers heal. Damage dealers damage. GW2’s soft trinity is fluid. All players can switch between the roles as needed.

Gated Items: There is a big difference between prestige and a necessary gear treadmill. Even if we consider legendary as being more than prestige, players will eventually get their legendary armor. The second raid won’t introduce a new tier to grind for unless Anet changes their mind about that.

Reputation Grind: I think you’re reaching on this one. Haven’t played wow, but a quick look through their wiki and it doesn’t sound similar at all. Masteries are more like leveling up skills to make them more powerful. That is something you’d find in a lot of games, but it’s basic enough that it doesn’t seem like their were inspired by any particular game.

Killyox.3950:

Bryzy.2719:

GW2 has been out for 3 years and people still haven’t learned that an MMO can’t function without even a small level of trinity.

Guardians and warriors are tankiest
Elementalists, Guardians (and close second, Rangers) are the best healers
Thieves and warriors are the best DPS
Necros are the best at applying conditions (aka best debuffers)

Except you are wrong :P Condi engineer with sinister gear on 14th second outdpses everything in the game atm.

Necros are far from best condi applicants, Ele and Engie make them jelly in that regard.

How do you measure tankiness? Sure warriors got armor and HP but many classes got invuls and lots of blinds too and necros have Death Shroud.

Yeah yeah okay whatever, you’re may be right but it doesn’t matter who is this tankiest and best DPS or whatever, my point about there being a certain level of trinity still stands

No mounts? cmon ANET give us mount$$$$$$$$$

A class being generally more tanky than another class doesn’t make it a tank. The trinity is about hard roles. Being a tank means a lot more than just being a little harder to kill.

None of those started in or are unique to WoW and half are in GW1.

tl;dr Call of Duty is ARMA clone.

Kaiyanwan.8521:

But with all these additions, GW2 starts to feel way less unique, and that’s the part that sort of irks me.

I’m not sure why you feel that way. Things in GW2 might be parallel to that in other game. However nearly all of them have the ANet stamp of design. Raids exist because there is a certain type of player who wants extraordinarily-challenging, group content — there are only so many ways to deliver that. There’s no point in reinventing a wheel, especially if you can decide to make it out of sustainable, premium materials, instead of cheap, non-renewables.

In other words, don’t get too caught up in superficial similarities. Focus on the gameplay. (Of course, you might still find that GW2 is becoming more like WoW.)

Bryzy.2719:

Killyox.3950:

Bryzy.2719:

GW2 has been out for 3 years and people still haven’t learned that an MMO can’t function without even a small level of trinity.

Guardians and warriors are tankiest
Elementalists, Guardians (and close second, Rangers) are the best healers
Thieves and warriors are the best DPS
Necros are the best at applying conditions (aka best debuffers)

Except you are wrong :P Condi engineer with sinister gear on 14th second outdpses everything in the game atm.

Necros are far from best condi applicants, Ele and Engie make them jelly in that regard.

How do you measure tankiness? Sure warriors got armor and HP but many classes got invuls and lots of blinds too and necros have Death Shroud.

Yeah yeah okay whatever, you’re may be right but it doesn’t matter who is this tankiest and best DPS or whatever, my point about there being a certain level of trinity still stands

And still, in most situation we focus Warrior and Guardian way before a Elementalist in PvP

Kaiyanwan.8521:

—snip—

Dude, you might as well have just said:

1) GW2 allows for players to play together over Internet, just like WoW, coincidence?
2) GW2 has different classes with different strengths/niches, yet another striking similarity to WoW.
3) Unique rewards require completing unique content, spookier and spookier how similar to WoW.
4) A system that requires you to progress some kind of “bar” to unlock abilities or “skills”, WoW 2.0 amiright

No joke that’s how relevant your points are.

Draknar.5748:

Kaiyanwan.8521:

—snip—

Dude, you might as well have just said:

1) GW2 allows for players to play together over Internet, just like WoW, coincidence?
2) GW2 has different classes with different strengths/niches, yet another striking similarity to WoW.
3) Unique rewards require completing unique content, spookier and spookier how similar to WoW.
4) A system that requires you to progress some kind of “bar” to unlock abilities or “skills”, WoW 2.0 amiright

No joke that’s how relevant your points are.

This topic is about what GW2 has now and what it will have in the future.

GW2 has no raids now.
GW2 has no (established) trinity now.
GW2 has no legendary items gated now.
GW2 has no reputation system now.

WoW has raids now.
WoW has a trinity now.
WoW has legendary items gated now.
WoW has a reputation system now.

GW2 will have raids in the future.
GW2 will have a trinity in the future.
GW2 will have legendary items gated in the future.
GW2 will have a reputation system in the future.

Get the picture?

GW2 will have a reputation system ???

Legendary in WoW are a superior tier of gear, but it’s not the highest. The only thing in common with GW2 Legendary is the name.

GW 2 will have a trinity in the future? 110% that the answer is no.

Get the picture?

Thaddeus.4891:

GW2 will have a reputation system ???

Legendary in WoW are a superior tier of gear, but it’s not the highest. The only thing in common with GW2 Legendary is the name.

GW 2 will have a trinity in the future? 110% that the answer is no.

Get the picture?

Masteries are just like reputations, it is like people calling “Coca Cola” “Coke”, doesn’t make it a different pop.

And it seems like you have missed the live stream announcing raids, Colin Johanson wants to have a word with you about the trinity…

Actually watch the video if you don’t get the picture…

Kaiyanwan.8521:

Masteries are just like reputations, it is like people calling “Coca Cola” “Coke”, doesn’t make it a different pop..

That is your opinion. I would say masteries are more similar to the increase in level cap most expacs bring to other MMOs.

Seisus.6591:

Kaiyanwan.8521:

Masteries are just like reputations, it is like people calling “Coca Cola” “Coke”, doesn’t make it a different pop..

That is your opinion. I would say masteries are more similar to the increase in level cap most expacs bring to other MMOs.

Player: “Hey Mister Frog, can you teach me your language or any other useful stuff?”
Mister Frog: “No, you are unknown to my tribe, go kill stuff in my name, and you will be rewarded!”

Player: “I killed lots of stuff, tell me your secrets!”
Mister Frog: “Here, take this stick as reward, you have done well and are now known to our tribe!”
Player: “A stick, but what about your language?”
Mister Frog: “Kill more stuff in my name, and you will get a higher reward of our tribe.”

Wow, really doesn’t look like a reputation system to me, how could I even come up with that idea…?

Kaiyanwan, please take note that while most GW2 ingame systems actually do fill the same role as old-school super-“yawn” systems in older games they do so in a different way.

Like Hearts replacing default quest hubs and dynamic events replacing default group quest chains.
These things fill the same spot but in a totally different and as I see it more enjoyable way. Those jungle people reputation-style masteries didn’t feel like “kill 100 million azure dragons on a daily basis to get required stuff” to me during Beta Weekend.

Hey just hop in BWE2 and try it out for yourself if you like their rep mastery better.

That trinity exists since launch. They’re just expanding on it.
Gated items exist since launch. They’re just expanding on it.
Raids have been asked by a lot of people (not everyone, I know).
Reputation grind? Lol wut? Masteries lets you do cool stuff….

So no, I do not agree.

Kaiyanwan.8521:

Seisus.6591:

Kaiyanwan.8521:

Masteries are just like reputations, it is like people calling “Coca Cola” “Coke”, doesn’t make it a different pop..

That is your opinion. I would say masteries are more similar to the increase in level cap most expacs bring to other MMOs.

Player: “Hey Mister Frog, can you teach me your language or any other useful stuff?”
Mister Frog: “No, you are unknown to my tribe, go kill stuff in my name, and you will be rewarded!”

Player: “I killed lots of stuff, tell me your secrets!”
Mister Frog: “Here, take this stick as reward, you have done well and are now known to our tribe!”
Player: “A stick, but what about your language?”
Mister Frog: “Kill more stuff in my name, and you will get a higher reward of our tribe.”

Wow, really doesn’t look like a reputation system to me, how could I even come up with that idea…?

Please explain to me which race teaches me how to hang glide.
Please explain to me which race teaches me how to auto loot and run faster in cities.
Please explain to me which race is teaching me about fractals and how to forge precursors.
I’ll give you that there are similar aspects to reputations present in the mastery system, but you’re picking out individual masteries and claiming the entire system follows that same format.

I wouldn’t mind a further push toward the trinity system. That way we wouldn’t have every other player and their mother in full zerk gear for content (WvW-sPvP specialty builds aside), we could actually make more diverse and interesting builds that were actually competitive in the PvE environment, such as a legitimate tank build or healing build. You may not realize just how deeply these role archetypes are wanted in the PvE community. Yes, there are people who want to heal and only heal and I don’t see why said players shouldn’t be allowed to do so in a game that is “play your way”.

Some one once wrote a long thread on this forum about it. It summed up to; “It’s fine that Anet did away with the trinity system in GW2, what isn’t fine is they didn’t put in anything to replace it.” And his words are still true to this day.

What’s important is that the design goal of GW2 is that every class can fill every role if they choose to build for it, and that class will have a unique flavor and playstyle for that support, dps, or control build.

That’s perfectly okay, as it allows sane people to go “okay, we need one more DPS, you there, you’re a what, engineer? what’s a good engineer DPS spec? Okay, can you run that today?” in stead of “Well, we need one more DPS and all we have online is five tanks. guess someone needs to reroll warrior”

Seisus.6591:

Kaiyanwan.8521:

Seisus.6591:

Kaiyanwan.8521:

Masteries are just like reputations, it is like people calling “Coca Cola” “Coke”, doesn’t make it a different pop..

That is your opinion. I would say masteries are more similar to the increase in level cap most expacs bring to other MMOs.

Player: “Hey Mister Frog, can you teach me your language or any other useful stuff?”
Mister Frog: “No, you are unknown to my tribe, go kill stuff in my name, and you will be rewarded!”

Player: “I killed lots of stuff, tell me your secrets!”
Mister Frog: “Here, take this stick as reward, you have done well and are now known to our tribe!”
Player: “A stick, but what about your language?”
Mister Frog: “Kill more stuff in my name, and you will get a higher reward of our tribe.”

Wow, really doesn’t look like a reputation system to me, how could I even come up with that idea…?

Please explain to me which race teaches me how to hang glide.
Please explain to me which race teaches me how to auto loot and run faster in cities.
Please explain to me which race is teaching me about fractals and how to forge precursors.
I’ll give you that there are similar aspects to reputations present in the mastery system, but you’re picking out individual masteries and claiming the entire system follows that same format.

It is exactly like a reputation system, but instead of giving gear, mounts, neat little trinkets, or new quests, it gives abilities that-like better gear-help you perform better and explore new places, as that falls in line with GW2 horizontal progression.

It’s like if you want to make toast, you can put bread in a toaster… or a toaster oven… or an actual oven. All three are a bit different, but all three result in toast.

PopeUrban.2578:

What’s important is that the design goal of GW2 is that every class can fill every role if they choose to build for it, and that class will have a unique flavor and playstyle for that support, dps, or control build.

That’s perfectly okay, as it allows sane people to go “okay, we need one more DPS, you there, you’re a what, engineer? what’s a good engineer DPS spec? Okay, can you run that today?” in stead of “Well, we need one more DPS and all we have online is five tanks. guess someone needs to reroll warrior”

I’m not saying each class needs to become a dedicated role, absolutely not, I am against that 100%. What I’m saying is players should have the option to build a dedicated role that actually works if they so choose to.

PopeUrban.2578:

What’s important is that the design goal of GW2 is that every class can fill every role if they choose to build for it, and that class will have a unique flavor and playstyle for that support, dps, or control build.

That’s perfectly okay, as it allows sane people to go “okay, we need one more DPS, you there, you’re a what, engineer? what’s a good engineer DPS spec? Okay, can you run that today?” in stead of “Well, we need one more DPS and all we have online is five tanks. guess someone needs to reroll warrior”

Or someone has to craft/buy a whole set for the new role he might have to play, learn to do so and actually want to do so.

Raid leader: “Hey ranger, we are short of support which means you will heal today. Get your healing gear on.”

Ranger: “I got no healing gear sorry, but I am really good at dam——”

Raid leader: LF1M support

Kaiyanwan.8521:

PopeUrban.2578:

What’s important is that the design goal of GW2 is that every class can fill every role if they choose to build for it, and that class will have a unique flavor and playstyle for that support, dps, or control build.

That’s perfectly okay, as it allows sane people to go “okay, we need one more DPS, you there, you’re a what, engineer? what’s a good engineer DPS spec? Okay, can you run that today?” in stead of “Well, we need one more DPS and all we have online is five tanks. guess someone needs to reroll warrior”

Or someone has to craft/buy a whole set for the new role he might have to play, learn to do so and actually want to do so.

Raid leader: “Hey ranger, we are short of support which means you will heal today. Get your healing gear on.”

Ranger: “I got no healing gear sorry, but I am really good at dam——”

Raid leader: LF1M support

I don’t see a problem with that TBH. It’s the same as having gear/skill unlocks in GW1. People were assumed to have at least their main class skills unlocked, and sufficient gear was easy to get so there was little excuse not to have it.

That ranger can fulfill the role adequately in exotics, as the statistical gap between exotics and ascended gear isn’t enough to break a group.

This is the difference between rerolling, and just coming prepared. On my thief I have an exotic of every weapon, and ascended for the weapons I use in my “main build” in addition to some ascended and exotic “swap pieces”

That one character is pretty sufficiently ready for everything, and if you’re pugging the assumption should be you’re ready to fill whatever role is required of you. That’s the price you pay for pugging in stead of having a steady group where you know what one set is required for the role you play every run.

Kaiyanwan.8521:

Disclaimer: I do not mind the direction the game is going. Copying other successful games is quite common in this industry. I just feel like the development of GW2 with the new expansion is a step closer to the old-fashioned way – be it for good or bad.

Heart of Thorns is around the corner, and ANet surely tries to make it sound unique and innovative. But if you take a closer look, this expansion is a move back to the older days and away from the “rebel” image GW2 had since the Manifesto was released (no discussing the Manifesto please ^^).

While some stuff was labeled with different names, they are still just more of the same old same we have seen over the last two decades (for the better or worse).

Raids: Well, nothing to say about that. Hard content for bigger groups offering the fanciest rewards. We have seen this before in other games.

Trinity: Tank/Healer/DD, Control/Support/Damage, it is actually hard to see a difference. People will be locked into a role to make raids work. Replacing one trinity with a different one is just a camouflage. The fact that ANet is actually talking about a trinity is slightly irritating in the first place.

Gated Items: The fanciest items will be locked behind raids (legendary armor) and difficult group content (legendary backpiece). While people will tell you that you don’t need them, it is still a fact that the nicest, most convinient and most prestige items are locked behind raids and high level fractals. They are for the elite, which is being established in the process of creating raids btw.

Reputation Grind: Yeah, I know, ANet calls their reputation system “Masteries”. But hey, masteries are pretty much the same as a traditional reputation grind. You earn mastery for the frog people, they give you special rewards. You earn reputation for the frog people, they give you special rewards. Look, no difference.

Druids: Just kidding here, I love druids.

There are more additions, but I think you get the point. We are moving into the direction of most other MMOs out there.
With rep grind, raids and trinity as well as raid gated items being actually promoted as new core mechanisms of GW2, the game has moved away from it’s former image of being made for a more casuals crowd towards an elite audience. This doesn’t have to be a bad thing – and only time will tell.

But with all these additions, GW2 starts to feel way less unique, and that’s the part that sort of irks me.

Trinity – well control/support/damage is 3 years old news. I don’t think HoT brought it, just that ANet found a way(hopefully) to use it.

Gated items – the legendary weapons are gated behind a precursor hunt or w/e it’s called, glorious armor is gated behind PvP matches, the WvW tournaments awards are locked behind WvW.

Reputation grind – I guess it depends how you look at it. You think of it as reputation grind, some people think of it as leveling your hero. Also grind is doing the same task over and over again, but you can do different things to level your masteries.

I don’t mind these changes, because it’s a form of content to keep veterans around, and giving them something to do. Look what happened in the past.. everyone left because GW2 was too casual. There needs to be a balance, and HoT is providing that.

It’ll probably be something like Urgoz’s Warren and The Deep.

nexxe.7081:

I don’t mind these changes, because it’s a form of content to keep veterans around, and giving them something to do. Look what happened in the past.. everyone left because GW2 was too casual. There needs to be a balance, and HoT is providing that.

This is pretty much speculation. I wouldn’t be surprised, if ANet ignores raids after their first installment like they did with dungeons, fractals, guild missions, world bosses etc.

And while they say you can just walk into raids without attunement, you still need the necessary masteries to proceed.
So there is actually an attunement, because what is entering a raid good for, if you can’t go anywhere but down.

Get ready to grind some masteries before you enter the raids. Doesn’t sound like content gating at all, does it.

Well, you can all point out the few differences that still remain, but the point of the OP was that HoT seems like Arenanet admitting that they have no clue how to change the MMO formula so they rather just fall in line. And however much it may hurt your feelings or i don’t know what… OP is right.

kolompi.1287:

Well, you can all point out the few differences that still remain, but the point of the OP was that HoT seems like Arenanet admitting that they have no clue how to change the MMO formula so they rather just fall in line. And however much it may hurt your feelings or i don’t know what… OP is right.

No one can be truely creative, everyone builds on what came before so you’re right in that regard. However, Anet never tried to reinvent the genre, they tried to evolve it. In fact, Anet seemed to have moved away from the genre too much in alpha, but based on feedback they moved back a little. The way they implement raids is no different. Whether it actually works remains to be seen but that is the aim.

Kaiyanwan.8521:

Get ready to grind some masteries before you enter the raids. Doesn’t sound like content gating at all, does it.

Took me only a couple of hours through normal varied game play to get my gliding unlocked. After BWE1 I had made significant headway into Gliding, Mushroom and Itzel Lore.

The fact that masteries can be completed doing what you want to do in-game made it feel like anything but grindy.

Kaiyanwan.8521:

nexxe.7081:

I don’t mind these changes, because it’s a form of content to keep veterans around, and giving them something to do. Look what happened in the past.. everyone left because GW2 was too casual. There needs to be a balance, and HoT is providing that.

This is pretty much speculation. I wouldn’t be surprised, if ANet ignores raids after their first installment like they did with dungeons, fractals, guild missions, world bosses etc.

And while they say you can just walk into raids without attunement, you still need the necessary masteries to proceed.
So there is actually an attunement, because what is entering a raid good for, if you can’t go anywhere but down.

Get ready to grind some masteries before you enter the raids. Doesn’t sound like content gating at all, does it.

Masteries have always been intended to gate content to slow progress. Whether it turn out to be a grind or not, it is still gating.

kolompi.1287:

Well, you can all point out the few differences that still remain, but the point of the OP was that HoT seems like Arenanet admitting that they have no clue how to change the MMO formula so they rather just fall in line. And however much it may hurt your feelings or i don’t know what… OP is right.

Yah, they caved in to demand for raid. GW2 hasn’t really change from old school mmorpg formula by much to begin with. It just has no hard holy trinty. The new raid will involve mechanic ala what you see on x3 wurm and teq. Basically, do bunch of chores and dps boss.

As someone who enjoys both Guild Wars and Warcraft, I can say that they’re completely different games. Sure they’re both online RPG’s and thus share stuff like classes/professions, leveling, crafting and what not but I think the similarity kinda ends there.

GW2 getting raids doesn’t make it like WoW, the feel of the combat is vastly different. Basically, a raid is nothing more than a term for a difficult dungeon for larger groups. It’s not some extra special thing nor the be all end all of ‘endgame’, it’s just another (optional) activity to do. From what I gathered in the interview, they’re aiming it to be more similar to those high level GW1 elite zones/missions instead.

In WoW, I enjoy raids but do them only once in a blue moon, mainly to them requiring so much stuff to even enter. Besides knowing how to play, you have to have raiding gear that’s good enough to do the latest one, a raiding guild, and be able to make set times every week (usually very often). Sometimes players aren’t even guaranteed of a ‘spot’ in the team, due to there being a weekly lockout and as far as I know, you can’t repeat runs forgoing loot to help out friends and guildies. From what I’ve heard so far, GW2 raids seek to at least eliminate a portion of those things, which is only a good thing really. To me it sounds like they’re still doing it GW style.